HGB Ep. 605 - The Life and Afterlife of Liberace

This Month in History - Bobbies Hit the Streets

In the month of September, on the 29th, in 1829, uniformed officers of London's Metropolitan Police force began their first street patrols. The police were nicknamed 'Bobbies' or 'Peelers' for Sir Robert Peel. Peel was England's Home Secretary, and was responsible for internal affairs like overseeing law enforcement, shaping criminal and penal law, and managing prison reforms. Sir Peel became known as the 'Father of Modern Policing' as this was the first time that officers were trained to prevent crime, rather than just respond to it after it occurred. Peel wanted the officers' uniforms to be more distinctly differentiated from that of a soldiers' attire. This was achieved by having the bobbies dress in jackets with blue tailcoats and top hats to appear more like civilians. The look was designed to establish trust in the community. Their uniform also included a truncheon, which was a short wooden club as well as a rattle to signal for assistance, although the rattle was later replaced by a whistle. Along with an emphasis of crime prevention, the Bobbies also needed to adhere to a list of principled ethical guidelines. The creation of the Metropolitan Police Bobbies provided a new model for policing that influenced other forces in Britain and around the world. 

The Life and Afterlife of Liberace 

Pianist and singer Liberace was one-of-a-kind with big dimples, pompadour hair, huge rings on his fingers and expensive and flamboyant suits and capes. No one had his flair or style and he had a great dynamic with his audience, proclaiming often that he agreed with Mae West when she said, "Too much of a good thing, is wonderful." He was once the highest paid entertainer in the world. When one thinks of Liberace, the first thing that comes to mind are the costumes. Oh, those costumes! He grew up at a time when being openly gay was frowned upon and even dangerous and thus he denied his homosexuality all the way to his death from AIDS. So much talent and style couldn't possibly just go away with death. His spirit still watches over his collections. Join us for the life and afterlife of Liberace!

Liberace was the kind of performer who would fly onto the stage strapped onto a flying harness suspended 25 feet above the stage with a cape of ostrich feathers fluttering around him. His costumes were everything. He began with humble beginnings. Liberace was born in of all places, Wisconsin. He was born as Wladziu Valentino Liberace on May 16, 1919 to a Polish mother and an Italian father. Like Elvis, Liberace was born a twin, but his twin passed away at birth. Perhaps because Liberace was a big baby at 13 pounds and he was born with a caul around him, which in some cultures is believed to signify that a child will be greatly gifted. Liberace was called Wally as a child and later he would go by the name Lee, which is what we will call him. His father was a musician and wanted all of his children to become musicians, but his mother thought that music lessons were too expensive. She herself had been a concert pianist before getting married. The couple often fought, sometimes physically, over the amount of music in the children's lives. Dad won out and Lee began piano lessons at the age of four and at the age of seven, he won a scholarship at the Wisconsin College of Music, which lasted for seventeen years. That was the longest scholarship that had ever been awarded. Liberace was a prodigy and able to memorize difficult pieces even at the age of seven. 

At the age of eight, Lee would meet Polish pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski and after watching the man play, Liberace knew that this is wanted he wanted to do with his life. Paderewski would become his mentor. Liberace said, "When I was a little boy, about 7 years old, I was greatly inspired by a visit from the famous Polish pianist Paderewski who was a friend of my mother’s. He came to our home and played for us and he asked me to play for him. He greatly encouraged my parents to let me follow music for my livelihood; and also he was the one who suggested that I adopt the use of my one name 'Liberace.' I shall never forget the number I played for him because it was his own composition, Paderewski’s Minuet."

Now, while Lee's fingers would float gracefully above the piano keys, his tongue did not do so inside his mouth. He developed a speech impediment that he would overcome with correction classes. As a child he gravitated to cooking and obviously liked music and he resisted playing sports, so the boys in the neighborhood teased him ruthlessly. Lee's older brother George suggested that he take some of his ragtime pieces to the theater and perform. Before long, he was playing on the local radio and for weddings, cabarets and even strip clubs. This is all before the age of 20. And a little fun fact, Diane had no idea where Bugs Bunny got his catch phrase, "I wish my brother George was here." It's something she says all the time. As she researched and listened to Liberace talking and read that his brother's name was George, the light bulb went off. Bugs Bunny was mimicking something Liberace used to say when his brother didn't appear on a show he will do later. The 1940s had early music videos that were called Soundies and Liberace started appearing in some of them. His big break came when he was 24 and played Las Vegas. At this point, Lee had pulled away from classical piano performances and started adding pop into the classical music. He said it was "classical music with the boring parts left out." A piece might run from Chopin into "Home on the Range." During this time, to separate his fun music from serious concert music he performed with the symphony, he went by the stage name Walter Busterkeys. The women loved him! He was handsome and charming and was a magnetic performer. It gave the ladies something to do while their husbands gambled. The casinos took notice that Liberace was drawing crowds and they started paying him a lot of money. Lee was a really funny and enchanting man and he quickly took to interacting with the audience. He would make jokes, ask for requests and even let audience members play the piano as he taught them.

By the mid-1940s. Liberace had made the candelabrum a part of his trademark setup. These would factor heavily into the decor in his future homes as well. And he officially took on Liberace as his stage name at this time as well. He wore white suits with tails to be better seen on the stage. Liberace purchased a rare gold-leafed Bluthner Grand piano to make his stage presence even bigger and he called the piano "priceless." More pianos would follow with various decor from rhinestones to mirrors to paintings. After his run in Las Vegas, he moved to North Hollywood and played in local clubs there, particularly supper clubs.

But Liberace had bigger dreams. He wasn't satisfied playing in these smaller clubs. Lee wanted to be really famous. He wanted to be on television and wanted to be an actor. He returned to Vegas with a bigger act and extravagant costumes. This big act would become his hallmark and he became very wealthy and famous with it. In 1954, Liberace performed at Madison Square Garden and he made what would be over $1.6 million in today's dollars. He had a deal with the Riviera shortly after this and was making $586,000 a week in today's dollars. Lee's affinity for putting on a show, rather than a concert, earned him a lot of criticism. Music critics didn't like that he changed up the compositions of great composers making them easier to play or sometimes, more complex. They said he had sloppy technique. But the crowds loved what he did and he earned the nickname "Mr. Showmanship." A critic wrote, "Mr. Showmanship has another more potent, drawing power to his show: the warm and wonderful way he works his audience. Surprisingly enough, behind all the glitz glitter, the corny false modesty, and the shy smile, Liberace exudes a love that is returned to him a thousand-fold."

