Springwood

 is a fictional town in the U.S. state of Ohio and the provincial setting of the Nightmare on Elm Street film series. It's most notorious landmark is Elm Street, a small suburban area, which has come to be known as the territorial killing field of the demonic dream entity known as Freddy Krueger.

History
Springwood was a suburban neighborhood located in Springwood County in Ohio. It was located only a short distance from the town of Westin Hills. On its surface, Springwood appeared as an idyllic community with middle-class and upper middle-class families, good schooling, good jobs, and public facilities, but Springwood also harbored a dark and bloody past.

In the late 1960s, a sadistic child murderer named Fred Krueger began abducting neighbhorhood children. He would bring them back to a boiler room at the Springwood power plant where he worked. Using a leather glove fitted with razor finger knives, he would have his way with these children, and ultimately kill them. Krueger's reign of terror earned him the sobriquet, "The Springwood Slasher".

Krueger was eventually captured and put on trial, but due to a legal technicality, the courts were unable to imprison him. The parents of Springwood were outraged, and decided to take matters into their own hands. They tracked Krueger down to his boiler room, locked him inside, and set the place to the torch. Fred Krueger burned to death in the blaze, but this was hardly the end for him. His soul had been chosen by three dream demons to serve as their agent in trying to break down the barriers between the dream world and the real world. Given great power, Freddy Krueger could now haunt people in their darkest nightmares. Whatever torment he caused them in their dreams was reflected in the real world, including their deaths.

As a dream demon, Freddy now had the power to exact his revenge against those responsible for his death. It was the fear generated by those he visited that gave him his power. He specifically targeted the children of the ones who burned him, most of whom lived on Elm Street. Several teenagers dreamed of Freddy, but few were willing to talk about it at length. Those that did, spoke of a hideously burned man with a dirty hat, a red and green striped sweater and a leather glove fitted with four straight razors.

Freddy's first major foray into the world of demonic slaughter took place in 1984, when he went after several teenagers who were the children of his killers. Although the people of Springwood had to once again deal with the trauma of unexplained murders, few actually understood what was happening. One of Freddy's potential victims, Nancy Thompson, found a way to defeat him, but refusing to submit to the fear he inspired, and thus robbing him of his power.

Krueger always found a way to come back however. Throughout the 1980s, he continued to target select teenagers, many of whom were students at Springwood High School. Freddy always had a trick up his sleeve, and would experiment with his powers in innovative ways, even going so far as to take possession of some people.

By 1999, the adults of Springwood had become very well aware of exactly who Freddy Krueger, and what influence he had over the dreams of others. To counteract this threat, members of the community determined that making people forget about Krueger would rob him of his power. To this end, they also coordinated with the staff at Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital, to prescribe copious amounts of Hypnocil to their patients, which was a dream suppressant. This tactic proved to be moderately successful and for the next four years, the town of Springwood knew peace.

In 2003, Freddy Krueger tried to regain his power by making the people of Springwood know fear again. Unable to take direct action at this time, he resurrected the essence of an undead serial killer named Jason Voorhees and sent him to Springwood on a killing spree. Jason broke into the house at 1428 Elm Street and murdered a teenager named Trey Cooper.

Jason continued on his killing spree, taking the lives of another boy named Blake Mueller and his father, as well as conducting a massacre at a corn field rave. As terror gripped Springwood once again, Freddy's power began to grow until he was finally able to resume his nightmarish torment against the town's youth.

