Thursday, March 14, 2024

HGB Ep. 529 - Haunted Calgary

Moment in Oddity - Largest Male Family (Suggested by: Chelsea Flowers)

We always marvel at how many children couples often had years ago. Although many times it was due to the expectation of loosing some of their children in their younger years, sadly. One family near Jonesboro, Tennessee is on record from the 1950's, as having the most male children in a family. The Harrisons' had a total of 13 sons which led to the marvel of this largely male family. What began their 'news worthy' recorded journey, was that Mr. and Mrs. Emory Harrison suffered a fire that burned down their home. Their community rallied by supplying for the needs of the large family. As a 'thank you' to their community, Mr. Harrison sent a letter to their local press. The news editor saw the promising prospect of covering the story of this family. The editor's story of the 13 sons was sent to nationally syndicated news columns. This newly found popularity brought them to New York for a family photo that taken in Times Square. Mrs. Harrison was given the "Honor Mother of the Year" award and the family even appeared on the original "Tonight Show" as well as winning $3,200 on a game show. Later in 1959, the couple added a daughter as their 14th living child whom they named Barbara Ann Harrison.  Having a large number of children in a family can be unusual, but a family comprised of 13 sons, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - The Birth of Amerigo Vespucci

In the month of March, on the 9th, in 1454, Amerigo Vespucci was born in Florence, Italy. It was the height of the Renaissance and he was born to a distinguished family with connections to the Medici dynasty. He was surrounded by the world of trade and maritime practices from the time he was young. This encouraged his pursuit in astronomy, mathematics, navigation and foreign languages. Fed by his personal passion for discovering new locations, in his 40's, Vespucci accompanied a Spanish expedition as an astronomer and mapmaker. During the explorations, Vespucci charted the constellations and also recorded various flora and fauna as well as indigenous tribes encountered. His many correspondences with friends and colleagues have become known as the "Vespucci Letters". They were touted as dispelling the belief that Columbus had reached Asia during his voyages. In the year 1507, to honor Vespucci's discoveries and documentations, a German cartographer drew a map of a recently identified continent and labeled it "Americus" in honor of Amerigo Vespucci. This is said the be "America's birth certificate"

Haunted Calgary (Suggested by: Amber Phillips)

The city of Calgary is gorgeous with the Canadian Rocky Mountains as its backdrop. The bustling city is the financial center of Western Canada. If you like rodeo, Calgary is your place as the city hosts the largest stampede in the world, the Calgary Stampede. Calgary also hosts several haunted historic locations from schools to homes to libraries to churches and so much more. Join us as we explore the history and haunts of Calgary!

Indigenous people settled the area that would become Calgary around 12,000 years ago, sometime after the last ice age. These were a nomadic people that lead up to the Blackfoot or Siksika Nation that are the First Nation people the Europeans would have met when they came. The early nomadic people left behind their field stone medicine wheels, pictographs and cairns. The fur trade brought the first Europeans by the late 18th century. Hunters and whisky traders set up fortified posts, two of which include one near the present-day Glenmore Reservoir and the other was named Fort Calgary. That second one was founded in 1876 and the name is Gaelic meaning bay farm. The first settler named John Glenn had arrived in 1873. The railroad came in 1883 and Calgary was incorporated in 1884. Calgary was known as a thriving cattle town and later was important as a transportation center and developer of oil and natural gas reserves. Many historic locations from Calgary's earlier years still exist today and several of them are reputedly haunted. 

Calgary Stampede

This is hard to believe, but the city didn't initially embrace the idea of the Calgary Stampede. And it had a very slow start. In 1884, the Calgary and District Agricultural Society formed in an effort to convince people, specifically farmers and ranchers, to move to the area. They hosted a fair and then bought land in 1889 along the Elbow River. They continued hosting exhibitions until 1895 when years of bad crops and other financial hardships forced the closure. A future Prime Minister named R. B. Bennett bought the property and later sold it to the city, so it could build a park they named in honor of Queen Victoria, Victoria Park. A new company, Western Pacific Exhibition Company, hosted an agricultural and industrial fair in 1899. The company would continue the tradition for years until the Government of Canada took over in 1908 and they widely expanded the property, adding six new pavilions and a racetrack. With these additions came a rodeo that featured trick roping and horse races. If you have listened to Ep. 101, you heard us cover the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch and the Wild West Show they hosted. One of their trick ropers was Guy Weadick. He was part of that first exhibition hosted by Canada and he came back in 1912 to convince local government officials that they needed to make the show more about the "wild west."

The government wasn't interested, but money talks, so Guy went about getting investors and convinced four businessmen to fund a new event. These men came to be known as The Big Four and were Pat Burns, George Lane, A. J. McLean, and A. E. Cross. A new rodeo arena was built on the exhibition grounds and hundreds of cowboys came to compete in front of a crowd of 100,000 in September of 1912. This was a huge success, but another event wasn't hosted until 1919. This too proved to be successful, but was just another one-off. Eventually, the rodeo event was combined with the other exhibitions in 1922 and formed under the new name Calgary Exhibition and Stampede. This new combined event was hosted the following year in 1923 with a huge parade and multiple events over a week. Locals were encouraged to dress in western clothes and the downtown businesses were decorated like the "wild west." And that was the start of the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth that continues to today. This years event in 2024 takes place from July 5th to 14th.

The Calgary Stampede Grandstand, which is now called the GMC Stadium, was built in 1974 and could seat 17,000 people. During the construction, a worker was killed in an accident and people claim that his spirit is at unrest here. There are claims that strange noises are heard, disembodied footsteps are heard and his apparition has been seen.

The Deane House

The Deane House was built on the Fort Calgary site in 1906 for Captain Richard Burton Deane, for who it is named. The Captain was not only the first resident of the house, but also an actor, a gardener, a North-West Mounted Policeman and magician. Deane was described as having a drooping mustache, pale complexion with cold eyes and he had an acerbic tongue, which he used regularly against his superiors and politicians. They referred to him as a torment. He was the last serving North-West Mounted Police Superintendent in Calgary. The North West Mounted Police established Fort Calgary at the confluence of the Bow and Elbow Rivers in 1875. Before that time, this had been a place of gathering and ceremony for the Blackfoot Confederacy, which includes nine groups. The police signed Treaty 7 in 1877 with the indigenous people believing that this would be a sharing arrangement. The Canadian government claimed that they had surrendered the land and began displacing the indigenous groups.

Deane had moved his wife and five children to Canada in 1882 and initially was an inspector for the police, but he proved to be a very capable leader and was promoted to superintendent. He eventually got a post in Calgary where the house was built. Two of his children died before his wife who died in 1906. Right when the house had been built. He remarried in 1908 and his second wife passed in 1914. After that, Deane left Calgary for England and eventually moved to Italy where he died in 1930. The house was two-stories with a large wraparound porch. The Grand Trunk Railway purchased the house in 1914 and moved it to a new location to serve as the office and Station Master's house, so that it wouldn't be demolished. In 1929, the house was moved yet again, across the Elbow River to where it sits today on 9th Avenue. The Deane House was pulled across the river by steam-tractor on temporary pilings. We'll post a picture to Instagram. It's crazy and even Popular Mechanics Magazine called it an astonishing feat of engineering. For many years it served as a a boarding house under the name Jasper Lodge. Alex Brotherton bought it and renamed it to Gaspe Lodge, which ran until the late 1960s. In the 1970s, the house became an art gallery called Dandelion Gallery. Today, it is a restaurant with gardens that was redeveloped and refurbished in 2015 by Fort Calgary Historic Preservation Society. Weddings are also hosted on the property.

There is a history of hauntings connected to the house, due in part to tragic events connected to the boarding house. A boarder fell down a staircase and died. A 14-year-old boy who lived there had epilepsy and apparently after repeated bullying, he hanged himself in the attic. Roderick Umperville lived in the house in 1952 with his wife and children and one day he lost control and stabbed and strangled his wife in front of their children. He then killed himself. Owner Alex Brotherton died in the house in 1968. Visitors to the house claim to smell cigar smoke and they hear an antique piano play by itself. There is an old telephone in the museum that is no longer hooked up and doesn't even have any guts and it will ring. Storage bins will have blood stains appear that can't be washed off. Shadow figures have been seen missing their legs below the knees and they disappear. The house came from a sacred place to the indigenous population and a the apparition of an indigenous man is seen wearing a long-sleeved shirt and vest with a long single braid in his hair. One woman who saw the spirit claimed that it told her she shouldn't be in the house because it was a sacred place.

The Prince House

The Prince House is located in Heritage Park, which is a village full of historical homes and a section set up like an old west town. The Prince House started at 4th Avenue and 2nd Street in the Eau Claire district. It was built by Peter Anthony Prince who was born in Quebec in 1836 and learned the lumber business. He moved to America in 1866 and became a US citizen, but returned to Canada in 1886 where he settled in Calgary. Prince became Manager of the Eau Claire and Bow River Lumber Company, but he had his hands in other things as well. He was a hydroelectricity magnate and he obtained an exclusive contract to provide electricity to Calgary. Prince apparently fell while walking on an unlit sidewalk and decided things needed to change. He formed the Calgary Water Power Company in 1890, which harnesses power from the Bow River by building a dam. Prince also built a brewery, grain elevators and flour mill. He married four times, having three wives die before him. He passed away in 1925.

The Prince House was built in 1894 and was based on the design of a cottage from Connecticut that was featured in Scientific American in November 1893. The house was relocated to Heritage Park in 1967 after Prince's stepdaughter Nora Whitlock died in the house in 1965. All three of Prince's wives who passed before him, died in the house as well. The Prince House is said to be haunted and more than likely by the wives. Peter's second wife was Emma Wallin and she had tuberculosis so she was confined to the third floor of the house. Her spirit is said to be on the third floor, which is an area closed off to visitors because the stairs leading up there are servant stairs, so they are narrow steep and dark. A lady dressed in a white, high-collared period dress has been seen in the nursery on the second floor. The ghost wraps what looks like a baby in a blanket and then moves to sit in a chair in the corner where she rocks the baby. A security guard claimed that he saw lights turn on on the third floor where there was no electricity. Another security guard watched as a window on the third floor swung open and closed several times. He tried to get his guard dog to enter the house with him and the dog froze up and wouldn't go in the house and it had its tail between its legs. Staff have heard stomping of feet on the second floor.

