HGB Ep. 555 - Arlington Resort Hotel and Spa

Moment in Oddity - Ewart Postcard (Suggested by: Jenny Lynn Raines)

In today's world, most of us know someone who has pursued finding genetic leads to extended family. Many companies have been founded to assist in these searches such as 23andMe and Ancestry.com. Sometimes it's simply to document a family tree, but other times it's in search of a long lost loved one. In the case of a West Sussex, United Kingdom family, the search actually came to them unexpectedly. You see, the Davies family received a postcard this last August of 2024, from a long lost relative. The postcard was delivered 100 years late in spite of being sent in 1903. The postcard was addressed to a Lydia, having been sent by her brother, Ewart. It arrived at the Swansea Building Society's Cradock Street branch. The postal anomaly was published in different forms of media. The news gained the attention of separate families that discovered that they were related. Ewart's grandson, Nick Davies stated that meeting new family members due to the discovered postcard was "extraordinary". As the family story goes, Ewart was summering at his grandfather's and knowing that his sister back in Swansea collected postcards, he decided to send one to Lydia. The postcard brought together 4 distant relatives, some of which had general knowledge of possible extended family but no solid details regarding their personal information. It is thought that perhaps the postcard fell out of a bible that was purchased at auction following a house clearance. This may have then prompted the finder to put it back into the postal system. Regardless of what brought this family reunion to fruition, receiving a postcard 100 years late, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Discovery of Manhattan Island

In the month of September, on the 11th, in 1609, Henry Hudson discovered Manhattan Island. Hudson was an English sea explorer working for the Dutch East India Company. His goal was to find the reputed Northeast Passage to Cathay, now present day China. Instead, his exploration brought him to New Netherlands. Hudson explored the region around modern day New York's metropolitan area. The first Dutch colonists arrived with the first 31 families in 1623, and by 1625, the colony of New Amsterdam was established. Henry's journey took him up the Hudson River which was named for him in 1664 when the English took over the colony from the Dutch. This is also when New Netherlands was renamed New York, after the Duke of York. By 1664, the village of New Amsterdam was a community of 1,500 people who spoke 18 different languages. Although Henry Hudson never did find a Northeast passage to China, he greatly contributed to the navigational geography of North America.

Arlington Hotel & Spa (Suggested by: Sandra Latham Parr)

The Arlington Hotel and Spa has so many ghost stories that are connected to it that it would make more sense for us to tell the listeners that it is located in Haunt Springs rather than Hot Springs, Arkansas. The hotel is located in the heart of downtown Hot Springs and is the third version of the hotel to stand and has been here for 100 years. This is a large and glorious historic hotel that hosted the rich, powerful and famous decades ago. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Arlington Resort Hotel and Spa.

The thermal springs in Hot Springs attracted Native Americans for centuries to come and partake of the healing waters. A French Jesuit priest named Father Marquette joined forces with an explorer named Louis Jolliet to explore the northern portion of the Mississippi River Valley. In 1673, they traveled down to Arkansas and claimed the area for France. Spain would obtain it in 1763 via the Treaty of Paris and then was back in France's hands by 1800. America would end up with it in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase. A man named Prudhomme was the first permanent settler, but the Quapaw tribe owned the springs. They ceded the land in 1818 through a treaty. The Hot Springs were protected as the Hot Springs Reservation 1832 and that became Hot Springs National Park in 1921.

Railroad Executive Samuel Fordyce started early with the railroad. He was twenty when he became a station agent for the Central Ohio Railroad. A year later, the Civil War had broken out and he enlisted with the First Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. He eventually was promoted to captain and wound up wounded three times and captured three times. After the war, his health was in decline from his war wounds and he had heard about the healing benefits of the water in Hot Springs, so he moved. He assisted with the growth of the city and he joined forces with two other entrepreneurs, Samuel Stitt and William Gaines, to build the Arlington Hotel in 1875. This was the first luxury hotel in the area and became the anchor for the bathhouse district. it had 120 guest rooms and had gas lighting. The hotel was three-stories and built from wood. Despite being the first, the hotel soon lagged behind other hotels being built like the Majestic and Eastman and it was razed in 1893. The newer rendition had a larger guest capacity with 300 rooms with five levels and updated amenities and was designed in the Spanish Revival style. The interior featured a rotunda, pink parlor, grand ballroom and the show piece was the grand ornamental oak stairway that circled a beautiful glass dome.

