Following my little brother half-across the country is difficult. Although, he decided to move to Omaha Nebraska, I told him I would meet him there. I never thought I’d step in the state of Nebraska. To be honest, I haven’t heard good things about this place. In fact, I’ve never heard anything about Nebraska, or Omaha. So I decided to do a little research to ease my worried little brain. Maybe I should’ve stop researching when I found the story of a teacher who carved out her students hearts. This is the legend of Hatchet House and the Killer Teacher.

Hatchet House and the Killer Teacher

You’ve had teachers before, right? But, have you ever had a teacher whose hatred for their classroom is palpable? They come in day after day knowing they can’t control their classroom. I’m sure it gets under their skin. I’ve always been the quiet type but I remember in High School when I arrived at my geometry class everyday, my teacher, an older gentlemen always held his head down in defeat.

This teacher couldn’t control the crazy youth in his classroom. It didn’t matter what he did. Sometimes he would scream at us. From the top of his lungs he shouted “shut up!” Sometimes he threatened to fail us. The students would laugh or throw balled up paper at him.

The look of defeat on his face made me sad. All I could do was behave. I sat there, quietly as always.

Now let’s pretend this is a different teacher. Let’s pretend this teachers hatred for her classroom reached its limit. Is it so hard to visualize a teacher snapping and brutally murdering her entire classroom? It’s not hard to visualize at all.

This is exactly what happened to a teacher in Nebraska. Although, to tell you the real story, let’s go back in time about a century.

Nebraska, 1900s

In the early 1900s the schools are smaller. In fact, Portal School (now known as Hatchet House) is only as big as one of our modern classrooms. Perhaps it held, 30 students. Maybe less.

This school, the size of a classroom means no other staff would be around. Does the teacher have an assistant? Is there a principal to help with tough situations? What about a janitor to clean up the children’s mess after the day is over? Although, no one knows the answers to these questions, the likelihood that any other adult was around is not likely.

One particular day. The teacher snaps. With no one in sight, one can surely plan the demise of many. Especially kids that are helpless.

This is how the day began. The evil teacher decapitates each student one by one. Although, in some versions of the story she doesn’t decapitate them. However, they all agree on one gruesome aspect. Once the kids are dead the teacher carves their hearts out and throws them off the nearby bridge.

The school is now called Hatchet House and is now located in the city of Papillion due to massive floods in its original location.

The bridge where the hearts lay is now called heartbeat bridge. It’s called heartbeat bridge because they say, if you walk across the bridge at night you can hear the collective beating of the hearts.

Other say, if you stumble upon the classroom you can hear the evil teacher inside.

What Happened to the teacher?

It turns out the teacher stayed a bit longer. She placed the students severed heads inside the desk for the towns people to find before she killed herself. Maybe this unspeakable act of murder is the reason people say you can hear her angrily marching around the school at night.

What do you say? Does it sound like a great road trip? Lets go!