This was posted to a forum on Bella Online in 2012, "I first heard about this haunted house in Heritage Park Historical Village, Calgary, Alberta, Canada on an episode of Celebrity Hauntings on the Biography Channel. Actor Drake Bell talked about his experience there while working on a movie with John Cusack. Drake Bell and a friend decided to check out the haunted house one day when they had some free time. They took a video camera with them and caught some interesting footage when they approached the empty house. The curtains on a second floor window were flung open and stayed open for several seconds as if someone was peering out at them. A few nights later, John Cusack decided he wants to check out the house. A group of people including John and Drake Bell went with the caretaker of the home to see the Prince House. As the caretaker approached the house with his dog, the animal refused to go into the building. The caretaker decided to stay outside with his dog and told everyone else to go on in. They walked up to the second floor with their flashlights as there was no electricity inside the building. As they ascended to the second floor, the mood and vibe changed. Drake went to the room where the curtain had lifted a few nights previously, and claimed that it felt very spooky. Almost immediately, although there was no electricity in the house, all of the lights in the room turned on, even the gas lamps that were only in the room for show. Drake saw a woman dressed in colonial clothing standing in the room. He ran out of the room screaming, 'Let's go!' and everyone followed him out of the house. The caretaker was standing outside waiting and showed them a picture of the house from the newspaper that clearly showed a woman standing in the second floor window, although the house had been empty at the time the picture was taken."

The Calgary Zoo Bridge

The 12th Street Calgary zoo bridge was built in 1908 to facilitate travel across the Bow River between the community of Inglewood and Memorial Drive. This was first used by horse-and-buggy, but before long, automobiles were traveling across the span. The bridge was deemed unsafe for vehicles and closed to only foot traffic in 2016. By 2017, the bridge had been removed. A horrible crime was committed under the bridge in July of 1946. A six-year-old boy named Donnie Gross had been playing with friends in a park near the Calgary Zoo when they were approached by a man named Donald Sherman Staley. He asked the kids if he could play with them and they said "no" since he was a stranger. He went away, but gave it another try the next day when Donnie was playing in the same park alone. Unfortunately, Donnie went with him under the zoo bridge and was sexually assaulted and stabbed 17 times before being dragged back to the park and left.

A tour guide for Calgary Ghost Tours said that she was hosting a tour when a nine-year-old boy on the tour asked her if he could go play with a young boy he saw under the bridge who had a ball. She looked over at the bridge and saw no child. Employees at the security shack claim to have played with the ghost boy. They throw a ball when they hear a knock on the door and the ball comes back to them. They believe it is Donnie. Donnie did reveal himself to another boy who was visiting the zoo with his mother and he told his mother that a little boy named Donnie asked him to come and play. People on the bridge would claim to hear a young boy calling for help and some have even called emergency services, but no child is found.

Alexandra Center

The New East Ward School was built in 1902 in Inglewood, Calgary. Inglewood is Calgary's oldest neighborhood. The school was designed by architect William Dodd in the Classical Revival style and is a long, rectangular, three-story school of solid sandstone. A concrete-block gymnasium was added in 1956. One of the first principals was William Aberhart who came to Clagary in 1910. He eventually became the founder and leader of the Alberta Social Credit party and Premier of Alberta. The building served as a school until 1963 when it was closed. The school was converted into the Alexandra Centre in the 1970s for use as a community center. A caretaker at the building was named Joe and he was a troubled man. He hanged himself in a stairwell in the building, so people believe he haunts the location. A shadow figure is seen and disembodied footsteps are heard as though Joe is still making his rounds. 

The Suitor House

The Suitor Residence is named for Robert Suitor who was a Quebec-born building contractor, politician and businessman who lived from 1858 to 1938. The house was designed in the Queen Anne Revival style with large gables, a circular tower with turret and octagonal corner tower and was built in 1907. The house later became an isolation hospital for patients with infectious diseases and then a boarding house for railway staff and their families. Today, it is medical offices. A young couple were one of those railway families that boarded at the house. The husband would jump into moving train cars as part of his job and one day he slipped and died. His heartbroken wife died a short time later. The widow is said to haunt the house and appears as a shadow figure or as a full-bodied apparition in a long white dress with black curly hair standing on the third floor balcony.

St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church

St. Andrew’s started as a Presbyterian church and was built and designed in the Gothic Revival style. The church has an octagonal tower with a tall open steeple on the corner and was made from brick, stone and cast concrete. The north and west facades featured ornate exterior mosaics and the interior had stained-glass windows and carved woodwork. Most Presbyterian churches joined the United Church of Canada, but St. Andrew's resisted. The congregation eventually moved to Haysboro in 1961. In 1965, an Italian Catholic parish moved into the church. Twenty years later it became a Vietnamese Catholic church and was named St. Vincent Liem Catholic Church. Today, it is no longer Catholic, and hosts the All Nations Full Gospel Church.

There was a single woman who was studying to become a teacher at a college with a strict morality clause in the 1910s. She fell in love with a young man who was sent over to France to fight in World War I. He was killed in battle there. Shortly after that, the young woman discovered she was pregnant and she was thrown out of her college. Her family also rejected her, so she came to the church for help. The church wouldn't help her either, so a story claims that she climbed to the top of the bell tower and jumped. The bells were removed in the 1970s, but that doesn't stop parishioners and neighbors from hearing bells ringing sometimes.

The Lougheed House

The Lougheed House is a grand sandstone prairie mansion that was built by James and Isabella Lougheed in 1891. James was a prominent lawyer, businessman and senator. He would buy lots of real estate and build office buildings on the properties. James owned so much that at one time it was believed he was paying half the taxes in Calgary. Architect James R. Bowes designed the Lougheed House in the Victorian eclectic style and had an irregular roofline. They added to the house in 1907. The house had all the modern conveniences of the time including indoor plumbing, electric lighting, hot and cold running water and central heating. The house featured stained glass windows and corner and rectangular towers. The Lougheeds furnished the house with Spanish mahogany and faux marble. They called the house Beaulieu, which means "beautiful place" in French. The home was a social hub for Calgary and the family was very influential. In 1916, James was knighted and remains the only Albertan to have that honor. He died in 1925. Isabella's parents were Metis, which means they were of mixed indigenous and Euro-American ancestry. She was a wonderful hostess and dubbed the "Hostess of the New West" as she entertained dignitaries and royalty. She passed away in 1936. 

The Lougheeds had four sons and two daughters. The Great Depression hit the heirs hard and they had to decide between keeping their parents beloved estate or their downtown properties. They chose the downtown properties and Calgary seized Beaulieu and everything was sold at public auction in 1938. The house was then turned into the Dominion-Provincial Youth Employment Training Program. Eighty women lived in the house as they learned nursing and housekeeping. During World War II, the house was used as a barracks for the Canadian Women's Army Corps. A blood donor clinic was established in the basement by the Canadian Red Cross. After the war, the house became a dormitory for returning servicewomen until they could find other housing and in 1947, the Red Cross purchased the house and used it until the 1970s. In 1978 they moved out and the city took ownership of the house and it fell into disrepair. The community joined forces with the Historical Society of Alberta to save the house in 1988. Through the 1990s the house was restored and the Lougheed House Conservation Society was created. Today the house is open for tours and hosts exhibits.

There are people who claim to see a translucent couple dancing in the ballroom. Other visitors have seen an elderly woman in a period dress sitting at a front window looking outside. This was a place where Isabella liked to sit and watch the bustling Calgary streets outside.

Historic City Hall

The land where city hall was built was donated by a resident in 1885. The first building was built from wood, but was demolished a few years later. Architect William M. Dodd designed the new city hall in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, which was started in 1907 and completed in 1911. Financial and design issues plagued the project and when residents wouldn't agree to provide additional funds, Alberta Building Company walked off the job. William Dodd was later fired and replaced by Hodgson & Bates. Funds were then provided and when city hall was done, it cost double the initial budget. There is a single clock tower with a Seth Thomas Clock. The interior had highly ornamental cast-iron staircase and sky-lit rotundas. City Hall doubled as a police station and city jail between 1911 and 1914 with 15 jail cells. The first prisoner was Charles Munro and shortly after that a woman named Kathleen "Kitty" Quinn arrived. Two prisoners died in their cells, William Morgan and J.W. Lewis. Today, the building is used as an office for the Mayor, members of City Council and the municipal clerk.

Security officers and employees have claimed to see the specters of a man and a woman in the building. One employee ran from the building one night after seeing a ghost. Barbara Smith wrote "Ghost Stories of Alberta" and "More Ghost Stories of Alberta" and she shared this from Don Morberg, a City communications official in the 1990s, "The man may be a former prisoner who died years ago in the police lockup. [The female ghost has been] seen on the old stairs. We have no record of any female dying in the building. I’ve heard that she might be a former alderman’s wife or perhaps a madam who had been locked up in the basement cells at one time.”

The Hose and Hound

The Hose and Hound is located in Fire Station No. 3, which was built in 1906 and served the entire east area of the Elbow River until 1952. This is a red brick building with a distinctive, protruding, second-story oriel window. There are large rounded doorways trimmed with sandstone and the roofline has metal trim inscribed with "FIRE STATION No. 3." James "Cappy" Smart was the first fire chief in Calgary and he worked out of this station part-time. Cappy was an eccentric guy who often picked fights with police chiefs. Like this was some kind of one-upmanship. Cappy really like exotic pets and one of these was a monkey. He loved that monkey, but after it built a child, it had to be put down. The monkey's spirit is said to haunt the former station where it throws cans off shelves and messes around with the billiard table, cues and balls. The restaurant claims that sometimes the dishwasher starts on its own, which makes us say that the monkey is welcome to hang out. Cappy's horse Lightning died in a fire and it is thought to be haunting the station as well. As a matter of fact, several horses have been heard in the station. TJ Kastner was a bartender and he told CTV News, "I was sweeping up a little mess and every time I’d go back to get the broom, it would be in a new spot. So, I didn’t really know what was going on. I just assumed it was the monkey because we all always kind of do."

The Cross House

We mentioned A.E. Cross earlier as one of the financiers of the Calgary Stampede. Cross was born and raised in Montreal and he moved to Calgary in 1884. Cross moved into the Cross House in 1899, but the  home was built in 1891 in the Queen Anne Revival Style with a widow walk and gingerbread trim. This is a two-story frame house with sandstone foundation. The property covered seven lots and featured a large lawn, gardens and a 1937 outbuilding that was used as a garage. A.E and his family hosted community events like polo matches and large dinner parties. While the Crosses lived there, they called it The Brewery. The Cross family owned the property until 1973 when they donated the home to the City of Calgary for use by the Parks & Recreation department and the Calgary Horticultural Society. The property downsized to two lots. The A.E. Cross Garden Cafe was opened in 1991 after a big renovation. Paul Rogalski and Olivier Reynaud took over the business in 2001 and they renamed it Rouge Restaurant, which is what it is today. The Cross family was struck with diphtheria, which killed two of their three children and almost killed A.E.'s wife Helen.

Rogalski is the chef and enough strange stuff has happened to convince him that ghosts are a thing. He watched pots and pans fly around in the kitchen, doors have opened and closed on their own and things have gone missing. Mediums claim that the Cross' three-year-old daughter Nellie haunts the location along with her mother Helen and father A.E. People have seen Nellie sitting next to A.E in front of the fireplace. Employees have heard boisterous laughter coming up from the basement and the heavy freezer door shuts on its own. Calgary Association of Paranormal Investigators, CAPI, investigated the restaurant and they captured an EVP on a camera microphone that also captured a figure flying away.