Things went well until 1923 when a fire started at an electrical panel. William Pinkerton was staying at the hotel and he, along with other guests, figured that the fire would be quickly put out, so he found himself a comfortable chair on the spacious veranda to enjoy a cigar. Pinkerton was quite wrong as the building burned completely to the ground and he lost all his belongings. It was decided to rebuild again, but this time the hotel was put on a plot across the street from the original. The new and current Arlington Hotel opened on November 28, 1924 with a gala New Year's Eve dinner dance. The hotel was designed by the primary architect of the Arkansas State Capitol, George R. Mann. This was designed in the Mediterranean style and features two massive towers that make it quite distinct. There were 560 guest rooms, a Writing Room, Card Room, Board Room, Crystal Ballroom and Venetian Room. A Music Room opened onto the Venetian Room and featured performances by the Arlington Orchestra. Vacationers got to enjoy the ease of not having to leave the hotel to enjoy the mineral springs. The Arlington had an in-house bath house and for those willing to pay more, there were 50 rooms that had the water piped in.

The 1950s brought the upgrade of air conditioning and heat and in 1969, the original hand-operated elevators were replaced with three guest elevators. It's a bummer to lose the nostalgia of the original elevator, but never fear, the Arlington still features the manually operated original bath house elevator that is lined with beveled glass and shining brass. The first radio station in Arkansas, KTHS, broadcast from the Arlington. Former Arkansas governor Joe T. Robinson announced his acceptance of the Democratic nomination for vice president in 1928 from the radio station. He used the hotel as his campaign headquarters. Many Miss Arkansas pageants were hosted at the hotel and several luminaries stayed here including U.S. presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, Tony Bennett, Babe Ruth, Barbara Streisand and Yoko Ono. 

The infamous have stayed here as well. Al Capone liked to rent out the entire fourth floor for his crew and he would stay in Room 443 and so that suite has been named for him. Capone liked this room because he could look across the street from his window and see the activities at the Southern Club, which is today the Wax Museum. Many of the original rooms are still in use with a few changes here and there. The Writing Room is now a Starbucks and the Card Room had its name changed to Magnolia Room. The hotel has several suites for rent, not only named for Al Capone, but there is also The Reagan and The Babe Ruth. Mineral Water Rooms feature bathtubs with hot springs mineral water piped in. There are twin outdoor pools, spa services, a convention center, shops, restaurants and an award winning lobby bar.

The Arlington Hotel wasn't one of those hotels that liked to talk about their strange activity. But several years ago, the hotel management started allowing employees to share encounters that they had with the other side. And they certainly were glad they did because people have been flocking to the haunted rooms. There are reports of faucets turning themselves on and off on their own. Disembodied laughter is heard and lights flash on and off by themselves. Guests and staff have seen full-bodied apparitions in period clothing strolling through the lobby and walking in the hallways. One spirit that has been seen is a little girl in a pink dress. There is also a woman who has is seen wearing a wedding dress. The fourth floor is home to the spirit of former bellhop Henry Tweedle. 

Some guests were staying at the hotel and they captured what looks like two footprints in the carpet standing in front of the door to Room 723. They are believed to belong to a lady in white that haunts the hotel. Guests also claim to have seen the spirit of a man taking a bath on the men's side of the bath house. A man wearing a black suit is seen in the laundry room. A bartender claims that a certain bottle of wine likes to jump off the shelf on occasion and this has been witnessed by guests. The elevator will run by itself to the fourth floor and then open. People believe this is the spirit of Al Capone. We spoke with Erin Egnatz about the spirit of Capone haunting places and here is yet another one of those places.

Carmen Jones is the Arlington Director of Operations and she told The Sentinel-Record, "The Magnolia Room downstairs, occasionally we'll be setting up for a group and the lights will go real bright and then they flicker. I've had our maintenance department, and we've brought in electricians to look at it, and there's nothing wrong with the wiring, it's not the dimming switch; it's just unexplainable. There's also a chandelier in the Venetian Dining Room that's in the far back corner, and you can be standing there at the serving station and all of a sudden it will go extremely bright and it's the only chandelier in the room that will do it, and then it'll dim back out, and all of them are on the same wiring." 

