Van Meter Visitor Festival Sept. 28 embraces spooky fun

Celebrate some uniquely Iowa folklore at the Van Meter Visitor Festival.

Imagine it’s September 1903, and you live in a small town that’s been terrorized—for five days—by a nine-foot-tall creature that looks like a bat but has a horn which emits light.

Trapping it won’t work, shooting at it doesn’t work, and it erases people’s memories.

After five days, the creature—dubbed the Van Meter Visitor—descends into an abandoned coal mine, never to be seen again.

Wouldn’t you want everyone to know about it?

The Van Meter Visitor Festival

Years later, people travel to Van Meter every September for the Van Meter Visitor Festival. There, they can walk the path terrified townspeople did and celebrate a unique story and creature that’s all Iowa’s.

Chad Lewis wrote the 2013 book about the Van Meter Visitor, which led to the interest in doing a festival, and has written more books about paranormal creatures and guides to haunted locations.

“It’s fascinating, because I think a lot of people in town don’t believe the story. They think it was a hoax or made up, but yet they’re still interested in it as a piece of their own history. That, true or not, they love the legend of it. And I think that’s what makes it so much fun,” Lewis said.

This year’s festival is on Sept. 28 from noon-6 p.m. and it includes two walking tours. Those who don’t want to be scared can go at 3 p.m., or get the full experience at 6:45 p.m.

Ahead of time, there will be speakers talking about monster and cryptid stories in our modern era and about the search for other oddities.

Tickets for the festival are $10 each, and admission is free for children under 12. Vendors and guest speakers will be at the Veterans Reception Center, and food will be provided by Legion Post 403.

This year marks the festival’s 11th anniversary.

History of spooky legends

Lewis is interested by paranormal legends and the history they tend to be wrapped around. He has a background in psychology and has traveled around the country and the world in search of these strange stories.

“I don’t know if the town was really attacked in 1903, but I absolutely loved the story of it. And I love, you know, walking and seeing the bank,” he said. “The vault is still there. And you can see where the manager shot out the front window because he thought this Visitor was coming after him.”

What’s most notable to him is how the paranormal has become a tourist draw, and he chalks it up to a simple human curiosity and an impulse for adventure.

“I see it that they want an adventure and they’re having fun with it,” he said. “A lot of people who are out searching for this stuff don’t necessarily believe in it, but especially this time of year they’re really interested and they see it more of an adventure than something spooky.”

“People are interested in the unique and strange, but also that curiosity of becoming afraid,” he continued.

For example, Lewis talked about a famous cemetery in Wisconsin—Mineral Point—that’s thought to be inhabited by a vampire. He doesn’t believe a vampire will come out to get him, but when he goes there alone in the middle of the night, he can’t help feeling spooked.

“Your mind starts playing tricks on you, and for a lot of people that’s half the fun of being scared in a controlled manner,” he said.

And this time of year is perfect for those mind games to start up and pull people in.

“This is the time when the season gets dark and a lot of people may even tell me, ‘I don’t know if I believe in ghosts or not, but I’m curious this time of year,’” he said.

The popularity of these legends also lead to people getting interested in their local history. Lewis said people are always reaching out to him about haunted places they should visit, and when they do they end up learning more about the area and the specific place where there’s a haunting.

Iowa, he said, is chock-full of haunted places and spots where something bad will happen to you if you linger too long or come at the wrong time— like the black angel of death in Iowa City, or (Lewis’s personal favorite) the devil’s chair (or death chair) at Riverside Cemetery in Marshalltown.

“These legends show that there there’s a lot around you,” Lewis said. “Sometimes you just have to dig a little bit for it.”