Rose & Crown Pub

The Rose and Crown shut its doors permanently in January 2023, which is a bummer because it apparently is quite haunted. And for good reason. It used to be a funeral parlor.  The first building to be on the lot occupied by the pub was built in 1902. In 1906, that building was either rebuilt or extended and David and Dora Davidson moved into it with their three children. David died in 1921 and Dora passed in 1930. Their daughter Maude lived in the house until 1931 and then a man named Harvey S. Perkins bought the house and lived in it until 1935. The house was demolished and a new building designed by  Calgary architect D.S. McIlroy was constructed. This opened as the Memorial Park Chapel funeral home and it was one of the largest funeral homes in Calgary. The funeral home operated until 1984. The Rose & Crown Pub opened three years later. 

Customers and employees have reported seeing shadow figures, being tapped on the shoulders and interacting with three spirits: a lady in white, a little boy and an older man. The lady in white is middle-aged and wearing a big white billowy dress. The little boy is thought to go back to the funeral home and was a member of the family who lived there as caretakers on the third floor. No one is sure how he passed, but he is often seen lurking downstairs near the furnace. He is the most often seen ghost. The elderly ghost is nondescript other than he is male. 

Al Hunter was a bartender at the Rose & Crown for over twenty years. He found himself having several experiences that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. In the late ‘90s, a group had reserved an area on the second level for a party. A bunch of helium-filled balloons were brought in to decorate the room. Hunter was downstairs when he watched a balloon come down the stairs, drift past him, go down another set of stairs down into the main bar, went back out and then it went down towards the kitchen. Hunter chased the balloon down and put it back upstairs in the room. The balloon did the same thing, three more times.

A couple of women from the United Kingdom took a picture of themselves outside of the bar and when they got home and developed the pictures, they were stunned to see that they captured what looked like the spectral image of a little boy standing next to them.

Lots of great historic locations in Calgary to visit. Make sure to bring your cowboy boots and EMF detector! Are these places in Calgary haunted? That is for you to decide!

Thursday, March 7, 2024

HGB Ep. 528 - Haunted Vegas Casinos

Moment in Oddity - Medieval Sword (Suggested by: Michael Rogers)

Waterways around the world are routinely dredged to reduce the sediment that can impede water flow. Dredging is the process of removing mud, sand, weeds and trash from a river, harbor or any body of water. In mid January, 2024, there was a surprising discovery while dredging a river in Poland. The incredible find was a sword, estimated to be over 1,000 years old. The Provincial Office for the Protection of Monuments was immediately contacted and the sword was transported to the city of Toruń. The preservation of the archeological artifact was rushed and research on the object will proceed from there. Although several news outlets reported that the sword is of Viking origin, archaeologist Robert Grochowski is skeptical of the theory. Grochowski stated that, “Without detailed research, this (idea) is completely unjustified. It is difficult to say anything more than the fact that it is an early medieval sword.” Just because the sword is engraved with Scandinavian patterns doesn't automatically mean that the artifact is of Viking origin. Only once the research has been completed will we have a clearer answer. Once the study is finished it is expected that the sword will be returned to Włocławek to be displayed at the city’s history museum. Dredging the depths of dark, debris littered waterways, only to discover a medieval treasure, certainly is odd. 

This Month in History - The Birth of Glenn Miller

In the month of March, on the first, in 1904, American big band leader, Glenn Miller was born in Clarinda, Iowa. His music is synonymous with the World War II era. His prowess as a musician led him to drop out of the University of Colorado to begin his musical career. In 1925, Miller was hired as a trombonist to play with Ben Pollack's orchestra. Later, he began freelancing his musical arrangements and trombone skills with bands like Benny Goodman, the Dorsey brothers and many others. Eventually, Glenn studied musical theory under Joseph Schillinger which led to Miller's advancement of the instrumentation of his pieces later on. After the disbandment of his first orchestra, Glenn immediately started a new group. The sound was unique and this was the start of what would bring him lasting fame. He was quoted saying, "A band ought to have a sound all of its own; it ought to have a personality”. He created that effect by having a clarinet play the melody, doubled by a tenor saxophone playing an octave lower and other saxes in harmonic support. The band's success took off from there, performing in casinos, ballrooms and even playing on national radio broadcasts. At the end of 1939, Miller's band was given their own radio show that was broadcast three times a week. From hits like "In the Mood", "Moonlight Serenade", to the big bands recording of "Chattanooga Choo Choo" for the 1941 movie Sun Valley Serenade, Glenn Miller's Orchestra had many iconic pieces the people are still enjoying today.

Haunted Vegas Casinos (Suggested by: Colin Weaver)

The glowing lights of Las Vegas have always beckoned those seeking expression for their seedy sides. This place is the capital of entertainment and a good time. Las Vegas plays host to more than just the living though. A city like Vegas is the perfect setting for ghostly activity. There are a number of casinos here in Sin City that are reputedly haunted. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of some Las Vegas casinos.

Las Vegas means "The Meadows" in Spanish. The Las Vegas Valley was oasis-like and contained springs that were only known to Native Americans until a scout named Rafael Rivera came upon the area while searching for water. Around fourteen years after Rivera's discovery, John C. Fremont led an expedition out to the west and his group camped at Las Vegas Springs in 1844. This was one of four expeditions he led. Fremont was an interesting character in history. In 1847, he was appointed military governor of California. He was court martialed for mutiny and insubordination and later during the Civil War, he was relieved of his position by President Lincoln for insubordination. Despite these things, he was really popular with the American public and he went on to become a multimillionaire and a semator for California. He later moved to New York and became an active abolitionist who ran on the Republican ticket in 1856. The second most famous street in Vegas is named for Fremont. The first, of course, is the Las Vegas Strip. Both of these streets are home to Vegas' world famous casinos. 

The Flamingo

Back in 2015, we did an episode on the history and haunts of the Flamingo and Bally's casinos. Gangsters were very involved with the casinos and the Mob ran Las Vegas back in the 1940s. The Flamingo is the oldest operating casino on the strip and was built by none other than Bugsy Seigel. The casino cost him $6 million to build and opened in 1946 under the name The Pink Flamingo Hotel and Casino. Originally, the property was owned by Charles "Pops" Squires. He was one of Vegas' first settlers. Margaret Folsom bought the property from him in 1944 and then sold it to Billy Wilkerson. He was planning on building a resort that would be the finest in town, but the war caused supplies and building materials to soar and Wilkerson soon ran into financial issues. Bugsy and his gang had come to Vegas for the gambling and when they heard Wilkerson was having problems with finances, they posed as businessmen and bought a two-thirds share of the project. The Flamingo was built in the Art Deco and Streamline Moderne Styles with George Vernon Russell as the architect. Some of Wilkerson's design ideas would become staples at casinos. The idea for no clocks and no windows in the casinos was his as well as the fact that even non gamblers have to walk through the casino to register and get around the hotel. When the finances dwindled and Bugsy and his partners were brought on, another architect was hired named Richard Stadelman. Del Webb became the contractor. The hotel opened with 105 rooms, tennis courts, a nine-hole golf course and a trap shooting range. There was a habitat built for flamingos that was a garden courtyard. The Flamingo did not receive its name from Bugsy, but rather Wilkerson gave the casino its name when he first started designing the building.

Bugsy may have been good at running criminal enterprises, but he had real issues running a legitimate hotel and casino. During building, which was still ongoing even after the casino officially opened, cost overruns reached $4 million. The Grand Opening of The Flamingo was a complete flop and the casino lost $300,000 in its first two weeks because without completed rooms for people to stay in, they took their winnings elsewhere. Business was so bad that Bugsy closed The Flamingo. He finished construction and reopened in March 1947 with a much better reception. Despite The Flamingo running a profit, investors were not happy. They wanted bigger returns and since most of these investors were other mobsters like Lucky Luciano, Bugsy was in hot water. A meeting was called in Havana and Bugsy completely lost his temper and stormed out. Not a good idea with the Mob. As one would expect, a hit was ordered on Bugsy and he was killed while sitting on a couch in the home of his girlfriend on June 20, 1947. At the same time, several mobsters walked into The Flamingo and took over operations peacefully. The killing of Bugsy would make national news and suddenly, everybody wanted to come to exciting Las Vegas. The Flamingo changed ownership and names many times along the way, including becoming the Flamingo Hilton under the Hilton Corporation for some time. Harrah's Entertainment was next and Caesars Entertainment is the current owner. The hotel has expanded over the years and hosted countless performers. 

Bugsy Seigel invested a lot of time and money into the Flamingo, so it is not surprising that he would want to stick around in the afterlife and he has. He is seen most often as a full bodied apparition in the Presidential Suite that he designed with bullet proof windows and five exits. He is also seen near the pool. There is a memorial for him in the garden and occasionally his spirit has lurked there as well. A cleaning lady quit after seeing Bugsy's ghost on the fifth floor.

Horseshoe Las Vegas

The Horseshoe Las Vegas used to be known as Bally's Casino. This originally started as The Three Coins Motel that opened in 1963. That business was short lived and the Bonanza Hotel and Casino was built on the property in 1967. In 1973, the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino was opened in place of the Bonanza. It had 2,084 rooms, making it the biggest hotel in the world at the time and it cost $106 million to build. Kirk Kerkorian was the owner and he loved the movies and he owned MGM, so that is where the name came from. The decor reflected Hollywood and it had two large theaters. It became the standard for Las Vegas.  The Grand Opening was attended by Cary Grant and Gregory Peck. Dean Martin opened the showroom. When going to the MGM, everyone dressed to the nines. A fountain with a giant statue of Zeus was installed. People stepped down into the casino, which was relatively quiet, and they could take elevators down into the shopping area that had the most high end shops of anywhere. A 300-seat movie theater was down there as well with blue leather plush loveseats and couches. There were tables at each seat with red call buttons.

Everything was wonderful until November 21, 1980. A fire started in one of the restaurants early in the morning and made its way up into the hotel. Tragically, 85 people were killed, mostly from smoke inhalation. The number could have been higher as there were 5,000 people in the hotel at the time. One thousand people were rescued from the roof alone. There were no fire sprinklers in the casino. And if it hadn't been for the opening in the stairwells and elevator shafts and faulty smoke dampers in the ventilation system, the smoke might not have reached up into the hotel's tower, which is where most of the deaths occurred. New fire standards were created after what was the worst disaster in Nevada history and the third worst hotel fire in modern U.S. history. The MGM Grand was rebuilt in eight months. In 1985, the hotel was sold to the Bally Entertainment Corporation for $594 million and renamed to Bally's. The Hilton Hotels Corporation bought Bally's in 1995. Hilton eventually formed their casino holdings under Caesar's Entertainment, Inc and it bought Bally's in 2005. The casino became Horseshoe Las Vegas named after Binion's Horseshoe in 2022.

The upper floors at Horseshoe Las Vegas report the most activity, which started almost immediately after the big fire. Full bodied apparitions have been seen many times. The disembodied sound of weeping and screaming is heard. The acrid smell of smoke is reported many times and the occasional fire alarm goes off for no reason in particular. A service elevator in the North Tower was the scene of several employees' deaths. Modern day employees claim that they all avoid the elevator at all costs because of the strange occurrences that happen with that elevator.