Lee would then get into television with The Liberace Show, which ran from 1950 to 1954 and 1969. The general manager of Los Angeles station KLAC-TV, Don Fedderson, saw Liberace perform at the Hotel del Coronado in 1950 and he got the idea that Liberace would be great for TV. The show started as a summer replacement for the Dinah Shore Show that was live, but went syndicated in 1953 as a filmed show. This was a smash hit and it hit the sweet spot of being both folksy and campy. The show had more viewers than I Love Lucy and won two Emmies. His brother George would join him often, playing his violin and doing orchestral arrangements. The show always signed off with Liberace singing "I'll Be Seeing You." There would also be sold out shows at Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl and other venues. 

His career begun to slump from overexposure on TV, so he returned to supper clubs and performing around the world. In 1955, he opened at the Riviera in Las Vegas for $50,000 per week, becoming the city's highest paid entertainer. He referred to himself as a one-man Disneyland. Lee was struck with acute kidney failure in 1963 and spent five days in the hospital. The doctors found that the cause was carbon tetrachloride, which was a compound used as a solvent and in fire extinguishers before being mostly banned. Liberace had been using it to clean his own costumes when hotel staff refused to send them out because a blizzard was raging outside in Pittsburgh. He took to the stage after cleaning the costumes and became dizzy and he rushed offstage. Lee was rushed to the hospital. Doctors told Liberace to get his affairs in place because he was probably going to die. A priest administered last rites. The doctors did try a new form of treatment at the time, hemodialysis - dialysis. This seemed to do the trick, but Lee actually thought that he had experienced a miracle and that it came in the form of a spectral nun. Liberace said, "A nun I’d never seen before came into my room and sat next to my bed and said softly, ‘St. Anthony has performed many miracles. Pray to him.’" And she informed him that everybody in the hospital was praying for him. Lee prayed earnestly himself and he began to recover. Later, he wanted to thank the nun and asked hospital staff about her and nobody recognized the description, particularly the fact that she was wearing a white habit. A staff member said, "But we have no sisters with white habits at St. Francis." Liberace believed that the spectral nun was a visiting angel and he later built a shrine to St. Anthony in his Palm Springs home. He wrote, "Maybe I was heavily sedated. Perhaps I was hallucinating in the fever of crisis. Whatever it was, that sister will always live in my heart. She was the herald of what I choose to believe was another miracle of St. Anthony." 

Later on, Lee returned to TV for lots of guest appearances on shows hosted by Red Skelton and Jack Benny, Batman and Saturday Night Live (on a tenth-season episode hosted by Hulk Hogan and Mr. T). He even managed to get on a WrestleMania in 1985 and served as a guest timekeeper. There were a few movies he made appearances in as well. His popularity brought about 200 fan clubs and he received 25,000 Valentines each year and even had 12 marriage proposals. Lee received six gold records in his lifetime. 

In Liberace's personal life, he surrounded himself with friends and his family. As we shared, he worked with his brother in television. His sister was also a big part of his life, serving as his personal secretary. Lee's mother and father had divorced in 1941 and he took on the care of his mother until her death in 1980. Apparently, he had spotted his father with another woman who would become his step-mother and he kept it a secret from his mother to spare her pain. The 2000 BBC documentary Reputations: Liberace: Too Much of a Good Thing is Wonderful shared that Liberace's mother would occasionally help herself to things in stores without paying. And Lee would get a phone call that the store didn't want to make a public deal of it and he would go get her and take care of making it up to the store. 

He owned six homes (one of which had a piano-shaped swimming pool), 100 pianos, 30 cars, and his one home had a wardrobe with sliding glass doors and contained 200 suits, 400 sport shirts and pants, and 100 pairs of shoes. All of his clothes he bought in three sizes because he liked to eat: thin, fat and impossible. He would say, "My clothes may look funny but they're making me the money." His costumes would run anywhere from $150,000 to the most expensive that was $300,000.  

The World of Liberace is free on Pluto and its so much fun because it's like Liberace is giving you a tour of his two mansions and his piano collection and talking a bit about his life and he cooks! Just getting to see the antiques that he collected is worth the watch - how we wish this was filmed in HD or 4K. At the Cloisters mansion in Palm Springs, Lee had his most expensive antique and that was a Louis the 15th desk, which was presented to Czar Nicolas II of Russia and upon which the Franco-Russian Alliance was signed. And we loved this one part where he opens a cabinet in the dining room and it has a bunch of glassware in it and he says that the glasses were made in Czechoslovakia, but that he actually bought them from Walt Disney World in Orlando. Liberace grew up during a time when being openly gay could utterly destroy a career. And women loved him so much, he surely worried that he would lose his biggest fan base. When he was publicly accused of being gay in tabloids, he would sue. One such lawsuit took place after Liberace went to London and performed for the Queen and this was against London Daily Mirror columnist "Cassandra" (William Neil Connor. Lee won. Another lawsuit was against the infamous scandal magazine Confidential. Despite claiming in court multiple times that he wasn't gay, it wasn't the truth. Liberace would never admit it and it wouldn't be until his death from AIDS at the age of 67 on February 4, 1987, that the truth was revealed. One of his partners was Scott Thorson and the two were together for five years, starting in 1977. When the couple broke up, Thorson sued Liberace for palimony in the first gay suit of its kind and wrote a tell-all book called Behind the Candelabra. That was eventually made into the movie of the same name starring Michael Douglas. According to Thorson, Liberace paid for plastic surgery that made him look more like Lee and that he helped to get him hooked on drugs and that Lee was very promiscuous during their relationship. Thorson had his chin implant removed in 2002. Liberace settled with Thorson for $95,000 and three cars and three dogs. Thorson had a rough life after spending time in jail for theft and eventually dying from cancer and heart disease in 2024 at the age of 65. *Fun Fact: Betty White claimed to serve as his beard to squelch rumors of him being gay*

The final stage performance for Liberace was on November 2, 1986 at New York's Radio City Music Hall. His final television appearance was on Christmas Day on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986. The official story claims that he never sought any treatment for his AIDS, almost as though he thought ignoring it would make it go away. (Diane talks about her friend Steve who did the same thing.) Lee dealt with pneumonia in January of 1987 and was hospitalized and went home where he fell into a coma shortly thereafter and was administered last rites. He died at the Cloisters on February 4, 1987.Liberace was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles.  

