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Gore Orphanage is a local legend in Northern Ohio. Though historians have concluded that Gore Orphanage itself never existed, the legend claims that in 1800s Vermillion, Ohio, a fire destroyed an orphanage and killed many children, whose ghosts now haunt the ruins. Historians also have determined that Gore Orphanage is the name of a road, not a building, and many unrelated people, places, and events simply have been combined into a ghost story.

Location aspect
The location that is claimed to be the actual site of Gore Orphanage is in fact the remains of Swift Mansion, also called Swift's Hollow, which was built and owned in 1840-42 by Joseph Swift. Gore Orphanage Road is the only location in Vermillion, Ohio, whose name contains the words "Gore Orphanage." Originally, the road was called simply "Gore Road," referring not to blood or tissue (as the ghost story implies) but to a surveyor's error in a gore (a narrow strip of land) along this road. The word "orphanage" in the road's name actually refers to the Light of Hope Orphanage, which is miles away from the supposed Gore Orphanage site.

Fire aspect
There is no credible evidence that a fire burned down the Light of Hope Orphanage or that any children died there. The Wilber Family, who occupied Swift Mansion for a time, engaged in spiritual séances and eventually lost four young children to a local diphtheria epidemic; the séances and child deaths caused the location's reputation for being haunted. The aspect of the legend regarding children trapped inside a burning building probably was inspired by the actual burning of a Collinwood public school on March 4, 1908, which occurred years after the Swift Mansion events and the Light of Hope Orphanage opening and resulted in the deaths of over one hundred children and a few adults.

Paranormal aspect
The cries of orphans trapped in a fire, central to the legend, are claimed to be heard at the ruins of Gore Orphanage (Swift Mansion). However, investigators attribute the cries to the high-pitched hum of truck traffic on the nearby interstate highway, not visible from the area of the ruins. The Ohio Turnpike (Interstate 80) bridges the Vermillion River approximately 1 1/4 miles from the ruins. When a truck crosses the bridge, winds often carry the brief high hum to the ruins as a ghostly wail, unrecognizable as mechanical in origin.

A local activity known as "legend-tripping" involves teenagers testing one another's courage with ghost stories of haunted locations to which they travel by automobile. As early as 1905, teenagers were visiting the Swift Mansion before it developed its current Gore Orphanage legend, in search of the supernatural, due to its reputation for being haunted. In later years, according to Ellis, the sounds from unseen truck traffic were added to the legend as ghostly cries.