Casino goers have reported seeing a strange misty smoke in a corner that seems to be enveloping a woman. This apparition has actually been witnessed playing the slot machines before disappearing. A bluish green spirit that appears to be disoriented has been seen. A comment at TripAdvisor states, "The hotel was good and the location is right in the middle of the strip. I had a nice room on the 23rd floor. The only odd thing was that at 0630 one morning I observed a women standing in my room for about 3 minutes until she slowly faded away." One of Horseshoe's most active apparitions is that of a young boy. He is heard in the corridor of the seventeenth floor calling out for his mother. On the same floor, an elderly couple are witnessed walking down the hall and they just disappear. The man has his arm wrapped protectively around the woman.

Another commentor at TripAdvisor had stayed on the 23rd floor and found the experience harrowing:

     "I had no clue about what I was getting into. I upgraded to a renovated room on the 23rd floor. Initially I was happy about the room until I encountered weird things that took place in early am...3. I had the worst 4 sleeps ever! My wife had her first night terror ever. She was facing the wall yelling and screaming at the top of her lungs, so loud I jumped out of bed clinching my chest. She was yelling stuff like OMG and leave me alone and was running towards the door. The screams coming from her were so loud that I thought security was going to be called. I was so frightened that I had a hard time breathing for like 45 minutes. This was the first time in her life she had a night terror. Other weird things were chills running through my body constantly. It started from my head and would go thru my body out of my feet and cycle thru repeatedly. I travel a lot and I thought this was weird so I decided to go talk to customer service and I asked them of there was history to the room. She assured me that she had no recollection of anything on that room recently and offered us to stay on a much lower floor. I declined because I wanted to still have a bar fridge and I don't believe in ghosts or supernatural stuff, and convinced myself it was probably a bad dream that she has no memory of. My wife and I returned to the 23rd floor and as I exited the elevator, I made a comment to her that was what would you do if there was a fire here...I never made comments like that before. Again I continued to have chills, the bar fridge made banging noises, and it felt weird. The last night as I couldn't sleep I looked over at the curtains and saw clear air waving movements in the corner. I didn't want to look anymore so I slammed my eyes shut and prayed. Then as I started to fall asleep I had a bad dream and woke up instantly. It was about a man running frantically, that I thought he was chasing me, but was running for water, like a calm ocean, but was running fast in panic on the shoreline. I thought all this was crazy, and had explanations like the a/c was what gave me shivers and the night terror was from a late meal...etc. When I arrived home I was curious so I started to google things and found out that the 23rd floor is most haunted and a fire broke out in 1980 where 85 people perished. I had no knowledge of this before and will now check for history's before I book another hotel"

The Venetian

The Venetian Hotel sits where the Sands Hotel and Casino once stood. That casino was demolished in 1996 after it was decided by a new owner that an update was needed desperately. The Sands opened in 1952 under founder Mack Kufferman with 200 rooms spread out over four two-story wings. Crime bosses financed the venture as did Frank Sinatra who made his performing debut at The Sands in 1953. Icons of the enteratinment industry of the 1950s and 1960s performed in the hotel's world-renowned Copa Room. These were singers and performers like Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Nat King Cole and Sammy Davis Jr. Those last two pushed back against segregation in Las Vegas. They were allowed to perform, but couldn't eat in the dining room. Frank Sinatra put a stop to that when he invited Cole to join him for dinner. Harry Belafonte was later allowed at the casino and became the first black man to play cards on the Las Vegas Strip. The original Ocean's 11 was filmed at The Sands in 1960. By 1966, The Sands had a 500-room tower added and the following year, Howard Hughes acquired the casino. Sheldon Adelson bought the property with some partners, whom he bought out, and then he closed the casino in 1996. 

Construction began on The Venetian in 1997. The casino cost $1.6 billion to build and opened in May of 1999. The name represents its theming, which is based on Venice, Italy during the 1400s and 1500s. To hundred fifty artists and scupltors worked on decor and the exterior has replicas of the Doge's Palace, the Rialto Bridge, St. Mark's Campanile and Venice's Grand Canal is represented on the exterior and interior including gondolas. There is an indoor recreation of St. Mark's Square with shoppes and eateries. Adelson died in 2021 and The Venetian was sold to Vici Properties for $4 billion with Apollo Global Management leasing the casino for $2.25 billion. 

During construction, there were several deaths. A worker fell in January 1998 with another worker being crushed several months later by an 8,000 pound facade that fell from a crane 32 stories. In 1999, an electrician fell 30 feet through an open hole and died. Those construction workers are said to haunt the hotel and some claim that former mobsters that liked to frequent The Sands seem to have carried over to the new casino in the afterlife. Tupac Shakur was shot inside a BMW as it drove near The Venetian in 1996. He would die four days later in a hospital, but people claim to see him outside of The Venetian with his distinctive bandana tied around his head. He is seen crossing the street towards the casino and is sometimes spotted as a shadow beneath a nearby flickering street light.

Ellie wrote on TripAdvisor: "I stayed in 4135 suite right at the end of the corridor with a concrete view at the Venetian. Not sure if the same room, but things were happening that we couldn't explain. I Don't believe in ghosts, but have to admit was a bit spooky. My friend woke up at about 3am on our first night there saying someone was in our room, it woke her up by calling her name repeatedly, standing by the window. I looked and saw nothing, told her she was imagining things and to go back to bed. She fell asleep I watched the window the curtains started to move (probably draught from air con) but only happened that one time. Next day we woke up, I opened the drawer in our bed side table to see the holy bible on my side. I made a joke, said it didn't effect me cos god was on my side. (she is a atheist, but she moved the bible to her side, ha ha!) The next night, we slept right through. In the morning when she woke up she couldn't find her glasses. (Normally she'd put them by the tv so she wouldn't break them accidentally half asleep) they weren't there. She spent a good ten minutes looking for them, when I got the thought of looking in the drawer. We found them on top of the holy bible... She blamed me saying I put them there to freak her out. (I didn't) Also there was a massive lamp there that we couldn't get working, I had the idea that I would turn it on, so it could help her sleep on our last night. Couldn't figure it out. We ended up leaving it off. (we're idiots.) We got back at about 4am and the lamp was on. The next day when we woke up, the lamp was off. This trip I slept like a baby. Mainly because if there is any truth about ghosts, the ghost was after jenny :-)"

Circus Circus

Circus Circus was a real hit with Diane as a kid. This was one of the only kid-friendly places on the strip and it had live circus performers on top of that. This is the largest permanent circus in the world. Circus Circus opened in 1968 with a casino on its first floor and carnival games on the second floor. The casino was designed by Rissman and Rissman Associates in a circus tent structure formed from steel and concrete. The tent-shaped roof was made from a plexiglass material painted white and hot pink. Trained monkeys roamed the casino and an elephant named Tanya would throw dice and pull slot machine handles with her trunk. A hotel wouldn't be added until 1972 and this was a 15-story tower with 409 rooms. Jay Sarno and Stanley Mallin were the original owners and they eventually leased operations to Bill Bennett and William Pennington after authorities started connecting the original owners to organized crime. 

Sarno had previously opened Caesars Palace. He had intended for this casino to be like a Roman circus, but then he decided he anted it to be a circus circus and that is where the name came from. The new owners built another tower of rooms in 1975 and added an RV park in 1979. More rooms and towers were added through the years and eventually an amusement park opened in 1993. The resort was acquired by MGM Mirage in 2005 and is currently owned by Phil Ruffin. He has been renovating and has plans to possibly turn the RV park into a swimming pool complex. The clown on the roadside sign that rises 123 feet is known as Lucky, of course. This is one of the most photographed signs in Las Vegas.

Many people staying at Circus Circus claim to hear phantom noises and have other weird things happen. Possibly due to homicides. A Vietnamese couple was found stabbed to death in their hotel room after a robbery gone wrong in 2018. They were part of a Vietnamese tour group and when they didn't show up for the Grand Canyon tour, hotel staff were asked to do a welfare check. The couple had multiple stab wounds. It was thought that it could be a murder-suicide because nobody had entered the room after the couple did, but eventually a suspect was arrested.

Another homicide was said to have taken place in Room 123 and there were two victims, a mother and her son. Unfortunately, it was later determined that the mother had killed her son and then took her own life. As an aside, interesting that the sign is same height in feet as room number. This room is said to be haunted by the mother and son. Guests staying in the room claim to hear whispers, many times saying the words, "help me." Words are sometimes written on the mirror in the bathroom, which we could possibly debunk as other previous guests fooling around. Another guest ran into a woman and her young son who seemed to be frantically looking for someone. When asked who this was, the woman said they were looking for Robert. Possibly her husband? The pair then disappeared. Furniture moves around on its own and a little boys apparition has been seen in the hallways near Room 123. 

Luxor

Rising along the Strip is a very unusual sight, a giant black pyramid. This is a casino named the Luxor and it is the third largest pyramid in the world. Giza claims the two largest pyramids, but the Luxor does have a claim to fame that neither of these pyramids has, the most powerful man-made light in the world. This is a beam that shoots up into the night sky from the tip of the pyramid. The light is known as the Luxor Sky Beam and is generated by using curved mirrors to collect the light from 39 xenon lamps and focusing the light waves into one intense, narrow beam that can be seen up to 275 miles away. The beam was activated for the first time on the night of October 14, 1993 when the resort had a pre-opening party. We've heard stories of curses connected to pyramids. Is it possible that this modern pyramid has a curse too? It is quite possible. 

The Luxor was built in 1993 by Circus Circus Enterprises. Veldon Simpson was the architect and the casino was named for the city of Luxor in Egypt with a plan for a 30-story tall pyramid featuring Egyptian theming inside. This included an indoor Nile River ride. The initial idea was a pretty cool one though too with a moat that had a real casino riverboat traversing it. Various replicas of Egyptian artifacts were brought in as a part of the decor. The exterior was formed from metal and glass. Construction cost $375 million.Two hotel towers were added later and the casino has undergone numerous renovations, many that have taken away much of the Egyptian theming. A tram was added to connect the Luxor to The Excalibur Casino and Mandalay Bay Casino. Vici Properties bought the Luxor and MGM operates the resort.

The Luxor has a reputation for having a high number of murders, suicides, and other deaths, some of which took place during construction. Because of that, people claim the place must be cursed. We mentioned Tupac Shakur earlier. He was staying at the Luxor at the time of his death. A casino worker was killed by her boyfriend in plain sight of people in 2012. A man fell from the 10th floor. An employee at the Luxor food court was killed in 2007 in the Luxor parking garage when a homemade pipe bomb exploded. He was apparently targeted by two other men who were apprehended and given life sentences in 2010. Las Vegas has a huge number of suicides every year for obvious reasons and the Luxor seems to have the greatest number of them. Another reason why there may be issues at the casino is the fact that there is only one sphinx guarding the entrance. Egypt of the ancient world always held to a practice of having a pair of sphinxes to guard entrances. Could it be that this lack of tradition has allowed something dark to get through?