Such a spirited person would just have to haunt some place and it would seem that Lee haunts several locations. Liberace himself claimed that the spirit of Franz Liszt (List) haunted him and inspired him because he owned the classical composers piano. Whenever Liberace sat at the piano, he felt the presence of Liszt and as though the composer was moving his hands. Michael Jackson comes up twice with these hauntings. First, The Liberace Museum in Las Vegas is hosted in one of Jackson's former homes, Thriller Villa. The Liberace Museum at Thriller Villa has never been open to the public and can only be seen through private bookings. Tickets run $179.00 in 2025. The Liberace Garage and Hollywood Cars Museum is much affordable at $17.95. This is a Mexican Hacienda-style home built in 1993. Jackson lived there from 2007 until his death in 2009. The Liberace Foundation bought the property and moved the Liberace Museum Collection in there from its original location that Liberace opened himself in 1979, mainly to have somewhere to store all his stuff. This closed in 2010 because attendance had dropped from 450,000 a year to less than 50,000. The car part of the collection is now stored at the Liberace Garage, with the rest at the Thriller Villa where it was moved in 2015. Some other pieces, like the jewelry have been put on display around the world. The ghost of Liberace has been attached to his collection. Wherever the collection goes, the ghost follows. Pianos play by themselves. A shadow figure is seen moving between rooms.

The second paranormal thing connected to Jackson was a story he told about Liberace's ghost. He claimed that Liberace appeared to him at Neverland Ranch a few times. The two men had been close friends before Liberace died. Jackson would communicate with the spirit of Liberace in a closed off room that was filled with mirrors and he would listen for Lee's voice. Jackson said that during one of these conversations, he was given permission to record "I'll Be Seeing You." He didn't get the chance before he too died. 

The Liberace Mansion is located at 4982 Shirley Street in Las Vegas and started off as two homes that Liberace combined. He lived here from the 1970s until his death in 1987. Like all of his homes, this one had opulent fixtures and mirrors. Some of the columns were imported from Greece. The ceilings were painted to look like the Palace of Versailles. Today, it is owned by Martyn Ravenhill. He bought it in 2013 and restored it. Private events and tours are offered.Some of the unique architectural features include:
    Entry door that once greeted guests at the New York governor’s mansion
    Front living room surrounded by decoratively etched mirrors in the style of Aubrey Beardsley
    21 chandeliers
    Decorative mirrored bar with etchings of Liberace’s name and music notes
    Eight marble pillars imported from Greece
    Staircase imported from a can-can bar in Paris
    The “Eternal Hall of mirrors” lit by ornamental sconces
    Master bedroom featuring a ceiling mural depicting the Sistine Chapel and painted by a descendant of Michelangelo
    The Moroccan Room, the second-floor atrium named for its Tangier-inspired design and imported copper tiles directly from Morocco.
     Memorabilia, pictures and items once owned by Liberace placed throughout.

Lee's spirit is said to be here. In 2017, in the early morning hours of September 23rd, in the area that had been Liberace’s dining room, a french door opened all on its own when no one was there. No one was in the house at the time and all doors were locked and secured. In 2018, a security camera inside the foyer showed the front doors opening and no one was on the other side and according to the owner, the home was empty at the time of the incident. And the front door was double bolted and the gate outside was locked and bolted. The lights are said to flicker on their own. 

Liberace's Tivoli Gardens was designed and owned by Liberace. The Liberace Museum was right next door to it. The inspiration behind the restaurant was the Tivoli Gardens Amusement Park in Copenhagen, Denmark. Lee had visited it on his last international tour in 1983. This amusement park had also inspired Walt Disney. The restaurant served international gourmet cuisine and was a key meeting place for show business royalty. The interior had tiny little lights all over and there was an elaborate English pub-style bar along with a piano bar, a room completely surrounded with mirrored walls and he had the the music and lyrics to the song I’ll Be  Seeing You encircling the room at the crown.It was incredibly successful, but Liberace had to sell it in 1986 as he got progressively sicker. A series of owners have operated it and it has fallen into disrepair. By 2023, the place was vacant with roof damaged. Vegan restaurateur Sacbe Meling bought it a restored the interior and got permission to use the name Liberace's Tivoli Garden. It reopened on May 16, 2023, Liberace’s 104th anniversary serving vegan food. It changed again and is now called Hacienda El Conejo. The interior looked completely changed. Liberace haunts the place, maybe because it has changed so much. 

Lee's apparition has been seen peeking into the banquet room in the back of the restaurant from outside through the windows. Years ago, all the power in the building turned off suddenly. Electricity was still working in adjacent buildings, so one of the waitresses commented that it was Liberace's birthday and maybe they should sing to him. So the staff sang Happy Birthday and the power came back on. An electrician was called in the next day and he could fins nothing wrong with the system. On another night, someone said something offensive about Liberace and a tree in a pot near the bar fell over. It took five men to get the tree righted, so it took some power to knock it down. 

So apparently the singer Debbie Gibson - who was popular back in the 1980s - idolized Liberace. When she was seven-years-old, her grandparents gave her the gift of going to see Liberace in concert. She would later purchase one of his pianos that was all mirrors and glass. When she heard that Liberace passed away, she was really sad and decided that she wanted to try to contact him through a seance  when she hosted a slumber party. They used a Ouija board and she told Liberace she was a big fan and that she would love a sign from him. It was quiet for a minute and then all of a sudden a few keys on the piano in her bedroom made noise, as if something had dropped down on them. Debbie had been asked to make an appearance on the celebrity psychic John Edwards show. She shares what happened on Celebrity Ghost Stories. "I got this call to do a TV show with a psychic medium that would contact people from the afterlife. I was like I don't know who he's going to contact but sure okay. As I was walking out the door to go tape the show, I hear this [plink] on the floor and a mirror had broken off my Liberace piano and I was a little bit spooked and went over to the mirror and picked it up. I put it in my purse and I headed to the TV studio. I was a mystery guest and the psychic couldn't see me because our backs were to each other. So I'm getting my reading done and he asks if I'm from the East Coast and I say 'yes' and he asks if I'm from New York and I say 'yes' and he starts to ask something else and then stops abruptly and says 'Surely, you couldn't have brought a piano with you. I answered that I did kind of have a piano with me. That I brought a piece of a very sentimental piano. He says, 'I'm feeling a very strong artistic male presence. A musical presence' and then he proceeded to nail that it was Liberace and that he did want to come through and communicate with me that day. I could not believe that this random medium who I had never met, pulled this out of thin air. The medium then said 'He's here, he's around you, he's watching over you and that piano.' I definitely felt that he was around me." When she first brought the piano into her house, her cat seemed to have reactions to it. She also wrote this mysterious composition that was like nothing she had ever created before and she said that those close to her have said that it sounds very different from her other compositions and she jokingly referred to it as "more sophisticated than anything [she’d] ever written!" Furthermore, Debbie also alluded to not being familiar with those chords.

