“Welcome to Proctor Valley Road,” a high school girl tells a small handful of her classmates. “Legend has it the ground here is unholy. Over the years, businesses have stayed away, Native Americans have refused to settle. Since then the tales have grown like horrid blooms here in the sleepy, creepy corner of the Southwest. Walking nightmares like the coyote that goes on two legs, not four. The Demon Car whose eerie lights can sometimes be glimpsed in the rearview mirror as you flee in terror. The bull tangled up in chains and bells it’s dragged all the way from hell.”
The above yarn is from the 2021 graphic novel Proctor Valley Road, co-written by Grant Morrison and Alex Child, with illustrations by Naomi Franquiz. The narrative takes place in June 1970 and centers on four teenage girls who scheme to raise money to attend a Janis Joplin concert by taking their fellow high school students on late night tours of Proctor Valley Road. When three boys disappear on the initial excursion, the girls are forced to face the demons of the region and rescue the trio while clearing their names of any wrongdoing in the process.
Proctor Valley Road exists in the real world as well, a solitary dirt thoroughfare that connects the city of Chula Vista with nearby Jamul, both located in San Diego County. It also has its own urban legends that likewise mirror the Proctor Valley Road graphic novel.
“The ghost stories of this area date back to over a century ago, with tales ranging from a large ape-looking beast to a screaming banshee to a hitchhiking lady dressed in blue,”Jessica Johnson explains on her Hidden San Diego website. “You will also hear stories of a demon car chasing after you, small hand-prints on your car and your car mysteriously breaking down or crashing out here.”
In his 2001 summary for the San Diego Reader, Matthew Alice relates the most often told story of Proctor Valley Road, a classic urban legend that dates back to the 1960s. A teenage couple got a flat tire while driving though Proctor Valley late one night. The boy pulled off to the side of the road, directly under a tree, and stepped outside while the girl stayed inside. She heard scrapping noises on the roof of the car and became frightened, remaining locked inside the vehicle until the police arrived the next morning.
The police found her dead boyfriend dangling by his feet from a tree branch – it was his scrapping on the car roof that was heard. Large, animal-like footprints were also discovered in the vicinity. A few years later, a radio DJ organized a “monster hunt” involving thousands of local teenagers. Many of them reported seeing “an oddly built bovine,” which was later transformed into a “disarranged cow” before becoming enshrined as the Proctor Valley Monster.
Hidden San Diego contains a collection of real-life encounters obtained from various websites scattered across the Internet that highlight other elements of the region’s myth, including the Demon Car mentioned in the Proctor Valley Road graphic novel.
“I’ve been out there about five times total but have only ever experienced anything once,” one story begins. “I was out with a friend at around 1am and we got almost all the way through to Jamul before we decided to turn back. Out of nowhere some headlights appeared about a mile behind us. Within five minutes they were right on our tail. If we decided to just skip a turn and go through bush they did the same. When we finally got to paved road the vehicle behind us suddenly stopped. When we looked back we saw the headlights but strangely enough we saw no body of a car. No light reflecting off of metal. Nothing. Just two lights.”
In Proctor Valley Road, a ghost known as “the Landlady” plays a pivotal role in the ensuing narrative. Although not referred to by that name, a female apparition is part of the real-world legend as well.
“I can honestly say that me and five others saw the lady,” another post on Hidden San Diego states. “Back in ’87, we had heard this story about a lady walking around on Proctor Valley Road asking for help. We thought, ‘Ok, it’s 3am in the morning. Let’s drive out there.’ As we were coming around a bend, we see this blue thing on the side of the road. As the headlights shined on this thing, it stood up. It turned out to be some lady in a bluish gown of some kind. She did look like she was glowing in a faint manner (or it could’ve been the high beams). She started waving her hands (like she was asking for help). I also remember her mouth moving, as if she was talking, but no words were coming out. Obviously, we all freaked out and sped out of there as fast as we can.”
Then there’s the myth surrounding Haven Bakery, located in Jamul at the far end of Proctor Valley Road. According to legend, the owner of the bakery came home from a business trip and found his daughter dangling in the basement with a rope around her neck. The apparent suicide sent the father over the edge and he proceeded to kill all the bakery employees. After stacking their dead bodies in the bathroom, he followed his daughter into death by hanging himself as well.
The baker’s daughter did actually die at a young age, only she fell down the basement stairs and was rushed to a nearby hospital, where she passed away from her injuries. No massacre happened afterwards, but rumors of ghostly hauntings within the abandoned Haven Bakery persisted until it was demolished in 2008.
So how and when did the urban legends of Proctor Valley Road begin? In 2014, Chula Vista Star News columnist Richard Pena received a letter from a local resident which claimed to know the answers. In 1947, two local boys were horseback riding on San Miguel Road when they stumbled upon a cow having difficulty giving birth. They stopped to help, and although the cow survived, its calf died.
“When they had the stillborn calf they decided to play a prank,” the letter explained. “They created a story of a monster living on Proctor Valley Road. Their story was that the monster killed a newborn calf and chewed on it, then left it there. They used their knives to make a few cuts on the calf to make it look like something had chewed on it. They then hung it on a barbed wire fence. It had previously rained so they stamped some tracks in the mud nearby.” Afterwards, the two boys spread their tale at Chula Vista Junior High School until it became a local legend – one that gained traction and grew over time.
“If a cow monster, demon headlights, a ghost girl, and stories of a bakery massacre still aren’t enough to keep you away from Proctor Valley Road, a whole host of other phenomenon have been said to occur out there,” Weird California reports. “There’s possibly a screaming banshee, the ghost of a homeless man, and a weird flying ball of fire about the size of a basketball. People have heard phantom screams of a woman, plus heard phantom footsteps off in the darkness. Even your car radio will conspire against you, as some travelers have had the radio station change and pick up weird transmissions, often in Spanish, and usually involving strange chase music.”
As if all the supernatural activity wasn’t enough, Weird California notes, “In addition to all the strange and weird hazards on the road, there are also probably several more mundane ones including border patrol, police, and perhaps even smugglers all using the road. And, in a what sounds like a more eighties urban legend, there are also reports of cults and KKK members. Be careful if you drive Proctor Valley Road. It has everything but aliens.”
Anthony Letizia