Most paranormal experiences take place in the pyramid part of the resort rather than the towers. There is one room here that has a poltergeist and that is Room 30018. The spirit here doesn't like to share its space. Nearly every morning at 8:30 am, a metallic noise rings out in the room. A blonde spirit known as the Luxor Blonde haunts several rooms and she likes to make her presence known by strangling people in their beds. Guests awaken when they feel hands tightly gripping their necks and are shocked to find that they are either alone or their partner is sound asleep and not trying to murder them in the bed. Some of these people describe the experience as being more like a very vivid dream and during the dream they see that it is a blonde woman trying to strangle them. Other people claim to have intense chest pains.

Other activity includes the pounding of doors by unseen fists. Guests get up to yell at whoever has awakened them from slumber to find the hallways empty. Shadow figures have been seen out of the corner of the eye. Construction workers who died have appeared in the quieter parts of the hotel. Acrid smells out of nowhere invade the senses and lights sometimes flicker on their own. Another female ghost supposedly walks through the halls of the 12th, 13th, and 14th floors and see likes to push people or breathe down their necks. Visitors say not to look over railings because something malevolent tries to convince you to jump.

A woman left a review reporting, "Here is the best part. My fiance screamed for me to 'come here' when I was brushing my teeth. I came out and asked 'what's wrong?' He looked stunned and couldn’t speak. He said a little girl just appeared in the room and asked for help. Wow, now we have a ghost in our room. He woke me later to ask if I could hear singing."

Another review from December 2016 said that a woman woke up when she felt a hand on her face. She jumped out of bed and saw that her husband was awake and looked terrified. he told her that he had just seen a blonde woman wearing a hat, possibly a beret, and that she had been standing at the bedside and then she disappeared. After that, they decided to sleep in the other bed in the room. Their peace didn't last long as the woman was awakened once again, but this time she felt someone wrapping the covers tight around her and leaning against her back. They told the concierge about their experiences the next day and she didn't seem surprised. She gave them a new room in one of the towers. 

Another review reported, "Running the risk of sounding insane, I swear my room was haunted. I always felt like there was a shadowy figure just at the edge of my vision and this creeped me out like nothing before."

Casinos in Vegas can be a ton of fun, as long as you don't mind losing some money. They might have an added bit of fun for those of us that enjoy a good ghost story and a little love tap from an apparition. Are these Vegas casinos haunted? That is for you to decide!

Thursday, February 29, 2024

HGB Ep. 527 - Minersville Mansion

Moment in Oddity - Lake Hillier (Suggested by: Michael Rogers)

There is a lake located on the edge of Middle Island in Australia that for many years was quite unique. Lake Hillier was a saline lake separated from the ocean by a thin strip of land. It was discovered during an expedition in 1802. The topography of the lake isn't what made it unusual, rather, it was the lakes' color which made it so different. The actual water was a bright bubble gum pink color. The hue would not change when placed into a clear container. It was determined that the pink color was caused by a combination of an algae organism called Dunaliella salina and red halophilic bacteria, bacterioruberin. Despite the strange hue, studies showed that it was actually safe to swim in. However that was not allowed without prior consent by the Western Australia Dept of Environment Conservation. It had also been revealed that the lakes salinity level rivaled that of the Dead Sea in turn making it very buoyant to humans. Sadly, reports state that the lake does not appear the bright pink color any longer. This is believed to be caused by the construction of the South Coast Highway and a rail line. This altered the flow of water to the lake, reducing its salinity in 2017. Perhaps one day it will recover the color that made it famous. Regardless, a lake the color of bright pink bubble gum certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Birth of William 'Buffalo Bill' Cody

In the month of February, on the 26th in 1846, William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody was born in Scott County, Iowa. His family moved to Kansas while William was still a child. While only eleven years old, Cody left home to work as a cattle driver, traveling across the Great Plains several times. From there he moved onto fur trapping and gold mining. William even worked for an early version of the Pony Express. Once the Civil War was over, Cody became a scout for the Army. This is where he received his nickname of "Buffalo Bill" due to his hunting skills, often supplying meat for the railroad workers. Buffalo Bill was a charming guy which led him into his show business career. His first performance was in a drama in Chicago called, Scouts of the Prairie. He was quite the showman and audiences loved him. Always the entrepreneur, Cody started his own acting troupe the next season and enlisted the help of friends, Texas Jack and "Wild Bill" Hickok for a time. Buffalo Bill continued arraigning plays until 1882. Later that same year he came up with the idea of creating an outdoor show involving live animals and hundreds of performers. There were trick shooters and ropers, recreations of buffalo hunts, stagecoach robberies, bronco riding and the like. Some of the stars who performed were Annie Oakley, Calamity Jane and Chief Sitting Bull. Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show even performed for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887. Cody continued performing in his show even in his older years although it was said that he required help mounting and dismounting his horse. His last performance took place just four years before his death at the age of 70 in 1917.

Minersville Mansion

The Minersville Mansion is located in Minersville, Pennsylvania and is known by locals as the DiNicola Mansion as it was owned by Dr. Arthur DiNicola who ran his practice out of the home. The mansion has stood for over a hundred years and had a series of medical professionals who owned it and today is used as an apartment building. Author and paranormal investigator Jeffrey A. Dengler wrote the book "The Minersville Mansion" after spending time investigating the house. He joins us on this episode as we share the history and hauntings of the Minersville Mansion and some of the experiences he has had investigating other locations.

Minersville, Pennsylvania was settled by Europeans in the late 1700s. Adolph Oliver Busch was the first settler and he built a cabin and sawmill along the Schuylkill River in 1783. Later he built a tavern to service people traveling the Sunbury Trail, which was a trail frequented by Native Americans before the Europeans arrived. This would later become known as the Kings Highway in honor of King George III. Anthracite coal was discovered in 1799 and formal mining operations began in 1814 and that is where the name of the town comes from. The Reading Railroad came along in the 1800s and the town expanded rapidly as commerce grew and immigrants came to work in the coal mines. An iron works was built in the town as well. It was here that a doctor decided to build his home. 

It seems that there have been many strange occurrences in the house. Is that because the house itself is haunted or is it because residents themselves have been haunted? That is for you to decide!

To find out more about Jeffrey Dengler and his books:

https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyADengler/

On TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kipacrew?_t=8jfT3QLSq3n&_r=1

You can find his books on Amazon, "The Minersville Mansion" and "The Spirits of Shoemakers Road."

Thursday, February 22, 2024

HGB Ep. 526 - The Life and Afterlife of Superman, George Reeves

 Moment in Oddity - Convict Baseball (Suggested by: Chelsea Flowers)

Baseball is a popular sport with so many fans invested in how their team will perform and whether they will make it to the World Series. Back in 1911, there were only 16 major league baseball teams. In Wyoming, an avid fan of the game was Big Horn County Sheriff Felix Alston, whom the governor selected to be the new warden of Wyoming State Penitentiary. Alston decided to create his own baseball team with the inmates that were in his charge. The lineup consisted of a shortstop convicted of manslaughter, first baseman for rape, third baseman for grand larceny, a center fielder for forgery, second baseman for breaking and entering and a right fielder by the name of Joseph Seng who was convicted of first degree murder and was facing the hangman's noose. As shocking as it may be, this team of convicts was quite impressive on the baseball diamond. The Wyoming State Penitentiary All-Stars had the proper uniforms and looked like professional ball players in every sense. The team played their first game on July 18th in 1911, the same date that Joseph Seng was granted a stay of execution due to his appeal to the Wyoming Supreme Court. The team of convicts played the Rawlins Juniors with a win of 11-1 with Seng hitting 2 homeruns during the game. The game itself was held on prison grounds along with the next two games the All-Stars played against the Juniors. It was said that the outside team may have been intimidated by playing within the prison walls. The game was reported on in various newspapers with headlines like "Slayer Scores Home Runs". After 3 games of the Convict All-Stars beating the Rawlins Juniors, the fourth and final game was played outside of the prison walls. The house was packed and again, the convicts bested the Juniors with a final score of 15-10. This would be the final game for the Wyoming State Penitentiary All-Stars. Joseph Seng still had a stay appeal out with Governor Carey in hopes that his execution would be commuted. Despite his performance and success with the penitentiary's baseball team along with good behavior, Seng's stay of execution was denied and he was hung on May 24th, 1912. The sport of baseball is ingrained in much of American culture, but the thought of a penitentiary team beating and exceeding any state teams certainly is odd. 

This Month in History - Daytona 500m Inaugural Race

In the month of February, on the 22nd, in 1959, the inaugural Daytona 500 NASCAR race was held. It was the second race of the 1959 NASCAR Grand National Series season and was the first race to be held at the Daytona International Speedway. Previous Daytona races consisted of the Daytona Beach and Road Course where competitors would race on pavement and then the beach, returning to the pavement to finish the race. The Daytona Speedway is a race track which consists of a four turn superspeedway. The inaugural race boasted 41,921 spectators. Of the 59 cars that began the first race, 20 were convertibles. Many vehicles dropped out due to various issues. Initially Johnny Beauchamp was declared the winner but due to the photo finish, Lee Petty was ultimately declared the winner of the first Daytona 500.

The Life and Afterlife of Superman, George Reeves

Superman is a beloved comicbook hero. He's all about truth and justice. Clark Kent, his alter ego, is a lovable nerd. Filling his shoes isn't easy, but George Reeves managed to do it and he did it well. But not because his own life reflected the ideal that Superman exuded. Reeves' life was complicated. And it came to an abrupt end when he was just 45-years-old in 1959. The death of George Reeves is a controversial topic. The coroner’s report ruled that the final results indicated that Reeves had committed suicide. Many people do not agree with that assessment. Could this have been murder? And is that mystery possibly why George Reeves' spirit seems to be at unrest.

The Death of Superman was big news in 1992. Mainstream media covered the death of Superman in the DC comic book and people were shocked that the impossible had happened. How could Superman die? He was invincible. For those of us who grew up watching reruns of the original Superman series starring George Reeves and the various Superman movies starring Christopher Reeves, we knew it was possible for Superman to die. Both of the Reeves were forever associated with their roles as Superman. And both were cut down way too early. Comic book Superman was resurrected, but Christopher and George both moved on to whatever there is after this life. 

Life for George Reeves began on January 5, 1914. He was born George Keefer Brewer to Donald Carl Brewer and Helen Lescher. His mother Helen had become pregnant out of wedlock and she and Donald eloped. The marriage did not last long, ending shortly after George was born. Helen eventually moved to California and married a man named Frank Bessolo who adopted George when he was thirteen-years-old. That marriage lasted for 15 years, but Helen grew tired of it and left Frank while George was away visiting family. When George returned home, his mother told him that Frank had committed suicide, which was not true. Lying to George seemed to come easy for her. She not only lied about the divorce, but she even lied to him about his birth date, probably to conceal that she was pregnant before marriage.

