{"id":632,"slug":"camp-warren-levis-illinois","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["On July 11, 1921, thirty Boy Scouts opened summer camp on Grafton Road in Godfrey, Illinois — a tract along Rocky Fork Creek that had already spent a century as a place people came to disappear. The Piasa Bird Council knew it: their own history records that Camp Hawley, as the site was first named, sat on ground 'used many years before as a slave refugee station.'"]},{"heading":"The ground underneath","paragraphs":["Rocky Fork lay inside the Alton corridor, across the Mississippi from slaveholding Missouri — the town where abolitionist editor Elijah Lovejoy was murdered defending his press in November 1837, and where the Illinois Anti-Slavery Society had organized that same autumn. Believed to have funneled freedom seekers as early as 1816, the creek bottom ran within the route worked by Priscilla Baltimore, the AME conductor remembered as 'the Moses of the West,' credited with leading more than three hundred people out of bondage. Abolitionist landowners here gave fugitives work and a way to buy ground; their descendants built New Bethel Rocky Fork AME Church in 1869.","In 1924 the camp took the name of Warren Levis, a boy who died in 1906, when his parents gave 160 acres in his memory — scouts' campfires and, eventually, a zipline, laid over a hollow that once hid people by night. The record keeps both layers: the Network to Freedom lists the ground, and the camp still runs above it."]}],"name":"Camp Warren Levis","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_SITE","type_label":"Historic Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD_HISTORY","AFRICAN_AMERICAN_HISTORY","HISTORIC_SITE","MILITARY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD"],"groups":["dark-history","historic-sites"],"desc":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","full_desc":"Camp Warren Levis is a historic site in Godfrey, Illinois, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing. NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad. HauntHunt files it with dark history, Underground Railroad history and the Underground Railroad. The dossier holds 3 documented facts — the record is history-forward, no paranormal claims on file. Access is restricted — check current rules before planning anything.","address":"550 Boy Scout Lane","city":"Godfrey","county":"Madison","state":"Illinois","postal":null,"region":"Midwest","lat":38.952893,"lon":-90.222545,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"RESTRICTED","access_notes":"NPS public listing access field: No. This is a listing snapshot; current arrangements still require confirmation.","ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":"National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing","current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 02IL01, source row 25. Inclusion concerns slavery, freedom-seeking and resistance history; no haunting is inferred. City, coordinates and detailed history are not inferred from the name. The source Year Established field is not treated as year built/opened. ","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":62.1,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.35,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":null,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[],"history":[{"description":"NPS includes this site in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Camp Warren Levis' past is on record — the entry belongs to the verified layer the museum itself interprets. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. Sources including 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01' carry the record. The date is part of the site's documented spine.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01","url":"https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/sortable_dataset/undergroundrailroad/F0E29766-00A1-12E5-C3D062151C3F7E26/nri-NTFListings6426NOPIItable.csv?t=1784017173223","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},{"description":"Camp Warren Levis is documented on the National Park Service Network to Freedom for its role in the Underground Railroad. Camp Warren Levis' past is on record — the entry belongs to the verified layer the museum itself interprets. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. The detail is preserved in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. It anchors the timeline the rest of the file hangs from.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},{"description":"The camp’s history is documented. A documented site gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that record. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. The detail is preserved in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. The detail belongs to the verified spine of the entry. The lore keeps its witness.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access is restricted; check with the managing agency or landowner before visiting; check nps.gov for current hours and alerts.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01","url":"https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/sortable_dataset/undergroundrailroad/F0E29766-00A1-12E5-C3D062151C3F7E26/nri-NTFListings6426NOPIItable.csv?t=1784017173223","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"Underground Railroad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Railroad","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[{"field_name":"short_description","existing_value":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","incoming_value":"The camp—where the soldiers and the fugitives met.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"public_access","existing_value":"RESTRICTED","incoming_value":"PUBLIC","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"historic_designation","existing_value":"National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing","incoming_value":"NPS Network to Freedom","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"research_notes","existing_value":"Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 02IL01, source row 25. Inclusion concerns slavery, freedom-seeking and resistance history; no haunting is inferred. City, coordinates and detailed history are not inferred from the name. The source Year Established field is not treated as year built/opened. ","incoming_value":"UGRR enrichment wave 3; VERIFY task auto-queued.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":0,"history":3,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}