She continued that the most extraordinary experience she had came when she went to Salt Lake City to do a couple of concerts. Debbie asked a concierge if there was anything nearby she could do and the concierge suggested a used book store. She grabbed a pile of books and headed for the cash register. And I heard a thump. I knew that that thump was for me. She heard a thump behind her. She said, "And I looked over my shoulder and lo and behold, there was a book that had fallen off the shelf. I looked down and staring up at me is Mr. Showmanship himself, a picture of Liberace on the cover. It was an autobiography. And I was like, OK, this is weird. And I opened the book to start thumbing through it and out falls a piece of mail, an envelope. And I could not believe it. The return address said 'George Liberace Orchestrations.' Now, George was his brother. And I opened it up. It was an original Western Union Telegram. And it was dated April, 1957. And in my state of feeling anxious and wondering if I am doing the right things in my career, and all-- all my worry, I looked down and remember that I have a concert that night. And the telegram says, 'Good luck on your concert tonight.' And it's from Liberace himself. And I was like, oh my God. So spooked beyond belief. I put the letter back in the envelope. I could not believe that this original piece of mail found its way to me. I really just felt like that was his way of letting me know it was all gonna be OK. And you know what? It was. The concert went great that night and every other night. I think, overall, Liberace is like a guardian angel to me, because he has come to me at times when I've needed something beyond myself to get me through a certain time. And he's been there." 

Liberace was an extraordinary performer and an eccentric man. Those two things lend credence to the idea that his spirit would continue on and make itself known. He loved all of his clothes and pianos and other treasures. We're sure he would want to watch over his old stuff. Is Liberace's ghost haunting his collection? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 604 - The Elms Hotel

Moment in Oddity - The Tombstone House

Here at History Goes Bump, we often talk about how much we love cemeteries and old unique homes and architecture. In Petersburg, Virginia, there is a unique blending of all of the above. It is known as the Tombstone House. From the street, it looks like any ordinary block home. The two-story structure was built in 1934 at a cost of only $45 for the 2,200 marble blocks that were used for constructing the home. We are sure that by now, you have guessed where the marble blocks were sourced from. These were the bottom half of marble headstones. In the siege of Petersburg, during the last nine months of the Civil War, many of the Union soldiers who died in the battle, were buried at Poplar Lawn Cemetery. After the original wooden markers were beginning to rot away, the government replaced them with upright marble headstones. As we know, maintenance of old cemeteries can fall by the wayside, and it was during the Great Depression that the Poplar Lawn Cemetery decided to cut the existing tombstones in half, laying the inscripted parts flat on each individual grave vs having them stand erect. Of course this saved on mowing and maintenance fees for the cemetery. The construction of this modest home is quoted in articles as being, "A wonderful example of waste not, want not. Or is it waste not, haunt-not?". Local lore suggests that paranormal activity is experienced here. Haunted or not, a house constructed of repurposed headstones, certainly is odd.

The Elms Hotel (Suggested by: Jared Spangler)

Thirty minutes north of Kansas City is Excelsior Springs, Missouri. This town was formed around natural springs that attracted Native American populations for centuries. Europeans eventually discovered them, settled here and marketed the waters for what they believed were their curative effects. The Elms Hotel was one of several lodgings offered in the city. The location burned down twice before this third version that stands today was built. There have been deaths here and that has led to hauntings. Join us for the history and hauntings of The Elms Hotel!

Excelsior Springs was shaped by water and not just any water, but water rich in Iron and Manganese. These waters were unique as compared to other mineral waters in the area. These waters were found in shallow places that had iron-bearing rocks along them and underneath them and this caused the water to take on a reddish hue. There was also a distinctive metallic taste to the water. Excelsior Springs had seven wells that contained this type of water. The Native Americans knew of these wells for hundreds of years and considered them healing. The Nebo Hill People were an early indigenous group near here. Europeans would arrive in 1682. Rene-Robert de LaSalle claimed for France all the land drained by the Mississippi River at that time. The United States would buy the territory in 1803 and that is when settlers would flock there. Anthony W. Wyman bought land near the Fishing River and apparently had no idea he was sitting on a spring of healing waters. That was until a black farmer named Travis Mellion came through the area in the summer of 1880 with his family. Stories vary on whether he was sick with scrofula or one of his children was. The main story shared claims it was a daughter named Opal, but census records reveal she wasn't born until later. Anyway, this scrofula was awful and a form of tuberculosis that afflicted the lymph nodes of the neck. It rarely is seen today, except in HIV/AIDS patients. These painful masses would grow on the neck. The narrative goes that Travis was told about these springs nearby that might be able to help and then either he or his child got in the water and bathed in it for weeks and the scrofula was cured.

Word reached a man named Frederick Kigler who had rheumatism and an old Civil War injury and he tried the water too and was also healed. Before long, word of these healings began to spread and people flocked to the region. A merchant-preacher named Rev. John Van Buren Flack in nearby Missouri City heard the rumors about these healing springs and he traveled to the springs and collected samples for analysis. The chemists who tested it reported that the water "justified expectations of curative results." Rev. Flack was a fan of Henry Longfellow, so he named the spring Excelsior and told Anthony Wyman that he should plat the land because people were going to want to move here and they needed a proper town. Flack and Wyman had the land surveyed and then they platted the entire 40 acres. One hundred houses were built within a year and the town of Excelsior Springs was founded.