George discovered acting in high school and really enjoyed performing. He also took up boxing and really enjoyed that as well, but his mother forced him to quit, so that his face would not be damaged. George attended Pasadena Junior College after high school and he continued acting there. He then studied acting at the Pasadena Community Playhouse where he met Ellanora Needles. The couple started dating and married on September 21, 1940. Ellanora stuck mostly to theater acting, but George wanted bigger things. In 1939, he got a bit part as one of the red-headed Tarleton twins who tried for Scarlett O'Hara's hand in "Gone with the Wind" and then he got the lead in a play at the Pasadena Playhouse that led to Warner Brothers offering him a contract. It was Warner Brothers that changed his name to George Reeves.

Old Hollywood was a hard place. Contracted actors did not have much freedom when it came to the roles they played. Reeves was very disappointed with the work offered to him by Warners Brothers. Most of the roles were in B films and forgettable. Warner Brothers and Reeves mutually agreed to dissolve his contract and he moved on to 20th Century Fox. Things weren't much better here and the studio released him after a few films, so George set off as a freelancer. His main desire was to make westerns and after a screen test with Harry Sherman, he was signed to make several Hopalong Cassidy films. Paramount Pictures then signed him to do two films a year. Making the war film "So Proudly We Hail!" inspired him to join the military. World War II had started and Reeves was drafted in 1943.

Reeves was assigned to a performance crew with the U.S. Army Air Forces and spent most of his time entertaining troops and making training films. After his time in the Army was up, he returned to Hollywood and continued to have small parts in films. He traveled to New York and tried radio for a while, but Hollywood always called him back. Television was starting to really take hold during this time and the film industry was feeling threatened. Most actors would find that if they started doing television work, they could kiss their film career goodbye. And this seems to have happened for George when he was cast as Superman. 

The Adventures of Superman TV series launched in 1952. This would be the first TV series to feature Superman. George Reeves was hired to play Clark Kent/Superman with Phyllis Coates as Lois Lane. Producer Robert L. Lippert, Director Lee Sholem and Scriptwriter Robert Maxwell worked together to make a 58-minute black-and-white film called "Superman and the Mole Men," which served as a pilot for the series. Production continued on the first season, but money ran out before anything was aired. Kellogg's had sponsored the Superman radio series, so they agreed to sponsor the TV series. Everything was back on and the first episode dropped in September. This wasn't the pilot. That would later be split into a two-parter and became the unofficial season one finale. The cast was stunned with how popular the series became. The series ran for six seasons and produced 104 episodes and burned into the collective American memory, "Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman!"

This part would bring Reeves the fame he had been seeking and he even directed three episodes. A fondly remembered moment for George Reeves' Superman was his appearance on the "I Love Lucy" Show. This was a crossover episode titled “Lucy and Superman,” and it aired on January 14, 1957. Reeves adapted his character to the comedic setting perfectly. And yet, Reeves had real fears about what playing the character would do to his career. The show was catered to a younger audience, making leading man roles difficult to get. On top of that, the filming schedule was grueling and the stars were locked into the series, having to be available on a 30 day notice of a new season starting. This made it impossible to take any parts, if they were offered. Reeves referred to his Superman costume as a “monkey suit” and he was poorly paid, only receiving a small raise after threatening to leave after three seasons. Despite not being crazy about being Superman, George tried his best to be a good role model and gave up smoking.

Other areas of George's life didn't contribute to a squeaky-clean image. His love life was a mess and would lead to his ultimate demise and the reason why the Superman series would end in 1959. It's star would be dead. To lead us into the mysterious and tragic circumstances of his death, we first need to look back on the Hollywood of the 1950s. This time in Hollywood was post-World War II and the film industry was in decline. The studio contract system was on the verge of coming to an end as independent productions started gaining strength. Television had become a source of major competition. Families wanted to stay at home and watch shows together rather than head out to the movies. There were five "major" Hollywood studios, MGM, Paramount, Fox, Warner Brothers, and RKO, and the 1950s proved to be a difficult period as societal pressure forced them to change. One didn't make it through, RKO, and others were sold or changed management. This was all behind the scenes. In front the scenes were the actors and the studios were forever having to clean up the wreckage left behind by many of their top stars.

During Hollywood’s contract days, it was a practice of all studios to have men that they called “fixers.” Fixers took care of the scandals and other issues that contract players found themselves involved with. Fixers helped to beat criminal charges and to hide affairs and such. They kept the press quiet on certain matters. Eddie Mannix was MGM Studios fixer. He was a very powerful man in Hollywood. Mannix was an Irish Catholic guy from New Jersey. One of his early jobs was working as a bouncer at Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey and then he got involved with movie production and was hired by MGM Studios. By 1924, he was the main muscle for the studio, making sure that it kept its good public image. From 1924 to 1962, he covered up affairs, out-of-wedlock pregnancies, abortions, rapes, addictions and maybe even murder. Mannix and his crew were always on the scene of a crime involving an MGM star before the police. Mannix was a tough guy and not someone to mess around with. So messing around with his wife wouldn't be a good idea.

Toni Lanier was an actress and dancer who was one of the Ziegfeld Follies showgirls and famously known for her beautiful long legs. She was Eddie Mannix's second wife. The couple had married in 1951. The marriage was volatile and both Eddie and Toni had affairs. Toni’s most notorious affair was with George Reeves. She was eight years older than him and it apparently started before he was cast to play Superman. The affair was fairly public and Eddie seemed not to care as he was carrying on his own affair. George stayed in the relationship with Toni for several years, but finally broke it off in 1958 after meeting socialite Leonore Lemmon in New York. Toni was devastated and would not leave George alone. She took to stalking him and sitting outside his home and crying. This didn't keep George from asking Leonore to marry him. They were to be married in June of 1959, but that never happened because George died from a fatal gunshot on June 16th of that year. People claimed that Leonore was bad for George.

George Reeves had bought a home on Benedict Canyon Drive, north of Sunset Boulevard in the Beverly Hills area. He wasn't flush with cash, so many people believe that Toni Mannix either helped him with a downpayment or bought the house for him. The house cost around $12,000 and was a split level ranch house with George's bedroom on the second floor above the living room. The circumstances as to what happened on the evening of the 15th, going into the early morning hours of the 16th, are murky. Most narratives agree that Reeves had a few friends at his home: his fiancée Leonore Lemmon, neighbor Carol Van Ronkel, William Bliss and the writer Richard Condon. Condon and Van Ronkel were believed to be having an affair and Condon was staying as a guest at George's house. Leonore and George arrived home at 11pm after having dinners and drinks. The drinking continued at home and Leonore was fighting with George. He seemed to be getting cold feet about marrying her. She wasn't happy about the prospect of heading back to New York. She was 36 and feeling the pressure to get married and start a family. 

Reeves headed up to bed alone at midnight. Around 1am, he came back downstairs, probably to tell everybody to shut-up. He hung out for a while, but was very agitated and apologized to Condon about his foul mood and then he returned to his bedroom. Lemmon then announced, "He is going to shoot himself." The group could hear a drawer being opened upstairs and Lemmon said, "He is getting the gun out now and he is going to shoot himself." Shortly thereafter, a shot rang out and Bliss ran upstairs to find Reeves naked on the bed and dead with a bullet wound to his head. The group waited 45 minutes before calling the police, which has caused there to be suspicions as to what was going on during that time. Although the fact that they were all drunk probably had something to do with it.

The police and most people believe that Reeves committed suicide. He had been drinking and was depressed with the state of his life and his acting prospects. He could not shake the role of Superman and all independent projects he tried to start, never got off the ground because he could not find funding. George was found lying naked, face up on his bed with a gunshot wound to his head. His feet were on the floor and the gun was between them. The shell casing was underneath his body. The bullet was in the ceiling to the left of his head. The path indicated that Reeves probably leaned his head down towards the gun. The police spent a week investigating. Leonore broke the evidence seal on the house and took $4,000 in traveler's checks and took off to New York, never to return. So that left the scene contaminated. Much of the investigation was botched. The body was washed before the autopsy was conducted. The body was also not checked for gunpowder burns and the hands were never tested for gunpowder. There was no explanation for several bruises found on Reeves' face and chest. Multiple bullet holes were found in the house, particularly the floor of the master bedroom. There was a story that Leonore once shot a gun in the house. George may have done the same and sometimes people who are going to shoot themselves fire a practice shot a little while before.

Despite the official ruling of suicide, many people are not satisfied with that conclusion. George was dissatisfied, but was he suicidal? He left behind no note. And it's unusual for someone to kill themselves when they are naked. He never said anything about wanting to die. Why would he come downstairs and complain about noise and then just go upstairs and shoot himself? And let's not forget about Toni who was stalking George and very upset. She was married to THE Fixer. Had Eddie fixed his wife’s problem? Was he jealous that she was so hung up on George? Did she hire someone herself because she had been rejected? After all, the home George died in was bought for him by Toni. The Guardian reported in 2006, "Years later, another cast member, Phyllis Coates, who played Lois Lane, told Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger, authors of Hollywood Kryptonite, an often speculative examination of the case, that she had received a very disturbing phone call at 4.30am on the morning of Reeves' death. It came from Toni Mannix, beside herself with anxiety. 'She was hyperventilating and ranting,' recalled Coates. 'She said, 'The boy is dead. He's been murdered.'" One story claims that on her deathbed, Toni confessed to a priest that she had had George killed. Although that seems like it would've been hard with a house full of witnesses. 

Leonore has also been looked at as a suspect. Her account of the evening was full of holes and some claim that she might have witnessed what happened or shot George herself. There may have been a fight with the gun involved and it accidentally went off. She also claimed that she never made the comments that seemed to detail Reeves' play-by-play suicide. Stories also claim that death threats had been received by George for months before his death. There is also the issue with the bullet casing being under Reeves' body although bullet casings can go flying around and perhaps the casing fell onto the bed before his body slumped over it. We’ll probably never know what happened for certain. Reeves was buried at Mountain View Cemetery and Mausoleum in Altadena, California. 

George’s soul appears to be at unrest and still hanging out at his Benedict Canyon home. George’s full body apparition has been seen in the home and sometimes it is wearing his Superman costume and points at the ceiling. Strange lights appear in the home and the distant echo of a gunshot is heard. The smell of gunpowder seems to hang in the air. Police officers were once called out by neighbors when they claimed they heard screaming and gunshots. Neighbors claim to see the apparition on the front lawn at times. The house was used as a set in the 1980s and many of the cast and crew claimed to see the ghost for themselves when in the house.

Toni had inherited the house and she struggled for years to keep the place rented. One set of renters claimed that one evening while they were hosting a party, the room that had formerly been George’s bedroom had been torn apart. The sheets were stripped from the bed and clothes were everywhere. When they returned downstairs, all the drinks had been moved to the kitchen. On another occasion, the bed in the bedroom was moved across the floor. The couple’s dog would bark at something unseen and slink away. Noises continued to come from the bedroom and the couple finally moved out. A newlywed couple was thrilled to see that the house was for rent for a very reasonable price. Shortly after they moved in, they were awakened by the sound of a gunshot. A couple days later the smell of gunpowder hung in the air. These two things happened enough over the next couple of weeks that the couple broke their lease and left. Another couple moved out the same day they moved in after encountering the ghost of Reeves. And still another couple saw the ghost of Reeves in the nude and he was groaning.

