Brown Springs
(south of Thackerville, Oklahoma
Updated: September 17, 2011
Have you ever been to a place where time just seems to stop? Where you seem surrounded by something evil, something you can’t see, yet you feel you’re being watched? A place where death seems just a breath away. I visited such a place in south central Oklahoma in the early ’70s by the name of Brown Springs. I went there again in August 1997 for the second time in my life. It was an experience I wouldn’t forget. I have since been back and each time I have this feeling something is wrong down there, very wrong.
Brown Springs is located in a low, almost airless area south and east of Thackerville, Oklahoma in Love county. If your traveling on I-35 between Oklahoma City and Dallas, you would exit I-35 at the 1 mile marker which is about 4 miles south of Thackerville, Oklahoma. Then travel east of I-35 a few hundred feet to the Chickasaw Smoke Shoppe and then turning south, a person travels a few hundred more feet to the end of the concrete road. From that point on is dirt. The springs are located exactly one mile south of the Smoke Shoppe. Here is where you come to a place where the trees and vegetation is thick, covering the roadside. The area seems like the end of the world, a place where there’s no way out except the way you came in. It is in this low, motionless place where Brown Springs is found. It is located on the north side of the dirt road, with the spring’s water overflow running south under the road into a lifeless lagoon. The lagoon empties just a few feet to the south into the Red River, which separates Oklahoma from Texas.
Over the past 20 years or so, several bodies have been found in Brown Springs. Some of the bodies met violent deaths in the Dallas area, and then brought to Brown Springs and dumped. I remember several being found during the 1970s, another body found around 1989. The last one was a young lady from Gainesville, Texas whose body was found in Brown Springs, laying on top of her automobile. Her body was found about June 1997.
I was at Brown Springs August 2, 1997, it was at dusk, the sun just going down. While I stood beside the lagoon, looking out, a pickup drove up behind me across the dirt road, and two young men got out and started north into the green, lush, heavily wooded area where the spring water bubbles up out of the ground. One man looked like the devil himself, and the other looked like the Grim Reaper. I got this feeling they were not there to check on a flower garden. They gave me this cold beady eyed death look as if they wished me dead. I swear the tall thin one was so pale looking, he already looked dead. I just gave them a go-to-hell look back, and then they turned and went into the woods. That’s when I decided it was time to get back to civilization.
What is it that seems to draw death and spirits from the dark side to this God forsaken place in the southern most, south central part of Oklahoma? Its like a mysterious phone call I received in 1999 from a lady who would not identify herself telling me I was crazy to go to Brown Springs. Said she knew of ‘the springs’ and I didn’t know what I was messing with, and whatever I did there, ‘do not take anything from that cemetery, not even a pebble”. Take a look at the photo below of Brown Springs where it empties into the lagoon. See if you don’t get the same erie feeling I did. But a word to the wise, never go to Brown Springs after dark.
Here’s a pic of the lagoon just a few feet to the south of Brown Springs on the south side of the dirt road.
This is a pic of the actual Brown Spring. You can see a turtle if you look close. Also just a few feet north, up the hill, is an old Indian burial ground. Not much left of it, been pretty much desecrated over the years.
This is a September 1999 photo I took of the springs bubbling up out of the ground.
This is where the water coming up out of the ground first forms a small pond of water before spilling out of the pipes.
And this is where the water overflows from those pipes, then running south under the dirt road and into a lagoon.
This is a view of the path that starts at the Springs and goes north toward the cemetery.
In September 1999 I was at Brown Springs taking some photos. Two weeks later when I was scanning one of the photos, and saw in the upper left hand corner an image, an image of a child.
Here is the photo I have with the image. I don’t know if it is just a coincidence, or something more… you be the judge. Brown Spring Cemetery image
This is a close up of the image.
Here are the emails I’ve received about Brown Springs in chronological order.
Here is a listing of Love county cemeteries and its interesting what is written about the Brown Springs Cemetery.
For geneaology researchers, here is a listing of those buried there as complied by Bill Hamm. Because of rummaging, pilfering, and grave robbing, only about 5 markers are still there on which writing is readable. This is sad.
On Sunday afteroon, October 31, 1999 in the group of us that went on the excursion to Brown Springs, one lady took some photos with her camera. After developing the film, she was astonished at the image in the photo. I saw the image immediately too.
One more thing, a couple miles on down that dirt road is Leeper Lake. There’s been rumors for years about something really big coming out of that large body of water. But then that’s another story. Oh, Leeper Lake is a privately owned lake and closed to the public. Please respect those landowners rights.
This is a map of Brown Spring in south central Oklahoma.
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Summary of Saturday October 30, 1999 excursion to Brown Springs.
Summary of the excursion to Brown Springs on Halloween, Sunday October 31, 1999. Here is the detail of that of Sunday’s excursion.
Article in the Marietta, Oklahoma Monitor newspaper October 29, 1999
The article
Article in the Sunday Oklahoman newspaper, October 31, 1999
The article Part 1
The article Part 2
Here is a pic of me overlooking the lagoon at Brown Springs.
The Lagoon
09/17/11 Here are 2 videos uploaded in 2010 to youtube.com by Brad Patrick of Ardmore