After 25 years of terror in Wompus Woods, famed SC haunted trail is shutting down

It is said that the Wompus has a face like a wolf with one red glowing eye, a head the size of a buffalo and fangs and claws that can rip open any animal with ease.

And each fall, hundreds of people descend on a farm near Cowpens, South Carolina, to look for him even though they are cautioned, “Be aware of the chill that will roll down your spine, to the tips of your fingers and toes. At that moment, take a close look around, because you are being watched, and your life is no longer in your own hands.”

Tim Jones Sr. devised the story of the Wompus during his lonely drives as a trucker, when he had time to think and time to dream. He put the dream into action 25 years ago when he created Wompus Woods Haunted Trail.

Each year, the attraction grew, and people started coming from neighboring states. One group of senior citizens from Florida came every year for 10 years, said Tim Jones Jr., who works with his dad at the trail, an endeavor that takes up every weekend and more for six months.

Now, the Jones family is calling it quits.

They say a new generation of Joneses caused them to reconsider the precious time they are missing while they work to scare people to death.

Make no mistake, the stuff of this Jones family’s imaginations is really quite something.

They have a huge clown cave, two pitch black mazes, a zombie house, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a cemetery, a crematory, Hell’s Chapel — and don’t even talk about the butcher shop.

“If there’s a place that makes people decide they need to get out, that’s it,” the younger Jones said.

Through the 1970s, Jones Sr. was a highway patrolman in Bishopville and then returned home to Spartanburg County to work as a policeman. He noticed without fail that Halloween was a night of merrymaking that often turned trouble. He knew kids needed something constructive to do.

What better than a haunted house or, in this case, trail? He thought about it for years and then, finally, in 1996 he opened Wompus Woods. Within seven years he had outgrown the property and moved to a larger adjacent tract, where it remains today.

The woods were not used on the new tract, so the Joneses were able to keep the buildings up all year long. There are good years and bad — years when it rains a lot, when Clemson and Carolina football teams excel, when high schools play home games.

The attraction was and is a production. Some 100 actors, mostly teenagers, play the roles of scary people — clowns, ghosts, “Halloween’s” Michael Myers, “Friday the 13th’s” Jason, and, of course, the butcher.

Forty minutes of spookiness in which there’s no turning back.

“Once those entry way doors close,” Jones Jr. said, his voice trailing off.

There is a tamer version, a hayride, for little kids to go on with their parents.

Jones Jr. says groups of friends volunteer together and try to out-scare each other. Some actors have been volunteering there since the first few years.

“Everyone is welcome here,” Jones Jr. said. “We’re like a family.”

He said the best feeling is getting letters from kids in group homes or at the South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind, who get the whole experience for free each year.

A particularly meaningful one is when someone writes and says, “Nobody’s ever done anything like that for me.”

“If that doesn’t grab you, nothing will,” Jones Jr. said.

Both Jones senior and junior have full-time jobs. Senior is still driving trucks, junior works in tech support for a Spartanburg pharmacy software company.

They are entertaining offers for their sets, costumes and equipment, so some pieces of Wompus Woods will live on.

The Joneses will miss those Friday and Saturday nights in the woods after they shut down for good on Nov. 6, Jones Jr. said. The screams, the laughs.

But the real question is, will the Wompus hang around in those Cowpens woods when no one is looking for him?

If you go:

Two weekends remain for Wompus Woods, Oct. 29-31 and Nov. 5-6. On Halloween, the trail is open for Family Haunted Hayride at 7:30 p.m. Ticket sales cut off at 9:30 p.m.

Walk Trail opens at 7:30 p.m. Ticket sales cut off at 10 p.m.

Friday and Saturday Family Haunted Hayride opens at 7:30 p.m. Ticket sales cut off at 11:30 p.m. Walk Trail opens at 7:30 p.m. Ticket sales cut off at midnight.

Price: $20 per adult and $10 per child 10 and under. VIP skip the line is $30 per adult and $15 per child 10 and under.

231 Parris Road, Cowpens, S.C.

This story was originally published October 28, 2021 at 5:00 AM.