Superman Curse

Did George Reeves commit suicide or was he murdered? Has this unsolved mystery led to his spirit being at unrest? Does George still haunt his home? That is for you to decide!


Thursday, February 15, 2024

HGB Ep. 525 - Haunted Wine Country

Moment in Oddity - Nadine Earles Burial (Suggested by: Mindy Hull)

Back in 1933 there was a little girl named Nadine Earles, all she wanted for Christmas was a playhouse and her father worked on making that Christmas wish come true. Sadly, little Nadine had come down with diphtheria and in December 1933, Nadine passed away on the 18th. Her father was so grief stricken that he tore down the playhouse that she would have enjoyed in life and began rebuilding it over her gravesite in Oakwood Cemetery in Alabama. It's a large brick playhouse that looks like a bungalow, boasting a front porch, striped awnings, a mailbox along with flower boxes. On April 3rd, 1934, upon the completion of the graveside playhouse, 25 children gathered and celebrated what would have been Nadine's 5th birthday. They came in their best party clothes, played party games and enjoyed birthday cake and ice cream. The photograph of the celebration was framed and mounted within the playhouse mausoleum. Nadine's father passed in 1976 and her mother in 1981. Although Nadine's passing at such a young age is sad, the thought of creating a playhouse upon a child's grave, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Final Episode of M*A*S*H*

In the month of February, on the 28th in 1983, the final episode of M*A*S*H* was aired on CBS. This last episode was written by eight collaborators including Alan Alda who played a main character on the show appearing in all 256 episodes as 'Hawkeye'. Alda directed 32 of the MASH episodes as well as the final episode titled, "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen". The actors playing characters Radar, Hot-Lips Hollihan, Klinger and Father Mulcahy performed in all eleven seasons. Over the series history many well known actors joined the cast. Laurence Fishburne, Pat Morita, Blythe Danner, Ron Howard and Patrick Swayze were just a few to join the show throughout the years. To this date the shows' finale has been the most watched singular episode of any American broadcast series.   

Haunted Wine Country

A region of California north of the San Francisco Bay Area is known as "Wine Country." Two of the counties within this area are Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley. This section of California is known for world-class wine and food and has a beautiful countryside that wine enthusiasts get to enjoy as they drive from tasting to tasting. There are hundreds of wineries between these two counties. One would not put wine and ghosts together necessarily, but several of these wineries reputedly have some paranormal activity. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of Wine Country. 

There is a debate as to where wine got its start. Various countries are credited with the invention. Georgia seems to be the one most likely to be the originator of formal production of wine and this started about 8000 years ago. The people of Georgia dug pits and put bundles of grapes in the pits to ferment through the winter and in spring, when the pits were opened up, the grapes had fermented. They eventually moved to using clay vessels to ferment the grapes. Other countries like China, Iran, Greece and Armenia started making their own wine. There are archaelogists who believe that our most ancient ancestors were enjoying some form of neolithic wine long before the Georgians started making wine. The website goodpairdays.com says, "While the hows and whys of neolithic wine is still a bit of a mystery, and has been discovered after finding chemicals present in wine on neolithic tools, it is supposed that cavemen would have watched animals eating rotten, fermenting fruit and fancied a bit of it for themselves. One thing led to another, and before long, fruit was being fermented purposefully for the sole purpose of, well, getting a bit drunk. The wine industry had begun!" The first winery started in Armenia around 4100 BC. They had wine presses, vats, the whole nine yards. This winery was discovered in 2007 and was named Areni-1 winery. Armenia was mostly making red wines. The Egyptians were making white wines. Tutankhamun's tomb had clay vessels filled with white wine. From Egypt, wine spread to the Phoenicians and then to Greece and Italy. And as most of us know, Italy is really known as the land of wines.

California's Wine Country was first inhabited by several indigenous tribes, the Pomo, Coast Miwok, Wappo and Patwin. Mexico was the first to colonize the area with European settlers arriving in the early 1800s. The town of Sonoma is known as the birthplace of American California. George Calvert Yount (Yownt) was born in North Carolina in 1794. His parents moved to Missouri and that is where he grew up. He became a soldier during the War of 1812 and then went into farming. Things didn't go well for him on that front, so he left for Santa Fe in 1826 to try his hand at fur trapping. He continued to migrate west and arrived in California in 1831. He settled in Sonoma and worked as a carpenter until he obtained a land grant in1836 in what would become Napa Valley. He was the first settler there. He built a grist mill and saw mill and continued to buy land, acquiring over 16,000 acres. He started growing grapes on his property as the environment was perfectly suited for that kind of agriculture. One of his granddaughters married Thomas Rutherford in 1864 and Yount gave them 1,000 acres that Rutherford dedicated to winemaking. 

Commercial production of wine had already started in 1858 with John Patchett and in 1861, Charles Krug (Kroog) set up the first commercial winery in Napa Valley. The Inglenook Winery was established in 1879 and made the first Bordeaux style wine. Agoston Haraszthy (Hor os thee) was a forefather of wine production in the Sonoma County area. The man most responsible for making the area strong wine country was H.W. Crabb who planted over 400 varieties of grapes on 130 acres and produced 50,000 gallons of wine a year. By the end of the 19th century, there were 140 wineries and several of those early wineries still exist today, which wasn't easy with a root louse wiping out much of the grapes and Prohibition. By the 1940s, vintners got together and decided to join forces to establish Napa Valley as a wine stronghold. In 1976, the Paris Tasting put Napa Valley on the map for the rest of history as several of their wines won the blind taste testings. Many historic wineries stood the test of time and more importantly, many of them are said to be haunted! 

Ghost Block

We're going to start our visits to these haunted wineries with one that was inspired by a ghost story. Ghost Block Estate Wines is located in Napa Valley and was started by Andy Hoxsey in the 1980s. He was sitting in a Yountville Bar drinking a beer when a veteran struck up a conversation with him. When he heard that Andy worked in his grandfather's vineyard, he asked Andy if this was the vineyard next to the Yountville Cemetery. Andy said it was and the veteran proceeded to tell him that he had seen the ghost of George Yount leave the Pioneer Cemetery, walk through the vineyard and hike up the Yountville hillside. The veteran said he had heard others make the same claim and that Yount was climbing the hill to look out over the town he founded. Andy was inspired by the story and trademarked "Ghost Block." The winery and vineyard themselves go back five generations, making this the oldest family-owned winery in Napa. The Ghost Block wines are referred to as cult wines. And what are those? We're going to let Wine Folly define that for us, "Cult wines are the pigeon-blood ruby of the wine world. They are engorged in a sort of mystery and delight that can only be satiated by tasting them. Of course, actually getting to taste a cult wine presents a bit of a quandary because the supply is so low that even some deep-pocketed buyers go destitute. This, in turn, skyrockets the price which increases the wine’s fame and then the price goes up more… you get the idea."

Bartholomew Park Winery

The Bartholomew Estate vineyards were planted as the first private vineyard in Sonoma in 1832 by a man named Viviano. In 1844, a 176-acre land grant was given to Viviano and a man named Domingo Rodrigues and they named it Rancho Lac. This would form the heart of Batholomew Park. A man named Jacob Leese owned adjacent property and he bought Rancho Lac in 1846. That property would change hands several times, but always remain a grape vineyard, winning gold at the California State Fair in 1854. Agoston Haraszthy (Hor os thee), whom we mentioned earlier, bought Rancho Lac in 1857 and he expanded by introducing dry-farmed vineyards, wine caves, building a stone winery, erecting his villa and buying up 6,000 total acres that he named Rancho Buena Vista. He imported a lot of European vines as well. He ran up a bunch of debt though and eventually contributed much of Rancho Buena Vista to the Buena Vista Viticultural Society and this became the first corporate winery in California and the largest winery in the world at the time. Then in came phylloxera (fuh laak sir uh), which devastated the area and the winery went bankrupt.  

In comes Robert and Kate Johnson, who were wealthy San Franciscans, and they bought Rancho Buena Vista at auction and turned it into a country estate upon which they built their 40-room Victorian Castle in 1883. Apparently Kate loved Angora cats and one whole floor was dedicated to them. The Johnsons could care less about wine and turned the vineyard into formal lawn and gardens. Robert died and Kate followed and the estate became a working ranch and resort owned by Henry Caullieau who sold it in 1919 to California for the State Industrial Farm for Delinquent Women. This was a place to rehab women who were addicts, alcoholics and working in the sex industry. They were called "wild women" and the country air and hard work was thought to be curative. The Castle was destroyed by fire in 1923 and that was the end of the farm for wild women.

The state built another building on the property that was used as a hospital for the treatment of epilepsy until the 1930s. The hospital and property was sold at auction to Frank “Bart” Bartholomew and his wife Antonia in 1943. This was a birthday present for Antonia. When the couple found out about the wine history of the property, they decided to return to those roots and started planting vineyards. The restoration would run from 1944 to 1968 and the Buena Vista brand and reputation grew bigger than the couple had imagined it would. They sold the brand and 12 acres to another company. With what they retained, they opened their own winery in 1973 called Hacienda Wine Cellars. The couple sold a majority of their interest later that decade and the Bronco Wine Company acquired the brand in 1992. The Bartholomews had established a foundation before their deaths and this continues to run and protect the property. Antonia built a replica of Count Haraszthy's white villa in 1985 after Bart died. This was opened as a museum and event center in 1991 when Antonia died. The Vineburg Corporation leased Bartholomew Park and released wine under the Bartholomew Park Winery label from 1992 to 2018 and then in 2019 winemaker Kevin Holt partnered with the Bartholomew Foundation to open Bartholomew Estate Vineyards and Winery. 

So the basement of the wineries main building was once a morgue. There are thought to be three resident ghosts here, one of which may belong to a woman whose remains were found in the basement walls during a 1970s earthquake retrofit. This woman was named Madeline. She tried to escape many times and the story went that she finally did one day and was never seen again. People think she didn't escape, but was murdered. Employees have claimed to hear disembodied singing coming from the cellar and that is probably because the incarcerated women liked to run choir practice in the morgue. The singing is primarily of hymns. Employees claim that doors lock on their own and once a fire extinguisher pulled off the wall and went flying across a room. 

Five psychics held a seance in the winery in 2006 and were so overwhelmed by spiritual activity that they had to stop and leave. Paranormal investigator Jeff Dwyer investigated at the winery a handful of times in 2008. He told ABC7 News, "I found quite a lot going on in there. During part of the investigation down in the morgue, there was a time when the room suddenly turned ice cold. It was just freezing to the point where I couldn't sit there any longer and had to go upstairs to warm up." He also captured EVPs featuring the sound of Indian flutes and drums and heard the sound of a piano in the morgue. This didn't make sense until he heard that the incarcerated women would hold choir practice in the morgue.