Jones says that Room 824 is the most haunted room in the hotel. She said, ""I've heard several stories... of items falling off the bathroom shelf, the lights turning on and flickering while people are trying to sleep," she said. "A lot of the experiences take place between around 3 a.m. to 4 a.m. This particular bathroom, the sink will turn on periodically and the bathroom will get all steamy while they're asleep, and they wake up and they walk in there and their items fall off the shelves." Jones said of the Capone Suite, "I've had a lot of guests say that occasionally when you stay in there, you catch the smell of a cigar, and of course, it's a non-smoking hotel, so we do not know where that's coming from. Guests have heard the connecting doorknob turn, but you can't access that doorknob from the other room because there's no doorknob on the other side, but they'll see the doorknob like start moving."

Natural State Paranormal investigated in 2021 and they stayed in Room 824 and when they asked if anyone wanted to speak to them, they captured an EVP saying "No way." And then a few minutes later they asked if the spirits wanted them to leave and an EVP said "Yeah." A REM Pod set up in the middle of the bed went off several times. It went like this, they set up the REM Pod and were getting ready to leave the room and it went off. They would ask for the spirit to do it again and nothing. Then they would start to leave again and the REM Pod would go off again. It did this several times so it was like it was telling them not to go. Or just really messing around with them. Probably the coolest thing happened at the end of the evening in their room. They were using the SLS Camera and had an entity appear on it a couple times and it almost seemed like it was hanging on the back of the bathroom door and so they were capturing this via the mirror. When they asked if it was behind the door, the Spirit Box said "hiding."

And wouldn't you know, Hot Springs has a ghost tour because there are other haunts here too. Bathhouse Row still has eight surviving bathhouses and continues to be the architectural core of downtown Hot Springs. These bathhouses took the place of the early sweat lodges built by the Native Americans. The year 1946 was the height of the bathing era with over one million baths taken. They need a McDonald's sign for that, "Over 1 Million Served." Bathhouse Row was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987, but unfortunately hasn't seen much use. Only two of the houses are still operating and a third has been adapted into the Fordyce Bathhouse Visitor Center and Museum. The Hale is the oldest bathhouse having opened in 1893 and it was renovated into a theater in 1981, but closed before it was even open a year. Right across from Bathhouse Row is the Bathhouse Soapery and Caldarium, which had originally been a Japanese Tea Room. A beautiful high schooler named Violet Boles had worked here. A young man had become obsessed with her and when she wouldn't reciprocate his feelings, he murdered her in the tea room. The haunting going on here is that people claim to sometimes feel as though someone is wrapping their hands around your neck in the store's back left corner. 

Adair Park sits between between Granny’s Kitchen and It’s About Rocks. This is the original site of the Arlington Hotel and some people may have died n the fire. In particular, there are those who say at least one man did because they hear his groans in the park at night. Those groans and moans have been captured as EVP. St. John the Baptist is a Catholic Church at 589 W. Grand Ave. Apparently, the site was once home to a pauper's cemetery and as always seems to happen in these cases, not all the bones were moved. Colonel George Latta bought the cemetery and made an honest effort, but while the church was being constructed boned kept being unearthed. These bones were put inside a very large box that was sealed and placed under the altar rail where they remained for many years, but don't seem to be there anymore and no one knows what happened to the bones. The church is said to be haunted with shadow figures being seen and the lights have a mind of their own. 

The Poet's Loft was a performance art theater that had been located at 514 Central Avenue in the upper part of the building. Back at the time when Hot Springs was a little wilder it was called The Raven Club and was a gambling hall and bordello. In 1912, it was a jewelry store and loan office. Today, we aren't sure what is upstairs, it might be a jewelry repair shop, but the ground floor is an antique shop. There were said to be several spirits here. Ghost Lab investigated The Poet's Loft in 2010. Shortly before that time, a regular performer at the club named Tee, died. People claimed that he was haunting the place. The stairway leading up into the former club had reports of people being shoved. An employee named Sam told the crew that he was closing up one night and as he walked down the stairs, he felt a hand pressing against his back. He was the only one in the building. The front door would also open by itself and slam shut. A picture with Tee in it would never stay straight on the wall. It would always go crooked and several employees would watch it move. A dark apparition wearing a hat would be seen. A local poet named Celeste had been really nervous on stage and after she got done reading her poem, she felt a hand rest on her shoulder as if telling her that she did a good job. There was no one behind her and an employee told her it was something that Tee would do. The crew captured the sound of bongos playing, which is what Tee played.