Points of Interest

 * 1419 Elm Street: In the early 1980s, the monstrous dream demon known as Freddy Krueger began tormenting the teenage populace of Elm Street by stalking and killing them in their dreams. Although Krueger was generally successful with each of his victims, one girl in particular, Nancy Thompson, continued to elude him. Freddy decided to go after Nancy by attacking her boyfriend, Glen. Glen was in his bedroom lying down with headphones and a small television resting on his stomach. His mother entered the room and asked him what he was watching. He indicated that Miss Nude America was scheduled to make an appearance on a television program. Mrs. Lantz asked how he was expected to hear what she had to say while wearing headphones, to which Glen responded, "Who cares what she says?" When Nancy called the house hoping to speak to Glen, Mrs. Lantz answered the phone. She asked her what she wanted, but her husband took the phone receiver from her and rudely told Nancy that Glen was asleep and that she would have to call him back later. After hanging up, he told his wife, "You have to be firm with these kids". Shortly thereafter, Glen did in fact fall asleep and was now easy prey for Freddy Krueger. Freddy used his powers to pull Glen into the folds of his bed, leaving behind a dark, gaping hole. Moments later, a violent geyser of blood vomited forth from the bed, covering the walls and ceiling. Mrs. Lantz entered the room, screaming in terror. The police were called in to investigate the crime scene and found the sea of blood had begun leaking through the floorboards into the rooms downstairs. The county coroner was so repulsed by the image that he spent the entire time in the bathroom throwing up. From behind her barred windows across the street, Nancy watched the police and emergency vehicles pull up to the house and knew that Glen was dead.


 * 1428 Elm Street: The earliest known residents at 1428 Elm Street were the Thompson family. Donald Thompson, a lieutenant with the Springwood police department moved out following his divorce from his wife Marge. Their daughter Nancy grew up in the house and lived there until the mid 1980s. Former serial killer-turned-dream demon Freddy Krueger targeted the children of the residents of Elm Street, out of revenge for destroying him while he was alive. Nancy never knew the truth about her parents' involvement in the incident that led to Freddy's original death, but she found herself a victim of his nightmarish manipulations just the same. Freddy tried attacking Nancy in her bath tub after she had fallen asleep shortly following the tragic death of her best friend Tina Gray. Fortunately for Nancy, she was able to wake up in time and spare herself a most grisly demise. Marge Thompson had no idea that Freddy was still active and tormenting her daughter through her dreams. In her mind, Nancy simply suffered a traumatic shock and had developed a sleep disorder. When Nancy learned that the man of her dreams was named Fred Krueger, she asked her mother about him. Marge dismissed Nancy's concerns, owing largely to copious amounts of alcohol. Determined to see Nancy get some sleep, Marge had all of the windows and doors in the house barred up. She refused to tell Nancy where the key was hidden and Nancy became a virtual "Prisoner of Zenda". Marge finally revealed the truth to Nancy about Freddy Krueger. She brought her down into the basement and told her how Fred Krueger had murdered more than twenty neighborhood kids and that the citizens of Elm Street put a stop to him by trapping him inside the boiler room where he worked and set it on fire. She showed her Freddy's razor glove, which she had taken from the scene and kept hidden tucked away inside the basement furnace. Having learned that she had developed the ability to pull people and items out of her dreams, Nancy decided to set a trap for Freddy. She set up elaborate booby traps all over the house then went to sleep. In her dream, Nancy confronted Freddy in the front yard of the house. She tackled him and the two grappled with one another until Nancy woke up. As she had hoped, she managed to pull Krueger out of the dream world and into the real world. It was her belief that Krueger was more vulnerable as a solid, corporeal form and thus, could be defeated. Freddy chased Nancy all through the house, triggering every one of her traps. He chased her into the basement where Nancy doused him with an accelerant and set him on fire. Freddy fled, but he was not finished with the Thompson family just yet. Engulfed in flames, he went back upstairs and murdered Marge Thompson in her bedroom. Nancy recalled some advice given to her by her boyfriend Glen Lantz (prior to his own untimely death), which spoke of something called dream skills. The notion was that if someone met a monster in their dreams, they could defeat it by turning their back upon it, denying its existence and thus, robbing it of it's power. Nancy did just that and the tactic worked. Freddy lunged for her, but having lost too much of his power, he was unable to maintain his form in the waking world. He disappeared back into the dream dimension.


