THE SHOE TREE LEGEND

Coming upon a shoe tree can be a strange and shocking experience, especially if you’ve never seen one before. Shoe trees are usually big old trees with branches resembling arthritic fingers reaching up from the ground. They are sometimes found in remote locations but are more often located on busy roads, such as the supposed “original” shoe tree in Kalkaska on Highway 131 going north. This tree has hundreds of pairs of shoes dangling from its limbs like bizarre Christmas ornaments. Known as folk art, or just roadside oddities, around the United States, the legend of the shoe trees in Michigan have a more sinister origin.

The legend says that shoe trees started with one tree in Walled Lake, found with many tiny children’s shoes dangling from its branches. When the tree was found in the woods, the disappearance of children who had been missing was solved: they had all been murdered. The man behind the murders was dubbed the “Walled Lake child killer.” He was from the Novi area and had an evil urge to kill innocent children. After he took their lives, he took their shoes, tied them together at the laces and tossed them up in the tree. The shoes dangled back and forth until they hung motionless, a metaphor for all of the young lives he carelessly snuffed. Supposedly, the shoe tree was on Thirteen Mile Road, and the sounds of the crying children could be heard at night as their ghosts searched for their mothers. From that point on, people visited the shoe tree and threw their own pairs of shoes into the limbs as a memorial to the children who were killed.

But is there any evidence behind this legend at all? Was there really a Walled Lake child killer? Do people have paranormal experiences near shoe trees? It is likely that the legend itself makes people believe there is something paranormal going on with shoe trees. For the most part, shoe trees are just a fun form of art, but there’s something disturbing about all those shoes hanging from the branches and the energy left behind from all of the different people who walked to so many places in each pair. There are stories about kids daring each other to approach a shoe tree and toss a pair up or take a pair in the middle of the night. The shoe tree in Kalkaska has been there for years and years, and no one is certain who put the first pair of shoes in the tree or for what reason, but hundreds of other people have followed suit through the years.

The “original” shoe tree in Kalkaska along Highway 131 North. Photo by Stacy Carroll.

After being flooded with requests for information about the Walled Lake child killer, the Walled Lake Library issued a statement in 2005 on the urban legend. It felt that the story of the killer and his shoe tree might have been inspired by four murdered children from Oakland County in 1976 and 1977. The murders went unsolved. The bodies were found in Franklin Village, Livonia, Southfield and Troy, but nowhere near Walled Lake. Some speculate that a tiny pair of antique kid’s shoes found in a tree in the area was the inspiration for the popular urban legend.

Murderers and dead children aside, there is a lighter side to the shoe trees scattered across the state. Upon seeing these trees, many get the urge to add their own shoes to the branches. Some say that the shoe trees are there to provide shoes to people who need them. Old shoes disappear and new ones appear all the time. The website Roadside America writes that if you “knock a pair of shoes off a shoe tree…you will be cursed,” as each pair of shoes still harnesses the energy of its previous owner.

No doubt shoe trees will continue to pop up over the state from time to time, and old ones will continue to grow with shoes, not leaves. New stories will start with each new tree. When you drive past the Kalkaska shoe tree, make sure to bring a pair of old shoes with you. Tie the shoelaces together good and tight, wind your arm back and give a good throw. If your shoes make it on the first toss, make a wish and it’s sure to come true—just don’t knock another pair off !