The Ohio Club is located at 336 Central Avenue. The Ohio Club is Arkansas' oldest bar. This started as a bar and casino in 1905. Al Jolson performed at the club in 1915. Al Capone would frequent the place as did Bugsy Segel, Bugs Moran and Lucky Luciano during Prohibition. At the time, it was called the Ohio Cigar Store with 10 feet of the front being walled off to contain the cigar store and then there were two doors that led into the bar and upstairs to the casino.  In the 1930s, Mae West performed here. (Come up and see me sometime!) They continue the tradition of live performances. And hard to believe, but the casino and sports book remained open until 1967. Owners and employees claim that they have had unexplained experiences. Doors slam on their own, music is heard even though no music is playing and glasses are heard clinking.

The Malco Theatre is located at 817 Central Ave and is known as the Maxwell Blade Theater of Magic today. The Princess Theater originally sat on this spot and was built in 1910. It featured vaudeville acts and silent films, but that all ended on Christmas Eve of 1934. The theater caught fire and burned all the way down to its foundation. Rebuilding began immediately and this new rendition of the theater was larger and had an irregular shape. The architectural style was changed to art deco. The theater was sold to the Malco Theater Group and the name was changed to the Malco Theater and reopened in 1947. The Malco was segregated until 1964 with black patrons having a separate ticketing booth, separate entrance, separate concessions and they could only sit in the balcony. The theater has retained that separate entrance as a tribute to civil rights victories. The Malco mostly ran as a movie theater through the years until it was purchased in 1995 by magician Maxwell Blade. He completely renovated the building with new seating and a state-of-the-art sound and lighting system. Blade himself claims to have never seen a ghost in the theater, but he did hear a theater seat folding up and down when he was getting ready to leave the empty theater one night. When he went further into the theater to see what made the sound, he saw a shadow figure crossing the exit. He left quickly and it shook him enough that he wouldn't be in the theater alone at night for some time. And when he would bring his daughter to the theater years ago when she was only three, she would ask who the little boy was that was standing at the top of the theater’s staircase. Four people are said to have died in the theater and one was a little boy who died in the upstairs bathroom of the theater in the early 1970s.

Hot Springs is a cute little town with a history of healing and haunts. Are the Arlington Hotel and these locations in Hot Springs haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 554 - Alberta's Crowsnest Pass

Moment in Oddity - Gates of Hell Hacienda Heights (Suggested by: Duey Oxberger)

There is a suburban community in the hills of Los Angeles County, California called Hacienda Heights. Within that populace there is a place that draws the curious and seekers of the strange and creepy. It is called The Gates of Hell Hacienda Heights. Urban legends abound when it comes to this place. It is said that the property used to be the home of a sanatorium that was shut down in the 1940's due to malpractice. The property is sealed off with fencing topped with barbed wire looking ominous to those wanting to explore the area beyond. The gate itself used to be the back entrance to a different building other than the purported hospital. This building actually had an underground tunnel that led to the main building. The structure is said to be covered in cult symbols and there are red stains inside and around the property. Whether rituals were actually performed here is uncertain but just the sound of this place makes ones imagination run a little wild. Although many may wish to explore this decrepit and creepy location, it is advised to do little more than a 'drive by' to see the gate. Security cameras abound and of course there is the challenge of the sharp wire itself. Creepy old buildings draw many of us to them and perhaps there's nothing to this location at all. But some urban legends certainly can be odd.

This Month in History - Great Fire of London

In the month of September, on the 2nd, in 1666, the Great Fire of London started and swept through the city for five days. The fire started at a bakery located on the fittingly named Pudding Lane. Although this pudding name was actually inspired by the offal that the butchers of the area sent down to the river to be loaded on waste barges. Church warden and baker, Thomas Farriner, owned the establishment and he was awakened in the wee hours of the morning by smoke coming in under the door of his bedroom. His bakery downstairs was on fire. He and his daughter escaped from an upstairs window, but their maid refused to jump from the window and she became the first victim of the fire. Indecisiveness on the paty of the Lord Mayor, allowed the fire to become a storm that nearly engulfed the entire city. The fire was stopped by strong easterly winds and the Tower of London using gunpowder to create firebreaks. Most reports claim that only eight people were killed, but historians believe the toll was far higher with bodies being completely consumed and because the destruction left economic and social problems that caused starvation and exposure. Fifteen percent of the city's housing was destroyed. London was rebuilt on its same medieval street plan, which remains the same today. 

