I grew up near the Shades. There were some truly wild urban legends about that place. Beside what you mentioned I heard that it was the real site of the battle where General Braddock was killed, that a mailman went crazy and killed his family before driving his mail truck off of a cliff, and most bizarrely that another mailman committed suicide by driving his mail truck downhill and jumping out at the right time for his head and neck to slip into a noose he had previously set up. The last one was always my favorite because of how absurdly impossible it is. Makes me wonder if something actually did happen involving a mailman back in the day that led to two urban legends about mailmen going crazy and killing themselves in that forest.