Now our listeners are probably asking the same thing. This Wyman guy owned the land, so what in the world does Flack think he is doing? He just kinda moved himself right into ownership here. The two men formed an agreement on August 7, 1880 that read, "...on a part of said land is located the spring known as Excelsior, and to promote said enterprise, the said Wyman agrees that any and all of his land as owned and as needed shall be used in said enterprise, except his residence, mill site, and one square acre of land. Said Flack agrees to carefully collect and collate all evidence as to the merits of said spring, and to write and publish a pamphlet setting forth the same in full detail, and to mail the same to his numerous friends and acquaintances." So basically it seems that Wyman didn't want to run a business, he just wanted to keep run his farm and mill. He gave Flack an acre of land to build a hotel, residence and business house and left the promotion of everything to Flack and if he kept up his end of the bargain, he would receive 25% of "seen and unseen developments" and a percentage of town lot sales. So the good doctor was now tasked with being a marketer. And he did just that, running circulars in nearby towns, boasting of the curative effects of the waters in Excelsior. These boasts included curing people of dyspepsia, gravel, fever sores, sore eyes, scrofula, throat diseases, liver complaints and many other ailments. Flack eventually moved on to other endeavors, but he still would run ads for the springs.

Excelsior Springs got very popular at the end of the 1800s because the Progressive Era was in full swing and one of the reforms at that time involved a Clean Living Movement. This incorporated proper hygiene, exercising and a healthy diet. Bathing in natural springs was a part of the craze. Before hotels were built, people had to bring tents since there was nowhere to stay and they had to bring their own tin cups to draw water from a barrel sunk into the mud that captured water from the spring. In 1881, this spring was named Siloam and a wooden Oriental-style pagoda was added, so that made things a little nicer. 

Other springs were discovered nearby and they were named the Regent Spring, Lithia No. 1, the Soterian, Excelsior Springs Lithia Spring, Salt Sulphur Spring, Superior Spring, the Seltzer Salt Soda Spring, the Sulphur Salt Soda Spring, the Relief Spring and the list goes on. Well into the 1920s, more springs were discovered until there were over 30 and there were different chemical contents in several of them. Most were the ferro-manganese (so the iron) but there was also sodium bicarbonate, saline, calcium bicarbonate and sulphur. Each new well was tested and different curative effects were linked to each one. So Excelsior Springs really lived up to its name. The town built the Hall of Waters and bought nine of the springs. This facilitated the bottling and distributing of the mineral water. The Excelsior Springs Bottling Company took the water to the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 and both of their entries were awarded first prizes. 

Some of the successful businesses in Excelsior Springs incorporated modalities like massage into their services and there were a variety of bath types. And some of the most successful entrprenuers in the late 1800s and early 1900s were black. W.A. Doxey and his wife Alice had a popular bathhouse and they served a white clientele. 

The most successful black entrepreneur was Dt. Dee Amos Ellett. His parents had been slaves and he escaped captivity when he was 15-years-old. He fled from Virginia to Massachusetts where he became a body servant to Colonel Francis Washburn. When Washburn was killed in battle a man named Rev. Gray took him under his wing and made sure that he attended college. He became a teacher and then attended Howard University and earned his medical degree in 1885. Dr. Ellett arrived in Excelsior Springs in 1888 and set up a private practice, but was asked to head up the Elms Hotel’s bath facilities. He watched over that as he continued to run his own business and he eventually opened the first Star Bath House. An advertisement read, "The Star Bath House, D.A. Ellett, M.D., Prop. Gives all kinds of BATHS, Including mineral, plain, mud, vapor, Turkish, shower, douche, electric, magnetic. Chalybeate water (also known as ferrous or iron) used if desired. Magnetic treatment, oil rubs and massage. Everything first class."

The original Elms Hotel would be built here in 1888 by the Excelsior Springs Company. This was a three-story hotel with broad verandas that sat on a 50-acre site. Orchestras would entertain the guests on the verandas and they could sip their spring water as they gazed out at the lush forests around them. The hotel also had a large heated swimming pool, a four-lane bowling alley, a target range, and a billiards room. After only standing for ten years, the hotel caught fire and burned to the ground on May 8, 1898. The cause of the fire was thought to be a candle in the ballroom. Dancing by candlelight was probably not a good idea.

It was decided to rebuild, but it would take several years before construction would begin in 1908. The grand opening of this even bigger and better version of The Elms took place in July 1909. This hotel lasted even less time than the first. It burned down completely the following year in 1910 after a large party had been hosted in the Grand Ballroom. A boiler ignited and the roof was set ablaze. Thankfully, nobody was killed in either of these fires. So, they decided to try once again, but they got smart this time. They decided to make the place as fireproof as possible and so they built the hotel that stands today out of limestone and stucco. This is a really neat hotel because one wouldn't expect to see Tudor Revival architecture in Missouri. The architects were Jackson & McIlvain and they designed a five-story hotel with a full basement that resembles an H-shape with two, two-story semi-circular bays: one in the front and one in the back. Those bays have double-gable-on-hip roofs and the entire hotel has a gable-front roof. The entrance has a long porch with Tudor-arched spandrels between stone columns that are square and two oriel windows extend from the third to fourth story. The interior featured the same stone feel with tile floors and a brick front counter and a massive stone fireplace. There was a marble staircase leading to the grand ballroom with its own large stone fireplace. There are Tudor-inspired end spandrels in here. There was a dining room and restaurant and the really unique part of the hotel is found down in the basement - a large lap pool that is shaped in an oval with stone columns in the center creating a median, so it really is like a lap track. Construction was completed in 1912 and over 3,000 visited on opening day. 

The landscaping was amazing as well and was designed by landscape architect George E. Kessler. The 15-acre grounds feature curving graveled walkways with grass and large trees of all varieties dotting the landscape. A gazebo stands on the upper grounds. There is an outdoor swimming pool and hot tub added in 1956, a courtyard, tennis courts, picnic area and herb garden. Out buildings include a pump house and carriage house, which is today used for meeting space. The Fishing River runs nearby.