Alberta's Crowsnest Pass (Suggested by: Matt Brooks)

Nestled within the Canadian Rockies in southwest Alberta is Crowsnest Pass. The name is a translation of Native American words that meant "the nest of the crow." Crowsnest Pass is an area of stunning scenery, but also a place of tragedy, rum running, coal mining and was the home of the last woman to hang in Alberta. There are many interesting stories about this location and several of them seem to have ghosts connected to them. Join us for the history and hauntings of Alberta's Crowsnest Pass!

Crowsnest Pass is not just a geographic feature, but also the name of a municipality. The municipality of Crowsnest Pass was formed in 1979 by combining five municipalities: the Village of Bellevue, the Town of Blairmore, the Town of Coleman, the Village of Frank, and Improvement District No. 5, which included the Hamlet of Hillcrest. Many residents of Crowsnest Pass worked in coal mining, which had been a main part of the economy and the driving force of the growth of the population here since 1900. The Canadian-American Coal and Coke Company established the first town. Many immigrants from around the world came here to mine. Coal mines on the Alberta side of the pass have all closed at this point, so residents travel to the British Columbia side for work. Rum runners, forest fires, coal mining and natural disasters are all part of the legacy here. One of the main points of interest is the Burmis Tree. Think of this as a tree skeleton. The Burmis Tree is thought to have lived for 700 years and then it died, leaving its twisted branches bare. This death occurred in the 1970s and two decades later, the tree was toppled in a wind storm. Generally this would mean that the tree would be left to decay back into the land or be hauled off for firewood, but the residents didn't want to lose their beloved tree so they secured it with brackets and steel rods. In 2004, some vandals cut off one of its main branches and the residents came back to its rescue and glued the large branch back on and braced it with a prop pole. 

The Frank Slide Interpretive Centre tells the story of a natural disaster that took just 90 seconds to change the lives of the people that lived in the Village of Frank. The Blackfoot and Kutenai had lived here before European settlers and they referred to the nearby Turtle Mountain as the "Mountain That Moves." They would never camp at the base of the mountain. The village was named for Henry Frank who was a co-owner of the Canadian-American Coal and Coke Company. Frank helped layout the town and by 1903, there were 600 people in the village. None of them knew how dangerous their location was. Turtle Mountain was an anticline, a geographic feature that forms when convergent tectonic plates fold rock layers into an arch. This makes for a very unstable mountain. As did the fault line beneath it. Add to that mining operations with the digging of shafts and pulling material like coal out of the mountain and Turtle Mountain was a ticking time bomb.

There were signs that were ignored. Coal would fall from the ceiling and seams of the tunnel and rather than realize that this meant the mountain was unstable, the miners were glad that their work was made easier. All they had to do was shovel the coal into carts and bins. The mountain would shake on occasion too. A warm winter in 1903 allowed more water into the caverns and then that water froze in the fissures and caused erosion. The night of April 28, 1903 saw temperatures drop to below zero. The following morning, 82 million tons of limestone rock broke off the peak of Turtle Mountain and took just 90 seconds for the slide to reach up the opposing hills. The section of slide was 3,300 feet wide and 1,394 feet high and traveled at 70 mph. There was nothing anyone could do to escape and at least 70 lives were lost, possibly 90. However, several survivors were pulled from the rubble and Charlie the Horse was found alive after being trapped in the mine for 31 days. Although, his rescuers did him wrong by allowing him to gorge on oats and brandy. This was a starved horse and eating that much killed him. Solid train cars were thrown two miles by the force. The village of Frank was buried under 150 feet of rubble. The sound was heard over 124 miles away. This was the most deadly landslide in Canadian history. The path of the slide still has no vegetation or soil to this day.

Such a devastating disaster leaves an opening for legends and ghost stories, especially when most of the dead were left buried under the slide. Many people who have visited the Frank Slide area claim to feel an oppressive feeling and a sense of being watched by something unseen. Disembodied whispers are heard and strange lights are seen floating around the debris field. Could these represent miners headlamps? Those lights bob around as though the spirits holding the lights are stumbling around on the rubble. Mysterious mists sometimes form and visitors claim to see shadow figures and apparitions. Montie Lewis was a painted lady that worked in the Village of Frank and she was murdered one night. She was found hacked up good and she had defensive wounds, so she fought for her life. A newcomer in town was blamed for the murder and he was quickly hanged, but it is thought that they had the wrong man. Montie's lover is said to have confessed later and he said he killed her because he had to repay a gambling debt. Montie liked to spend her money on expensive jewelry and she wore it to bed every night for safe keeping. Apparently, her lover decided to kill her to steal that jewelry, but he actually didn't take the jewelry and only took around $200 Montie had in her room. Montie now haunts the streets of Frank and her favorite thing to do is lure hikers off trails and her screams are heard in the valley. Of course, these could be slide victims as well. In the 1980s, two boys were hiking through the pass and they became lost and then trapped. The boys yelled for help, but their voices seemed to be drowned out by the stone walls of the mountains around them and something else. They claimed to hear the yelling of a woman. The lost hikers were found after their parents reported them missing and a search party found them.