 * 620 Elm Street: At some point in the early 1980s, Tina Gray suffered from a series of nightmares in which she was tormented by a hideously scarred man named Freddy Krueger. On an evening following one of these episodes, Mrs. Gray decided to spend the weekend in Vegas with her boyfriend and left Tina alone in the house. Afraid to be by herself, Tina invited her friends Nancy Thompson and Glen Lantz to spend the night with her. Tina's boyfriend, Rod Lane, invited himself over to their private "slumber party". Having experienced similar nightmares, Rod decided to frighten the group by scraping a garden claw across the outside window. When Glen went into the yard to investigate, Rod tackled him as part of a prank and the two nearly came to blow. Tina and Rod went into her mother's room to have sex, leaving Nancy to sleep in Tina's room while Glen was forced to sleep in another room altogether. After their sexual escapade, Tina and Rod went to sleep. Freddy Krueger attacked Tina, manipulating her body in the real world, levitating it several feet above the bed while slashing her multiple times with his razor glove until she was dead. Nancy and Glen heard her screams, but were unable to get into the locked room. Terrified by what he had seen, Rod Lane quickly ran out of the house.


 * Badham Preschool: The Badham Preschool is a fictional learning center featured in the A Nightmare on Elm Street film series. It is featured only in the 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. The school was located on the far end of the town of Springwood, Ohio. The place was the subject of a great scandal that erupted in 1995 when the school's gardener, Fred Krueger, was accused of molesting several children in Mrs. Winton's class. When the parents learned about this, they hunted Krueger down, locking him up inside of an abandoned building and setting it on fire. Krueger's body died in the blaze, but his soul lived on as vengeful entity who could torment people in their dreams. Years later, two of Krueger's surviving victims, Nancy Holbrook and Quentin Smith, returned to the school - long since closed down, for a final confrontation with Krueger. They went to the secret room in the basement and Nancy was able to draw Freddy from the dream world into the real world. She was able to defeat him by chopping off his arm with a paper cutter blade and then sliced his throat open.


 * Boiler room: While he was still a living human, Freddy Krueger used to work in the boiler room at an old power plant in the town of Springwood. As a place that afforded him great privacy, he would bring his victims to the boiler room where he would slaughter them with signature weapon - a custom-made leather glove with four straight razors sewn into the fingers. Krueger was arreste for his crimes, but due to a clerical error, he was let out on a technicality. The citizens of Springwood were outraged over what they felt was a miscarriage of justice, so they tracked Krueger down and trapped him inside the boiler room. They set the entire place on fire and watched it burn to the ground with Freddy still trapped inside. Although Freddy Krueger died that day, his sould would live on as a vengeful dream demon. Many years later, Krueger's spirit attempted to take possession of a young man named Jesse Walsh. At first, he merely tormented Walsh through his dreams, but with each passing night, his influence over Jesse became more and more dominating. Jesse's girlfriend, Lisa Webber, tried to help Jesse deal with his emotional issues. She brought him to the boiler room during the day in the hopes that seeing it might give Jesse some insight as to what was going on with him. Being in the abandoned ruins of the plant did nothing to help Jesse's situation and Krueger continued to haunt him until he was able to possess him body and soul. Once Krueger had complete control over Jesse, he tried to have him kill Lisa Webber. Lisa escaped however and managed to track Krueger back to the boiler room. By professing her love for Jesse, she was able to reach him on a subconscious level, allowing him the chance to take back control of his body from Krueger. As Jesse's mind began to gain dominance, Freddy grew weakened. Finally, he burst into flame on a catwalk in the boiler room and collapsed. Jesse, free of Krueger both mentally and physically, was able to claw his way out of Freddy's charred shell.


 * Don's Place: Don's Place was an S&M gay night club located in Springwood, Ohio. It was frequently visited by the physical education teacher of Springwood High, Coach Schneider. One of Schneider's students, Jesse Walsh, went to Don's Place for a beer after suffering from a series of tormenting nightmares. It just so happened that Coach Schneider was present at the time and caught Jesse. He dragged him out of the bar and brought him to the school where he made him run laps around the gymnasium.


