'Tis the season for all things spooky. In addition to visits to the pumpkin patch, dressing up for trick-or-treating, and festive fall parties, this time of year also drives millions of Americans to visit a haunted house. While these haunted houses are now a staple of the fall season, their rise in popularity can be traced back to a time when Halloween was deteriorating into a dangerous holiday. Here is a look at how haunted houses evolved into the popular fall attraction that they are today.

Haunted Houses First Began as a Diversion from Teen Mischief

While most people associate a visit to a haunted house with fun and games, albeit scary fun and games, this popular form of entertainment has dark roots. According to HISTORY.com, the haunted houses that pop up around Halloween date back to the Great Depression when communities around the country sought ways to reduce what was becoming a dangerous holiday.

Prior to this dark time in history, Halloween gave boys and young men the go-ahead to prank their neighbors. Most of these pranks were tame in nature, involving activities such as minor theft or harmless tricks. However, this mischief started to evolve into acts of vandalism or nefarious activities as the Great Depression began to unfold.

The Washington Post details that one man almost lost his eyesight after he was hit with a stone in 1932. Just a few years earlier, a group of kids exploded a load of dynamite on school property. All of this mischief continued to escalate, reaching a peak on October 31, 1933, when hordes of teenagers throughout the U.S. overturned vehicles and engaged in vandalism sprees. HISTORY.com details how this date became known as "Black Halloween."

The extent of the damage was so severe that many places across the U.S. debated cancelling the holiday completely. Lisa Morton, author of Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween, told the Washington Post that "They were costing cities millions of dollars even in the early ’30s. There were a lot of cities that were really considering banning the holiday at that point. It was really, really intense.”

However, rather than pulling the plug on the holiday, some communities decided to take control of the date and provide safer and more positive ways for young people to enjoy the holiday. This is when the modern-day Halloween parties and costume parades began to take shape. Smithsonian Magazine details that this is when families began to turn their basements into homemade scary attractions designed to entertain children.

Morton explains how “They would take the kids down the stairs, and it would be really dark. And they would play that classic thing where they might tell the kids to put their hands in a bowl of peeled grapes and tell them it was eyeballs."

A party pamphlet from 1937 showed how people were taught how they could build a "trail of terror" in their home for entertainment purposes.  The pamphlet instructed people to “Hang old fur, strips of raw liver on walls, where one feels his way to dark steps. Weird moans and howls come from dark corners, damp sponges and hair nets hung from the ceiling touch his face… Doorways are blockaded so that guests must crawl through a long dark tunnel.”

Disneyland's Haunted Mansion Takes These Attractions to a New Level of Fright

While the early haunted houses were simple in nature, usually being thrown together in a home's basement or backyard, these attractions began to evolve into more elaborate productions throughout the years. The granddaddy of them all launched on August 9, 1969, with the opening of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California.

This beloved theme park attraction is still delighting guests to this day. The spooky mansion includes detailed sets, special effects, ghosts and goblins, and a number of visual illusions designed to frighten visitors of all ages. The Haunted Mansion was inspired by the real-life Winchester Mystery House and Evergreen House, including a 90-foot-long ballroom featuring ghosts dancing in the dark.

The Haunted Mansion was a groundbreaking attraction that showed how attention to detail and theatrical illusions can work together to turn an ordinary house into a frightening experience. Today's haunted houses range from fun neighborhood walkthroughs to elaborate sets with professional actors hired to amplify the fright factor.

American Haunts, a collective of haunted house organizations, estimate that there are 1,200 paid haunted house attractions in the U.S. every year. There are even more of these houses if you count the ones that are organized for charity. The largest of these houses boast up to tens of thousands of visitors every year.

It goes without saying that traffic at the haunted house scene increases the closer that you get to Halloween. Head out soon if you want to avoid the longest lines as you dive into the spirit of the spooky season.

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