So we've had the deadliest landslide in Canadian history here, which is bad enough. But this location also boasts the deadliest mine tragedy in Canadian history. The Hillcrest Mine Disaster Memorial Park pays tribute to the victims of this mine explosion. Hillcrest started as a company town for Hillcrest Coal and Coke, eventually becoming Hillcrest Collieries in 1909. The name came from Charles Plummer Hill who staked the original coal claim in 1898. Over time, six million tons of coal were pulled from this mine and it was the kind of coal suitable for industrial use. The disaster occurred on the morning of June 19, 1914, right at shift change. There is always a problem with a build up of gas in mines and on this morning, methane gas had built to a dangerous level and it triggered an explosion. Men near the blast were killed immediately, but it would be the afterdamp that proved most dangerous. Afterdamp is a toxic mixture of gases released after an explosion. 

On top of that, fires started that also created suffocating smoke. Rescuers got to work immediately bringing bodies to the surface in coal cars. Most on board were either charred or suffocated. Desperate family members gathered outside the mine. One Hundred and eighty-nine men perished that day of the 237 that entered the mine. The first victim found was a man named Charles Ironmonger who worked the hoist cable outside the mine that hauled miners to the surface in cars. The blast was so powerful that, despite being outside, Charles was thrown 60 feet into the air and into the hoist house. The oldest victim was 54 and the youngest was 17. Widows were left devastated and destitute. This would spark changes in Workman's Compensation and safety regulations. The mine reopened and would experience another explosion in 1926 that only killed two men. The mine permanently closed in 1939.

Hillcrest Cemetery is located at 200 4 Avenue on the eastern slope of Turtle Mountain in Crowsnest Pass and is a Provincial Historic Resource that is on nearly two acres of land. Two mass graves were dug at the cemetery to ensure the bodies were buried quickly. One grave was for the Protestants and the other for the Catholics. A beautiful memorial reads, "As they had worked, so they were laid. Shoulder to shoulder in common graves." Every year since the disaster, residents of Crowsnest Pass have honored the dead at the cemetery. The first year was led by the International Order of Oddfellows and 1,000 people attended. Over the years, the community added a picket fence and curbing around the mass graves and several monuments. For the 100th anniversary, a major landscaping project was completed. The cemetery is said to be haunted by the victims of the disaster. People see shadow figures and strange lights here too.

West Canadian Collieries opened the Bellevue Mine in 1905 after coal deposits were found in 1903 . The company founded the town of Bellevue on the flat land above the mine. The young daughter of one of the owners of the coal mining company had exclaimed, “Quelle belle vue!” when she saw the view, which means "what a beautiful view" and the name Bellevue stuck. The WCC opened many mines in the area. They had operations in Lille, which is today a ghost town, and they built the settlement of Maple Leaf next to Bellevue and opened the Mohawk Bituminous Mine there in 1909. Working conditions within the Bellevue Mine weren't great and employees would complain often and hold strikes. Fan systems that would help in mines later with pushing out gases, weren't in use here. Fire bosses also were negligent in checking the gas levels. That is why during a partial shift change on December 9th, 1910 the mine erupted in an explosion. The closest rescue crew was in Hosmer, British Columbia, which was six hours away by rail. Bellevue Mine managers John Powell, Frank Lewis, and Pit Boss John Anderson knew they were the only hope and they ran into the mine without protective gear or breathing apparatuses. The crew from British Columbia brought miners, engineers, fire bosses, pit bosses and a town doctor. One rescuer named Fred Alderson died when he handed his breathing apparatus to another person. Thirty miners had died, but it could have been worse if this had been a day shift. Two hundred men could have died.

