Gein Country
A Plainfield Trip and The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein
Years ago, during a trip to Plainfield to photograph various Ed Gein-related locations, I decided to shoot some video along the way, as well. It was a beautiful early September afternoon, and the isolation of the Plainfield area felt particularly peaceful. I wanted to capture it.
You can wander around Plainfield Cemetery for hours without seeing another living soul, though I do often encounter at least one other curious traveler searching for Gein’s grave.
I had no idea when I hit the road that morning that I would end up involuntarily horrifying the owner of the hardware store where Gein committed his final murder with the revelation that her place of business doubled as one of the most infamous crime scenes in the country.
I didn’t capture that discussion on video, but I did get the moment right before, when she crossed the street and approached me to ask why so many people have been coming to gawk at her store since it opened a few months prior.
Anyway, the quality of the videos I shot that day wasn’t great, as I had just been using whatever model of Samsung phone I had in 2015.
I backed the footage up and forgot about it.
But I rediscovered the clips again recently while digging through my archives for some of those photos to use in the Wisconsin Travel Guide to the Dark Side, and decided to edit them together into a short video tour of Gein country.
I left out a few of the stops because the footage just wasn’t that interesting, and cut out the excess. No one is interested in watching five shaky minutes of clouds passing in the sky over Augusta Gein’s gravestone.
I also color graded the footage down to a stark and dismal, nearly monochromatic palette, but decided to restore the colors in order to retain what originally moved me to shoot video that day. The Plainfield area is beautiful (though you may catch the occasional sewage-like stench of rotting potatoes this time of year) and I wanted to preserve that.
The result is not spectacular, and apparently offensively short, according to the first comment it’s received. But it is what it is, and you can watch it right here:
The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein
MGM+ is releasing a new docuseries in September that promises “new reveals” and never-before-heard audio recordings of Gein as it explores his life and the legacy of his crimes.
Gein Locations
If you want to visit some key Gein locations yourself, Wisconsin Frights has you covered. Click for locations, directions, and more info.
Gein Property
Visit the place where Gein’s dilapidated farmhouse stood before it mysteriously burned to the ground in 1958. The land is privately owned, so be sure to only look from the road. It’s also full of ticks, so you’re safer there anyway.
Ed Gein’s Grave
Ed Gein was buried beside his mother in Plainfield Cemetery, surrounded by graves that he once robbed. As a matter of fact, the grave of Eleanor Adams (directly in front of the Gein-family plot) remains empty to this day. Eleanor’s remains were likely among the unidentifiable pieces found inside Gein’s house that were either destroyed or received an unmarked burial after his trial.
Accounts differ on what actually became of his macabre creations, but maybe, somewhere, there’s an unmarked grave containing a nipple belt, a human skin lampshade, and a chair upholstered in flesh.
Gein Museum
The Waushara County Historical Museum occupies the building that once served as the county jail, and Ed Gein’s cell, where he was held after his arrest in 1957, is still there.
And you can go inside the cell.
With a life-size cardboard standup of Ed Gein.
Want more dark and/or quirky Wisconsin travel ideas? Download our free Wisconsin travel guide to learn where the best place is to get abducted by aliens, how to see the real severed head of a German serial killer, and much more.
Over my years of researching and documenting the legacy of Gein’s crimes, I’ve spoken with many who lived in the Plainfield area or had family that did, and they’ve shared their own fascinating details about what they’ve heard or their personal connection to the Gein case. I even had the opportunity to break the story that landed Ed Gein’s cauldron in Zak Bagan’s Haunted Museum in Las Vegas.
So if you have any Gein-related stories to share, I’d love to hear them.