 * Elm Street: A small suburban area, Elm Street has come to be known as the territorial killing field of the demonic dream entity known as Freddy Krueger. Notable locales include the boiler room where Freddy Krueger once worked and served as the lair wherein he brought kidnapped children before killing them. The Lantz residence - home to the late Glen Lantz and his parents, Mister and Mrs. Lantz is located at 1419 Elm Street. The Gray residence, where Tina Gray was murdered is located at 620 Elm Street. The Thompson family lived at 1428 Elm Street up until the time of the first nightmare murders. Residents included Marge Thompson, her husband, Sheriff Donald Thompson (up until his divorce), and daughter Nancy Thompson.
 * Fairview Cemetery: Fairview Cemetery is a cemetery located in either Springwood or perhaps in Westin Hills. It was referenced by Doctor Neil Gordon to Nancy Thompson when he mentions "losing a kid to Fairview" when the disturbed teen cut off his own eyelids in order to keep from falling asleep.


 * Katja Institute: The The Katja Institute for the Study of Dream Disorders was a medical facility and university school specializing in the study of sleep disorders. It was located in the town of Springwood, Ohio. In 1984, Marge Thompson brought her daughter Nancy there in the hopes of discovering the truth behind her recent string of nightmares. A physician named Doctor King hooked Nancy up to an EEG machine as well as several other monitors and studied her while she slept. During her dream, Nancy was assaulted by the monstrous dream demon known as Freddy Krueger. She grappled with Freddy, but when she awakened, she found that she was able to grab onto his hat and pull it out of her dream.


 * Springwood Diner: The Springwood Diner was an all-night eatery located in the town of Springwood, Ohio. An unidentified red-haired woman and Nancy Holbrook worked here as waitresses. Frequent customers included Dean Russell, Quentin Smith, Jesse Braun and Kris Fowles. In 2007, Dean Rusell came into the diner after suffering from severe sleep deprivation. He dozed off at a table and had a dream that he was inside a darker version of the diner, which was empty save for one inattentive waitress. After calling out to her unsuccessfully, Dean followed her into the kitchen and saw a grease fire burning on the stove and the rotting heads of several animals resting upon the counter tops. As Dean wandered around, the nightmarish dream demon Freddy Krueger leaped out from the shadows and attacked him with his razor glove, slashing him across the palm of his hand. Thanks to the efforts of another waitress named Nancy Holbrook, Dean awakened with a start back in his booth in the front of the diner. He looked down at his hand and saw that there was a gash across his palm, right where Krueger had attacked him. Dean's friend Kris Fowles came into the diner looking for him and immediately took note of his physical state. Dean began telling her about the nightmares he had been having and that he doesn't want to go to sleep. As frustration began to overtake him, Dean spilled his coffee cup and Kris got up to get some fresh napkins. In the few seconds that she was gone, Dean had a microsleep episode and found himself suffering from a waking nightmare. Krueger came back for him and forced Dean to slice open his own throat with a steak knife. Kris watched in horror unable to do anything.


 * Springwood Library: The Springwood Library was a public library located in the neighborhood of Springwood in Springwood County, Ohio. In 2003, two escaped patients from the Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital named Will Rollins and Mark Davis went to the library to research information relating a recent homicide and how other strange deaths may have been connected to a demonic dream entity named Freddy Krueger. Mark began scanning through old microfiche files for information on Krueger. He was frustrated to find that all references to him had been removed from the old archives. Even the obituary for his late brother, Bobby Davis, whom he now believed had been one of Krueger's victims, was absent.This led Mark to conclude that the entire town had conspired to keep people in the dark about what had really been going on in Springwood over the past several years. Will felt that Mark's concerns were bred from paranoia, but Mark was convinced that it was tied into a vast cover-up.


 * Westin Hills: Westin Hills is a location in Ohio. It is unclear whether it is a suburb of Springwood, or perhaps a neighboring town. The mental health facility known as the Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital is located in Westin Hills, from which it takes its name. It is possible that Fairview Cemetery may also be found in Westin Hills, though this too remains unclear.


 * Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital:

Films that take place in

 * Nightmare on Elm Street, A (1984)
 * Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, A (1985)
 * Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, A (1987)
 * Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, A (1988)
 * Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, A (1989)
 * Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
 * Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
 * Nightmare on Elm Street, A (2010)

Comics that take place in

 * A Nightmare on Elm Street Vol 1

Novels that take place in

 * A Nightmare on Elm Street: Suffer the Children

Characters from
Note: The following is a list of characters known to reside in. It does not necessarily mean that they were born there.