Laura Wright 
Vampire legends appear in cultures throughout the world.
Some are centuries old, passed from generation to generation until their origins have been almost completely lost. Others are surprisingly recent, attaching themselves to particular towns, abandoned houses, cemeteries, or stretches of lonely countryside.
Southwest Virginia has one of its own.
According to an old story, the small mountain community of Big Stone Gap, Virginia, was once terrorized by a mysterious European recluse named Rupp.
People disappeared.
Animals were discovered drained of blood.
Then a traveling salesman turned up dead.
And eventually, the people of Big Stone Gap began wondering exactly what was living in the woods outside their town.
The Stranger Named Rupp
The story supposedly began during the 1890s.
A European man named Rupp arrived in Big Stone Gap.
Little was known about him.
Rupp apparently had no interest in becoming part of the community. Rather than establishing himself among the people of the growing town, he chose an isolated existence in a small cabin hidden in the surrounding woods.
He kept to himself.
At first, there was nothing particularly sinister about that.
Then people began disappearing.
Something Was Happening Around Big Stone Gap
The disappearances became frequent enough to attract attention.
People weren’t the only victims.
Animal carcasses also began appearing around the countryside.
According to the legend, something was particularly strange about them.
The animals had been drained of blood.
Before long, the incidents became difficult for local residents to dismiss.
Then someone well known in the community disappeared.
The Traveling Salesman
A popular traveling salesman regularly passed through the Big Stone Gap area.
Such men were familiar figures in communities throughout nineteenth-century America. They traveled predictable routes, visited the same towns, and became acquainted with the people living along the way.
Then this particular salesman failed to continue his journey.
His body was discovered.
According to the legend, his blood had been drained from his body.
The mysterious deaths of animals could perhaps have been explained away.
The disappearances were more troubling.
But now there was supposedly a human corpse.
Suspicion began turning toward the strange European living alone in the woods.
Suspicion Falls on Rupp
People began noticing a disturbing pattern.
The disappearances appeared to occur around the area where Rupp lived.
The strange animal deaths happened nearby.
And Rupp remained an outsider whom hardly anyone knew.
Eventually, several curious local men decided they wanted answers.
They would pay Rupp an unexpected visit.
The Cabin in the Woods
When the men reached Rupp’s secluded cabin, no one appeared to be home.
The windows were filthy.
Looking through them revealed very little.
The men could have simply returned later.
Instead, curiosity won.
One member of the group approached the cabin and gently pushed against the door.
It opened.
What the men supposedly discovered inside transformed local suspicion into horror.
A Ghastly Discovery
The interior of the cabin was covered with evidence of something terrible.
Human body parts were scattered throughout the room.
Blood covered the table and counters.
Whatever had happened inside Rupp’s cabin appeared to confirm the worst suspicions of the men who had entered it.
But there was one person missing.
Rupp.
Rupp Disappears
The mysterious European was never seen again.
According to the legend, Rupp simply vanished after the discovery inside his cabin.
No dramatic confrontation followed.
There was no vampire hunt through the mountains.
No capture.
No trial.
No stake through the heart.
The man suspected of being responsible for the disappearances was simply gone.
But according to the story, whatever haunted the area did not disappear with him.
The Ghost of the Big Stone Gap Vampire
Rupp’s ghost was supposedly seen in the woods surrounding his abandoned cabin.
The legend went even further.
Animals and people were said to continue disappearing in the surrounding area.
Rupp had disappeared physically, but his presence supposedly remained in the Virginia mountains.
It makes a wonderfully gruesome Appalachian vampire story.
There is only one problem.
The Facts Behind the Legend
The historical record doesn’t appear to support the story.
Big Stone Gap was not an isolated settlement without newspapers or written records during the period when Rupp supposedly lived there.
The Big Stone Gap Post began publication in 1890, with formal publication established by 1892.
If a mysterious European recluse had been connected with repeated disappearances, mutilated animals, a murdered traveling salesman, and a cabin filled with human remains, it would have been an extraordinary local event.
Yet the surviving newspaper record examined for the original article contained no mention of Rupp or the supposed vampire killings.
There Were Real Disappearances
That doesn’t mean Big Stone Gap was free from violence or mysterious disappearances.
The original research found numerous disappearances associated with the area.
But those cases generally had considerably more earthly explanations.
Human beings, rather than vampires, were responsible.
So Where Did the Vampire Story Come From?
That remains the more interesting mystery.
The legend contains familiar elements of vampire folklore.
A mysterious European arrives in an American community.
He avoids his neighbors.
He lives alone in the woods.
Animals die without blood.
People disappear.
A corpse is discovered drained of blood.
And when suspicious residents finally enter the stranger’s home, they discover evidence of unspeakable crimes.
Then the stranger vanishes.
It is almost a perfect vampire story.
Perhaps too perfect.
The Big Stone Gap Vampire
There is no evidence presented in the surviving historical record that a European named Rupp terrorized Big Stone Gap during the 1890s.
There is no contemporary newspaper account of a traveling salesman being discovered drained of blood.
And there is no known historical report of townspeople discovering human remains scattered throughout Rupp’s cabin.
That doesn’t make the story worthless.
It makes it folklore.
Somewhere along the way, a vampire story became attached to Big Stone Gap and the mountains surrounding it.
Perhaps it grew from a real disappearance.
Perhaps an eccentric recluse inspired it.
Perhaps an older European vampire tale was transplanted into Southwest Virginia.
Or perhaps someone simply told a frightening story that was too good to disappear.
Whatever its origin, the Big Stone Gap Vampire survived.
Rupp apparently did not.
About the Author