The 1920s were a successful time for the hotel, but the Great Depression would prove to be hard on the hotel and in 1931, it filed for bankruptcy. Prohibition had become law during this time as well and part of the reason for The Elms' success was that it became a speakeasy and gangsters frequented the hotel. "Big City" Tom Pendergast was the crime boss of Kansas City, so he hung out at the hotel and several times Al Capone came to the hotel. Pretty Boy Floyd and Bugsy Moran liked to host bathtub gin parties here. The police tried raiding the place many times and one time, the Missouri Governor was there at a party and he told the police to go bust people really breaking the law. President Harry Truman's early political career had connections to Tom Pendergast as he was military buddies and good friends with Perndergast's nephew. The Pendergast organization helped Truman with elections to county-wide positions and eventually Senator. Truman became President when FDR died in 1945. When he sought to retain the Presidency on November 2, 1948, President Truman checked into The Elms Hotel secretly. He was given Room 300 and he ordered a ham and cheese sandwich. He told the Secret Service he was going to retire early and that they should wake him if anything important happened. Truman clearly figured that the polls and political talking heads were all right and that Thomas Dewey was going to win the election. The Secret Service woke him up at 4am and turned on the radio where it was being reported that President Truman was in the lead and was projected to win. The President went to Kansas City for victory pictures and returned to The Elms for a party and really put the place on the map.

The 1950s and 60s would find the hotel a hotspot for weddings and honeymoons and corporations like the location for conventions. But then business slowed down and this became more of a motor inn and Sheraton bought the property, finally closing it in 1970. The hotel sat vacant for eight years. One of the reasons for this decline was due to the falling interest in the spring water.

Dr. Samuel Ball came to Excelsior Springs in 1918, and opened a private practice, that grew into the Ball Clinic that opened in 1919. This clinic specialized in the treatment of arthritis and rheumatism and would eventually have seven buildings. Dr. Ball drilled his own wells to begin with, but eventually used the water supplied by the Hall of Waters. Like all the other businesses in the area, Ball made big claims about the water. He retired in 1953 and died in 1956, shortly before the medical community started getting more vocal about being skeptical of clinics like this. The downfall for the Ball Clinic, and basically much of Excelsior Springs, came through a scathing expose written in the Saturday Evening Post by Ralph Lee Smith in the August 24, 1963 issue entitled The Hucksters of Pain. Smith revealed that $250 million a year had been made through peddling dubious remedies. He visited the clinic and lied about having issues with pain. Before this trip, he had visited one of the nation's most eminent specialists on arthritis and he found nothing wrong with Smith. However, Smith was told by the Ball Clinic that he had fibrositis also known as lumbago. They told him that this was a forerunner of arthritis, which it is not. The Arthritis and Rheumatism Foundation didn't think highly of the Ball Clinic and they told Smith that the Clinic's "theories about the causes of arthritis were 'disproven by medical science many years ago'." Weird machines were also used like the Sonus Film-o-Sonic machine, which the FDA tested and found to contain nothing therapeutic and they took legal action, seizing the machines. It was only a matter of months before the Ball Clinic closed its doors for good on December 31, 1963.

By 1981, there was a new owner and the hotel was refurbished and this brought an all-new spa renovation and this is when the lap pool went in that has a jogging track around it, there are cool and hot tubs, a waterfall tub and environmental rooms with cool mists and hot tubs. Part of the hotel was sold as time-share condos. Things were great for a decade, but 1991 brought another bankruptcy. The city stepped in and slowly bought interest in the hotel until it owned it in 1994. There was another huge renovation at that time and then another one in 2011 and today it is known as The Elms Hotel & Spa and has been proclaimed a Grand Dame of Hospitality with 152 guest rooms. 11,000 square feet of meeting space, including the 3,900-square-foot Elms Ballroom, a 42-seat amphitheater, a stone carriage house, and a 20-person boardroom. Amenities include two restaurants, two lounges, a 10,000-square-foot spa, an indoor European swim track, an indoor banked jogging track, a fitness room, an outdoor pool, a challenge course, a walking trail, and a professional volleyball court. 

The hospitality seems to run to the unseen as well. Several spirits find the hotel a comfortable place to remain in the afterlife. The Elms embraces their ghost stories. They offer a paranormal package that includes a one hour tour. The lap pool hosts someone from Prohibition days that is usually seen in a fedora hat. Gangsters stored their liquor down in the coolness of the basement and ran card games down here, out of sight. No one knows for sure, but it is believed that this man was killed during one of the illegal parties. Or maybe it was a hit that committed at the hotel. 

One of the spirits is a woman seen wearing a 1920s style maid uniform that usually appears on the third floor. She is said to be a nice spirit and ensures that the cleaning staff does their work correctly. Another female spirit is not so nice. She pulls people's hair and throws things. The story goes that she lost a child and is searching the hotel for that child and so she is angry. Room 422 was said to have a murder-suicide happen in there and this has led to a TV turning itself on and off. People have been scratched in Room 347.  

Everyday Outdoor Family on TikTok shared an experience she and her husband had at the hotel when they decided to book an overnight stay to get away from the kids for a night. They decided to go on the ghost tour and when they told the tour guide their room number, the guide asked if they wanted to know the stories connected to their room and she said that "of course they did." The room is known for things to move around. So as they were returning to their room after the tour, she and her husband were like, "Oh, is anything going to be moved around?" Everything was fine. So they went down to the pool and nothing happened. They returned to their room and again were kidding each other about whether stuff would be moved around - nothing. They get into bed and she asks her husband to close the curtains. These are really heavy curtains, not something that could easy be blown open. She wakes up at 2am and notices that the curtains are wide open. She goes back to sleep and asks her husband the next morning if he opened the curtains. He looks at them and goes, "Nooo." They couldn't figure out any reason why the curtains would be opened. The air conditioner was across the room. A person commented under the video, "I actually got married at the Elms, and when we were staying there that night, my husband was sleeping and I woke up, and I felt like someone was sitting on the side of the bed…..twice!!!!!" Another person commented, "My husband and I just stayed and had similar experiences. Doors opened when we woke up that we had shut before bed. LOTS of voices."

Investigator Janet Reed told 41 Action News that their team saw four wet footprints going away from the pool and disappearing like someone had just jumped out of the pool and walked off. She said of the girl ghost that roams the third floor, "I had a friend that stayed here and they thought I've got to get out there and tell that mother to take care of that child. they open the door and look down the hallways and there was no one there."  