Bellevue suffered more tragedy in a fire in 1917. Most of the business district was destroyed. That same year, Bellevue finally incorporated into a village. Surprisingly, they also elected the first female mayor in Alberta at that time. Miners held a six month strike in 1924. The mine had difficulties throughout the 1940s and 1950s and then the mine lost its largest customer. The mine sought to sell on markets overseas, but had no luck. The mine closed for good in January 1961. Today, the mine functions as a museum and the Bellevue Underground Mine Tour maintains and operates 985 feet of restored tunnel that people can tour. 

On the seedy side of things, Bellevue was another big rum running town. Emilio Picariello was the kingpin of the Crowsnest rum runners. People called him Emperor Pic. He didn't live in Bellevue, but three local miners set their sites on robbing him when he came through on the Canadian Pacific Railway’s train No. 63. These miners were George Arkoff, Ausby Auloff and Tom Bassoff. They robbed the train at gunpoint, but Emperor Pic wasn't aboard. The men ran off and split up. Auloff headed for the United States, but Bassoff and Arkoff remained in the Pass area. They were so brazen, they stopped at the Bellevue Cafe for food one day. They were reported and three constables entered the café through the front and back doors and a shootout ensued. Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Ernest Usher and APP Constable F.W.E. Bailey were killed. Arkoff was killed and Bassoff was wounded and he escaped into the rubble of the Frank Slide. He was pursued and eventually apprehended, but Special Constable Nicolas Kyslik was shot and killed by friendly fire. Bassoff was found guilty of murder and hanged in Lethbridge, Alberta on December 22, 1920. Auloff was captured in 1924 near Butte, Montana and returned to Alberta where he stood trial and was sentenced to seven years for the robbery. He died in 1926.

The mine has many ghost stories connected to it. Bellevue miners reportedly saw a ghostly white horse walking through the mine shafts, sometimes accompanied by other ghosts. One of those spirits was a little boy and the other was our traditional woman in white. Many of the spirits are seen maily by school children visiting the mines and historic area. They will ask, "who is that man?" and the teachers or tour guides will look where the child is pointing and see nothing. The Bellevue Mine runs a haunted mine attraction every Halloween. Two staff members were in their stations awaiting their opportunity to scare guests when they felt a presence float above the top of them and then press down on them. This is weird enough, but it gets weirder because those scare stations weren't near each other. The cast had all gathered together at the end of the night and the two staff members shared their experiences and realized they had both had the same thing happen to them.

A tour guide was leading a group one day and she asked all the tour attendees to turn off their lights in the mine to show them how dark it could be. Suddenly, she felt as though she were kicked by a horse, so she turned on her light thinking she would find that a bratty kid had kicked her. After turning the light on, she saw that her tour group was too far away so it couldn't have been any of them. On another tour, a different guide got to this same area where they do the "turn off your lights" thing and she felt a pair of hands grab her and lift her up and then drop her a few inches. She quickly turned on her light and saw that her tour group was too far away for any of them to have grabbed her. Other tour guides have felt taps on their shoulders when no one is behind them. A father and his young son were on a tour and they claimed to be tickled by something they couldn't see. They claimed that a voice whispered "Fred." There was a rescuer who died when he was overcome by gas. Ghost hunters visited the mine and also had an experience with Fred. 

In 2016, Executive Director of the mine Elaine Hruby and Vice Chairman Ron Hruby shared an experience they had in 2013. The museum at the mine had just acquired a mine whistle. Later on a tour, Elaine and another woman heard a whistle and Elaine told the woman that Ron had probably set up the whistle and was testing it. She later told Ron that the whistle sounded great and he looked at her funny. He told her that the whistle was still on his desk.

Blairmore is the oldest permanent settlement in Crowsnest Pass. It first was used as a Canadian Pacific Railway stop that was called The Springs for a nearby cold sulphur spring. The name was changed to Blairmore in 1898 and the town was incorporated in 1911. Coal mining started here in 1907 and its economic prowess grew after the Frank Slide. An eight-month miners strike took place in 1933. Emperor Pic that we mentioned earlier, owned the Alberta Hotel in Blairmore and he ran it as his front. In 1922, he and an accomplice named Florence Losandro shot and killed Constable Steven Lawson. The men were caught, convicted and hanged for the murder.

