199: House on Loon Lake

This American Life

Society & Culture, News, Politics, Arts

4.6 • 88.8K Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2023

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The true story of an abandoned house, discovered by a young boy in the 1970s, and the mysterious family who disappeared without a trace.

Ira introduces this week's story. (1 minute)
Act One: Adam Beckman tells the first part of his story, about how, back in the 70s, he and his friends broke into an abandoned house in the small town of Freedom, New Hampshire. The home turned out to be a perfect time capsule, containing the furniture, letters and personal effects of an entire family — abandoned for decades. It seemed like the family just vanished one day, leaving salt and pepper shakers on the table, notes on the bedroom mirror, and a wallet with money still inside. Adam and his friends read the letters, saving some as clues, and never forgot. (30 minutes.)
Act Two: Adam Beckman continues his story. He returns to the town in New Hampshire where he discovered the abandoned house as a kid and tries to find out what happened there. It turns out he's not the only one looking for an answer to that question. (25 minutes)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	From WB Easy Chicago, it's this American life, I'm Ira Glass.
0:05.5	The story that we bring you today is a kind of classic mystery story, but a classic mystery
0:09.4	of a very particular kind.
0:11.0	It's a real life hearty boy story, or maybe an episode of Scooby Doo.
0:15.8	There's an old abandoned house, some kids stumble upon it, they decide to break in.
0:21.2	And then at that point they kind of hit the jackpot kid-wise.
0:24.0	The place is filled and I mean filled with fascinating stuff.
0:27.6	It's also creepy and mysterious.
0:30.4	And there are kinds of tantalizing clues about what happened there.
0:33.7	Which they decide to uncover, and which ends up taking years, decades actually.
0:38.1	We are devoting our entire show today to this one story, The House Near Loon Lake.
0:43.3	The first broadcast this show in 2001.
0:46.0	If you're in your car right now as you hear this, I hope you have a long drive ahead of you,
0:49.1	so you can stay tuned.
0:50.6	If you're at home and it's night, you may consider turning down the lights.
0:55.6	Adam Beckman tells the tale.
0:57.9	It was my brother's idea to go down to the lake.
1:00.8	We'd brought an M80 firecracker, and we wanted to detonate it in the shallow water where
1:04.4	we used to swim.
1:06.0	We were 11, and it was late fall of 1977.
1:09.9	We were visiting a place called Freedom New Hampshire, a small town of a few hundred people
1:14.0	just across the border from Maine.
	...

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