These two guys named Jacob and Lucas stayed at the hotel in 2024 and they took the ghost tour at the hotel. They remarked that it seemed strange when they got to the Lap Pool and the tour guide told them that people see a male spirit standing at the far end of the room sometimes. They had both thought they saw something out of the corner of their eyes before when they were filming the pool area and doing a little swimming and they both had turned their heads at the same time, which made them think that something had to be there since they simultaneously thought they saw something., hearing the story on the tour convinced them that they probably did see an apparition. We just wanted to point out that there was this great moment in this video where they are partaking of a charcuterie board and they called it an adult lunchable. 

Ghost Moms stayed at the hotel in July 2025 and they set up a music box motion detector in the bathroom, which went off for quite a while. They wrote, "A motion detector being triggered by something unseen in the middle of the night is never going to not be terrifying. We were staying on the third floor of the Elms Hotel where guests have seen an apparition of a woman looking for her child and a maid roaming the halls. Maybe she was just trying to tidy up our room for us."

A woman was interviewed by the Excelsior Citizen and she was staying at the Elms with her husband. He went out for a bit and she decided to take a bath. In the middle of that the door handle jiggled and she wondered if he had left his key and so couldn't get in. She got out of the bath and went to the door and no one was there. Later, when he returned, she asked if he had tried to get in earlier an he said, "no." They checked the door handles and realized that moving the outside door knob doesn't move the inside doorknob, so how the handle was jiggling on the inside, they didn't know.

Ghost Hunters investigated in 2013. They brought a device with them that could detect when the water in the pool was disturbed. They also had something called a Shadow Detector that went off because the laser beam path was disturbed. At the end of the visit, they were comfortable claiming that the hotel indeed seemed to be haunted. But is The Elms Hotel haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 603 - Margam Castle

This Month in History - The Battle of Sedan (Suh-dawn)

In the month of September, on the 2nd, in 1870, Emperor Napoleon III surrendered to the Prussians during the Battle of Sedan. Napoleon III ruled France from December 1852 to September 1870. He rose to power after a coup and referendum in 1851 and was the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte I. The Battle of Sedan was a pivotal and decisive battle of the Franco-Prussian War. The war began in July of 1870 and France expected a quick victory. However on September 1st, the Prussian army surrounded Napoleon and his troops which numbered over 100,000 soldiers. The Prussians used superior organizational skills and employed exceptional artillery expertise during the intense battle. The following day, realizing there was no way for escape, Emperor Napoleon III surrendered. This event led to the collapse of the Second French Empire, thus ending the Bonaparte Dynasty, and resulted in Prussia's eventual victory and proclamation of the German Empire. 

Margam Castle (Suggested by: Lyn Beasley)

The visually stunning Margam Castle is located in Margam, Wales and while the 269,000 square foot structure resembles a castle, it really is technically just a country house. A very large country house. The reason it is referred to as a castle though is because it was made to look like a castle complete with an octagonal tower, turrets and battlements. While this was never a fortification, there are hill forts that dot the landscape, as do burial cairns. And what really makes this site remarkable is the nearby Margam Abbey, which lies in partial ruins. There are several spirits that call the castle home. Join us for the history and hauntings of Margam Castle. 

The area here has over 4,000 years of continuous habitation. The history here dates back to pre-historic times with relics dating to the Bronze and Iron Age and there is evidence of Roman and Celtic occupation. Margam started off as the cwmwd (koom wood) of Tir Iarll (Teer Yar-thll), in ancient times. A hill fort named Mynydd-y-Castell (Munith uh Cass-tell) was built here and there are still remains of that here. After the Norman invasion of Wales, Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester, and Lord of Glamorgan, gave the land to the Cistercians. The name Margam came with the founding of the Margam Abbey by the Cistercians in 1147. Prolific abbot and mystic St. Bernard of Clairvaux (Clair Voe) greatly expanded the Cistercian Order and this abbey played a significant part in getting his writing out there. He also revived Benedictine monastic life and advised multiple popes. King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in the 1530s and so in 1536, Margam Abbey was sold to Sir Rice Mansel. The abbey church would be retained as a parish church and it continues to be that today. The other buildings of the monastery would be sold off and some fell into ruins, like the twelve-sided Chapter House. 

Eventually the Talbot family would have possession of the Margam property through the female descended line of the Mansels. The Talbot family were a branch of the Earls of Shrewsbury. One of the monastery buildings was opened as the Margam Stones Museum. This is a little building next to the abbey church and contains 30 inscribed stones and crosses dating back to sixth-century Wales. These had served as milestones on Roman roads. One of the crosses is the Cross of Cobelin, which features a carved hunting scene. An effigy of a 14th century knight dressed in chain mail is here as well and he has a small dragon at the foot of his shield. And there is a grotesque gargoyle designed to void rainwater down its back. 

Margam would become an important part of the industrial base because it had a good harbor, named for the Talbot family, Port Talbot, and there were coal deposits. Coal mining in the parish took off in the late 18th century. Port Talbot would become a community of industrial workers. Margam would then be a suburb of Port Talbot. Urbanization would change the landscape, but Margam County Park preserved the history and the land. A deer herd that is here was thought to have been brought by the Romans. The park and estate covers 850 acres. The main part of the property is, of course, the castle. The castle is described as a "late Georgian country house," but it has many of the elements of a castle. This was the second estate built here. Despite owning the estates of Penrice and Oxwich, Sir Rhys Mansel built another estate here at Margam in the 1530s and this eventually was demolished. The Margam Castle that stands today was built for Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot and was designed by Thomas Hopper in the Tudor Revival style. Christopher was born in 1803 and everyone called him Kit. He loved to race yachts and was an accomplished musician. Kit collected art and was very good at chess. And he loved architecture and when it came to designing his home, he knew what he wanted. Talbot asked the architect Hopper to borrow elements from the family's ancestral home Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire and Melbury House in Dorset. Construction was started in 1830 and was completed in 1835. The castle's exterior was made from ashlar stone taken from the nearby Pyle quarry and features an elaborate Gothic porch, oriel and lancet windows, groups of chimney stacks, an octagonal tower and irregular gables and turrets and heraldic decor. 

