The Mad Gasser of Mattoon: The Story That Shook The Town In The 40’s

The Mad Gasser is said to have been a mysterious being, described as a woman disguised as a man, who supposedly gassed residents in the town of Mattoon, Illinois (population 15,827, according to the 1940 census) for two long weeks, in late August and early September 1944. Interestingly, similar stories had been reported in the winter of 1933 through 1934 in Botetourt County, Virginia. These stories featured a gasser, a sweet odor, a strange paralysis, a mysterious stranger, panicked residents, and even a woman’s footprints under a bedroom window. In both cases, public officials eventually decided that mass hysteria was…