Lost Lemon Campground is in Blairmore at 11001 19th Avenue. The camp is named for the Lost Lemon Mine and there is a legend about this mine that dates back to 1870. A party of prospectors left Montana, heading for Canada and two of the men, Frank Lemon and Blackjack, broke off from the group. They found gold ore along their way and decided to take samples back to Montana to find someone to bankroll a mining operation. The two men set up camp, but after a bit of drinking, the two fought with each other and by morning, Blackjack had been killed by Frank Lemon. Lemon returned to Montana and confessed his crime to a priest, not from guilt, but because he felt Blackjack was haunting him. He had heard ghostly moans the night after he killed Blackjack and even saw disembodied glowing eyes. The priest sent a man to find the body of Blackjack and bury him properly, which was done, but it mattered not. Blackjack tormented Lemon until the man had gone insane. He was sent off to his brother's ranch where he died. The legend continued though with people seeking the Lost Lemon Mine and the treasure of gold there. Any search has been cursed with forest fires, bouts of illness and even insanity and people claim to see Blackjack's ghost guarding the area.

Greenhill Mine was started by the West Canadian Collieries in 1913 in Blairmore. The mine was on the side of Bluff Mountain and hit peak production in 1946 and was closed in 1957. Wolf Paranormal Investigations investigated the Greenhill Mine in 2013. They reported, "Inside [one of the machine buildings], hanging from a rafter, was a large object comprised of what looked like small branches tangled together into the shape of a kind of mobile. Bolted onto the concrete floor were various pieces of smaller equipment, one of which may have been a crusher. Robyn asked for a sign of any spirit presence, and almost immediately, she reported hearing what she described as a growl. She asked Trevor if his stomach had just rumbled, and Trevor said he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think it was him. When Robyn made a second request for a sign of spirit presence, both she and Trevor heard what they described as machinery grinding. Since there is no power to any of the buildings in the complex, Robyn and Trevor went outside the building to see if they could find a possible source for the distinctive sound. They were unsuccessful. When they returned to the inside of the building and Robyn asked a third time for a sign of spirit presence, both she and Trevor heard a pebble being tossed. Trevor noted that it came from behind Robyn’s back. Robyn asked for the event to be repeated, just to be sure it was not a fluke, and no sooner had she made the request than both she and Trevor heard the sound of many pebbles being dropped on the roof of the building. The wind had come up, so they immediately went outside to see if trees were responsible for the sound. There were no coniferous (cone-bearing) trees near the building; there were only slender aspens whose limbs reached well above the roof. Robyn and Trevor checked everything near the outside of the building, but they could not find the source of the sounds they heard. At the same time Robyn and Trevor were experiencing unusual events, Holly and Michele were experiencing similar events at the compressor building, where a large boiler outside used to power the compressors that powered the air hoses and other tools. A request was made for a sign of spirit presence, and suddenly, from somewhere near the boiler, both Holly and Michele heard the sound of pebbles being scattered across the concrete slab into which the boiler is bolted. Trying to ensure that this was not just a fluke or a small animal, a request for confirmation of spirit presence was made. Both Holly and Michele reported hearing pebbles being thrown on the roof almost immediately, as well as loud banging against the sides of the compressor building itself. Holly and Michele investigated the exterior of the building, searching for possible causes for the odd sounds. They noted that the wind had come up, and that there were several slender aspens swaying back and forth, but none were hitting the building, and there were no coniferous trees near the roof that could explain the sound of many pebbles being thrown down on it. Concerned that perhaps a nesting animal had been disturbed, or that there was larger wildlife in the woods that could pose a potential threat, Holly and Michele decided to leave the area and meet with Robyn and Trevor to find a different area of the site to investigate. After reporting the events to Robyn and Trevor, Holly and Michele returned to the vehicle and sat inside to wait for Robyn and Trevor to finish their investigation of the machine building, which they were still in when Michele and Holly reported their experiences. Interestingly, Robyn and Trevor later reported hearing footsteps and a disembodied voice, both of which they attributed to Holly. However, they realized that Holly could not be the source of either sound: She and Michele were in the car, which was parked approximately 100 feet away from the building Robyn and Trevor were still investigating, and Holly’s gait was slow and awkward due to a broken toe, whereas the footsteps Robyn and Trevor heard were quicker and more even."

Crowsnest Pass is beautiful and provided an opportunity for a new life to many immigrants. Coal mining brought work and wealth, but also tragedy for countless families. The mountains could be unforgiving. And now they seem to be unable to give up their ghosts. Is Alberta's Crowsnest Pass haunted? That is for you to decide!