Buena Vista Winery

We covered much of this winery already. This was established by Count Agoston Haraszthy (Hor os thee) in 1857. Something we hadn't mentioned is that while Haraszthy was credited with being the "Father of California Viticulture," he also helped bring about its ruin. He employed layering as a planting technique and this exposed the plants to soil diseases. That is why the first infestation of phylloxera was able to take hold. He relocated to Nicaragua where he started a sugar plantation with the goal of making rum. In 1869, he was out on a river and he disappeared and the story goes that he was killed by an alligator. His spirit is said to have returned to his former winery. Other possible reasons for this winery to be haunted revolve around a legend that 20 Chinese migrant workers were buried when a deep mine cave was caved-in after a minor earthquake in 1862. Wine host Brandon Andrews said that people have seen apparitions roaming the upper level and they carry flickering lanterns. The wine cellars sometimes have loud, unexplained noises in them.

Chateau St. Jean

Kenwood is a town on the northern end of Sonoma Valley. The Chateau St. Jean was built by Ernest and Maude Goff in 1920. They had moved to California from Saginaw, Michigan with their four sons and one daughter. The house was beautiful, and still is, with solid oak banisters, a large oak fireplace and oak-paneled hallways. The family grew white wine grapes, walnuts and prunes. Two brothers, Bob and Ed Merzoian and their brother-in-law Ken Sheffield set out to start a new winery in 1973 and they bought 250 acres of the Goff estate, including the house and opened Chateau St. Jean, named after Jean Sheffield Merzoian who was the sister, sister-in-law and wife of the three men. The winery was completed in 1980 and in 2000 a new visitor center was open. In 2022, the winery was rebuilt, the gardens upgraded and new presses were installed. They celebrated 50 years in production last year. The Goff's daughter's name was Camilla. She died when she was a teenager and employees of the winery claim that her spirit haunts the place. She is said to be protective and benevolent.

Franco-Swiss Winery

The Franco-Swiss Winery was built in 1876 by the Millet family and by the 1880s, was producing  100,000 gallons of wine every year. When Prohibition started, the winery went out of business and was abandoned to the weeds and elements. Thus it became the epitome of a ghost winery. This is what they call the wineries that were abandoned after Prohibition and went to ruin. Richard and Leslie Mansfield bought the property and worked for over a decade to restore it. They never did manage to finish that feat. They did run the Mansfield Winery for a number of years, but we saw that it is now permanently closed. Jules Millet was a member of the Millet family and in 1882 he was murdered by Johan Murbach right outside the winery's walls. The Mansfields had just purchased the winery and they invited some friends to join them on a night tour of the place after having dinner.  They were wandering around with flashlights when one of the guests yelled, "If you're here, Jules Millet, knock three times!" Everybody laughed after nothing happened. But the next night, things got interesting. The Mansfields lived across the street from the winery and that evening there were six loud explosions — pop, pop, pop, boom, boom, boom" in the Mansfield home. Richard wasn't home and so Leslie hid in the closet, she was so scared. The next day, Leslie discovered what caused the noises. She told Time Magazine back in 2010, "Every flashlight that [the men had] taken across the street — and only those flashlights — had exploded into a million pieces. The ones that had not been taken across the street were just fine."One of the flashlights could go down to 300 feet as a dive lamp and another flashlight had a C battery bent in half. Apparently, Jules responded to the request.

Stags' Leap Winery

The gothic castle-like styled Manor House at Stags' Leap Winery was built in 1888 in Napa Valley. The interior featured a spacious ground-floor great hall. A beautifully carved mahogany Chippendale staircase lead up to bedrooms on the second floor. The land where the winery stands was owned for decades under various owners with Mexican land grants, The Grigsby family bought 700-acres and planted grapes on the land in 1872. In 1885, they sold to W.W. Thompson and H.H. Harris who passed his interest to Thompson’s nephew, Horace Blanchard Chase. At that time the 700 acres was split into two and Chase took the northwestern portion. Horace and his wife Minnie built the manor and also made a wine cave. They lost the property after bad investments in Mexican silver mines and the property went to Clarence and Frances Grande in 1913 and they transformed the property into a working ranch and resort and used the manor as their personal residence. Wine was still produced until Prohibition. The vineyards remained and were sold to other wineries and then production began again in 1971 under the guidance of Carl Doumani. For a little more than a decade, the house sat abandoned and may have been used by squatters.  He restored the property and sold to Beringer Wine Estates in 1997. Treasury Wine Estates is the current owner of the winery.

Winemaker Robert Brittan had been at Stags' Leap since 1988. He told the San Francisco Gate in 2004 about an experience he had, "It was in the late autumn or early winter of 1986, the very first time I spent the night in the manor. Some noise woke me up around 2 or 3 in the morning and I got out of bed to investigate. As I walked into the hallway and toward the bedroom at the front of the house, where I thought the noise came from, I saw a young woman facing me. She was there in the hallway, near the landing at the top of the stairs. I had the impression I could look through parts of her -- she wasn't all dressed in white, there seemed to be colors, too. I spoke to her, because I was startled to see someone there at that hour -- I said something like, 'Oh, excuse me.' Pretty soon it dawned on me that this wasn't a person. Then she spoke to me. I can't tell you what she said. She asked me -- no, rather, told me -- to do something I couldn't do that night. I turned around and went back to my bedroom and crawled into bed. I thought to myself, this can't be happening to me. I was scared. There's no logical explanation for a ghost to ask me to do something." He wouldn't tell the reporter what the ghost told him to do.

Dry Creek Vineyard 

David S. Stare was a brainiac who had earned an MBA in Civil Engineering. He moved to Germany shortly after completing his degree because he had always wanted to live overseas. While in Germany, he was bitten by the wine bug and when he returned stateside, he attended some wine classes. Then it was off to France to study their wines. Then he grabbed his family and moved them to California in a mint green station wagon and set out to start a winery. Dry Creek Vineyards was the culmination of that dream. Dry Creek Valley is located in Sonoma County and Dave's vineyards that he planted were the first in the area since Prohibition. These vineyards were mainly Sauvignon Blanc, which he had been told would never work here, but the experts were wrong. Dave's daughter, Kim Wallace, grew up learning the wine business but chose fashion for awhile. She eventually joined the winery with her husband and they run operations today. This is one of the last truly family-owned wineries in the region and they pride themselves on their slower process and small operation. There is a building on the property called Bullock House and it was used to house overnight guests like trade visitors until the unexplained activity going on there became unbearable. Legend claims that a Native American haunts the property and was probably from the Pomo tribe that had a reservation here at one time. Bill Smart, who had been Dry Creeks Vineyard's director of marketing and communications said, “Several of those guests reported hearing creaking, footsteps and door-slamming at night. I haven’t experienced it, but enough people have that I believe there is paranormal activity there.”

Trefethen Family Vineyards & Winery

The Trefethen Family Vineyards & Winery was originally built by the Goodman Brothers in 1886 and they called it Eshcol. This is in the heart of the Oak Knoll District of Napa Valley and sits on 400 acres featuring twenty different soil types. The main building was a wooden three-story gravity flow winery that was right across the street from the Oak Knoll train station. The winery was designed and built by Captain Harnden McIntyre who designed many of the wineries in Napa and he used redwood for siding and Douglas fir for the posts. Gravity flow wineries work with grapes being crushed on the third floor, then the liquid is fermented on the second floor and aged on the first floor. A writer said of the second floor that it was so solid it "could have supported the weight of a small locomotive." The Eschol wines won over half of the awards at the 1889 Paris Exhibition. The old Eshcol facility slipped into serious disrepair and then along came Janet and John Trefethen. Janet thought the facility would make a good stable for her horse, but John felt they could restore the winery and they did. In 1973, they reopened to commercial harvests. The 2014 South Napa Quake did significant damage to the building and Hailey Trefethen took charge of the restoration and they saved the building, including its historic character.

Many wineries went out of business during Prohibition or they switched to making sacramental wine, but the Goodman Brothers set up bootleg operations. One night, a young man snuck into the winery to steal some hooch and he was caught and the bootleggers hanged him from the ceiling beams of the winery. Staff have claimed to see a shadow figure hanging and swinging from the ceiling. Some have felt an eerie sensation when inside the building and others claim to see a replay of the hanging event in a residual haunting.

Beringer Winery 

We are ending at the Beringer Winery in Napa Valley because it is said to be the most haunted winery in Wine Country. This is a gorgeous winery with many "firsts" under its belt. This was one of the first wineries here, being founded in 1876 by the Beringer Brothers, Jacob and Frederick. They emigrated from Germany to found a winery and distillery in Napa. They reused their spirit barrels to age wine. That tradition is carried on today. Frederick built the Rhine House for his family in 1884 with the help of architect Albert Schroepfer. This was in the Queen Anne Victorian style and the exterior featured beautiful stonework with gables and turrets and the interior featured seventeen rooms, stained-glass windows and interior wood paneling. The name comes from the fact that Frederick was copying his former home in Germany that was at Mainz-on-the-Rhine. The Rhine House is the centerpiece of the Beringer property. There is also a house on the property called the Hudson House that was built in 1875 and was already on the property when the Beringers bought it. 

Jacob was the winemaker and Frederick was the promoter and business guy. Beringer Winery was the first to use cellars and caves for storing and aging wine. The caves were dug into the hillside of Spring Mountain by Chinese immigrant workers and after a decade of work, they had hand-chiseled 1,200 linear feet of tunnel. The temperatures in the cave stay between 58-60 degrees. The winery was built against the hillside and they used the gravity flow method for making their wine. Draft horses would bring in the wagons full of grapes and these would be transported to the third floor for crushing. The Beringers used a state-of-the-art steam-powered crusher. Jacob remained as the winemaker until 1911 and then his son took over. In its history, Beringer has only had nine winemakers. But it hasn't remained in the Beringer family. It was sold to Nestle in 1971, which was later sold to Texas Pacific Group. The Foster's Group owned it next and today it is owned by Treasury Wine Estates. 

The staff keep a log book of haunting activity on the property. Frederick is one of the main spirits. He haunts the Rhine House. Furniture is shoved around, disembodied footsteps are heard and his full-bodied apparition has been seen. After closing time one evening, two employees were cleaning up when they heard a large crash. It had come from upstairs and they figured out that it had been Frederick's former bedroom from which the noise eminated. He died in the room in 1901. The employees found a heavy silver tray on the floor. It was across the room from where it usually sat. On top of that, there was a bunch of broken stemware. At other times, objects go missing. Fred clearly doesn't like his private area being a public place. His room is now a tasting room. The cleaning crew has experienced some truly frightening experiences at night. Several times they have watched Fredericks ghost walk right through the walls. One worker ran out of the house and never returned.

Well, who wouldn't like a little wine with their ghosts? You know we dig it. Are these wineries in Wine Country haunted? That is for you to decide!