The interior has a stunning, immense staircase hall that really has to be seen because words don't do it justice. A fire gutted the building in 1977, but its grandeur remains. Originally, the family rooms were set around a small courtyard on the west side of the terrace and people entered through an elaborate porch on the north side. The large quantity of windows that surround the octagonal tower, stream light down onto the staircase and reveals all the amazing plasterwork. Kit and his wife, Charlotte, filled the home with their four children. He passed away in 1890 as the richest commoner in Wales and the estate passed onto his daughter Emily Charlotte Talbot because his only son had died in 1876 due to a hunting accident. Emily made vast improvements to the property. When she died, her will gave the castle to her nephew, but it was adminstered through trustees who decided to auction off all the contents in 1941 and the estate itself was sold off in 1942. This property had been occupied by Sir Ryhs Mansel’s direct male descendants for six generations over 200 years. The castle was used by the military during World War II and then it was empty. Today, the castle and park is owned and administered by Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council.   

One of the unique extra structures, other than those left from the abbey, is the Orangery, which predates the current castle. We had never heard of an Orangery until a week ago when we watched the Thursday Murder Club on Netflix - and if you haven't watched that you should - and the place where the murder club meets is the Orangery of the historic estate where it was filmed. Or at least its supposed to be. The producers had it built. The Orangery lives up to its name because it housed a large collection of orange, lemon and citron trees that were inherited by Thomas Talbot. Construction on the Orangery started in 1787 and was completed in 1793 and measures 327 feet long, making it the longest in Britain. Architect Anthony Keck designed it. The collection of citrus trees predates that though with a gardener’s catalogue from 1727 listing more than 70 plants at the property. The Orangery has a row of 27 round-headed windows on the south side. It was heated by coal fires with chimneys that ran along the back wall. An east pavilion housed marble statues and busts, only one of which remains in the Orangery today. It's a life size 
statue of the Roman Emperor Lucius Verus. A collection of orange trees was maintained up until World War II. They were put outside and died during the winter weather. The Orangery was restored and reopened by the Queen during her Silver Jubilee visit in June 1977. 

William Henry Fox Talbot was a member of the family and he visited Margam often. We'll call him Henry. He was a scientist and inventor and one of his focuses was photography and he was a pioneer in that field. One of the processes he came up with was the salted paper, which produced positive prints from negatives and, obviously, used ordinary table salt to blot and dry a wet sheet of writing paper that had a strong solution of silver nitrate on the other side. The paper darkened and then was exposed to light  and a stronger solution of salt was used to stop exposure. It's chemistry, so way over our heads but it worked well. He also came up with calotype, which was paper coated with silver iodide. The term is Greek for beautiful impression. The silver chloride made paper sensitive to darkening when exposed to light. A draw back was that the exposure had to last for at least an hour. Imagine sitting that long for a picture. We've only seen examples with buildings because, uh yeah, whose sitting that long without moving? The castle was something that he used as a subject in many of his photographic experiments. And speaking of Margam and photography, this is the location of the earliest known Welsh photograph, which was a daguerreotype taken by Reverend Calvert Richard Jones on March 9, 1841. 

Visitors and guides and investigators claim that there are strange things that happen at the castle. There are several spirits here. Some of them are children, which are heard running around and giggling. Full-bodied apparitions of children in Victorian dress are seen. A security guard had just let in a group of investigators and sent them off to an upper floor when he had an experience with the children ghosts. He was standing by himself, looking out a window when he heard children running and giggling outside the room where he was standing. he looked out into the hallway, even though he knew that the ghost hunting group was all adults. Of course, there was nobody there. A day history tour was being conducted and a couple who brought their young son with them was doing the tour and about halfway through the tour, they noticed that there son was missing. Panic ensued as everyone searched the castle for him and when he was finally found, his parents asked him what he was doing and why he had left the group and he told them that he was playing with the other kids. Of which there were none. 

Shadow figures are also seen and one of these figures is very tall and likes to hang out in the nursery. The nursery is said to be the most active spot in the castle. The Tapestry Room has strange noises and weird night anomalies. The ghost of a blacksmith is seen on the castle grounds. Emily Talbot has been seen walking around in the master bedroom and is said to be the lady in white seen on the stairs at times. Many of the ghost stories about the castle started to be reported during World War II by the soldiers who were being treated at the castle. They saw spirits inside and out on the grounds. 

The most active ghost in the castle, the spirit of Robert Scott who had been a gamekeeper that worked at the Castle for many years. A poacher had been on the grounds one day and when Robert confronted him, the poacher murdered him. This left the spirit of Robert very angry and that comes out through poltergeist like activity. One of his favorite things to do is to throw rocks at people. His full-bodied apparition is seen climbing the Gothic staircase. Psychic investigators that have come through claim that Robert is full of rage. 

Ghost Hunters International investigated many years ago and they claimed to capture on camera the floating figure of a monk wearing a white habit. They also had a monk identify itself as Brother Tom. They saw a shadow figure that they thought might be Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot. They heard the footsteps of a woman, perhaps Emily and these were in the master bedroom. And they got an EVP featuring a male voice ordering them to get out. Ghost hunter and author Peter Underwood wrote in the 1950s about a ghostly monk being seen many times in and around the ruins of Margam Abbey. The sightings were usually in the late afternoon or early evening.

The website There Be Ghosts wrote, "During a visit to Margam in 2016, my wife and I chatted with a park guide who told us the monk had been seen more recently in 2005. Apparently, a man walking his dog late one afternoon saw the monk walk out of and through the solid wood door on the south side of the church. As the man stood stupefied, with his dog cowering, the monk walked a short distance and then physically dissolved. The man’s dog was so traumatized by the encounter that it couldn’t be consoled for several days."

Amy from Amy's Crypt goes into haunted locations all around the world and like us, she rarely is scared by a place. But she says of Margam Castle that this is one of the scariest places she has ever investigated. Her partner Jared had a rock thrown at him while he was standing and looking out a window. And then he heard a very loud bang coming from down the hall. A little later there is a distant audible scream that Diane heard before Jared said he just heard a scream. Later, Amy and Jared went upstairs and they heard what sounded like children and then they heard a tap sound. Amy and Jared did an ESTES session on the grand staircase and they got a female voice that said, "I'm here" and then immediately "She's here" and when Amy asked who is she, Jared heard "Legion." Then Jared heard "Follow me" and Amy asked to follow where and the answer was "Up there" and then "here." Amy thought she saw some movement above her and she could hear something. When she asked if there was someone up there, Jared said "A lot" and when she asked who was making that noise, Jared said "People." A little later Amy was asking more about who was there and Jared answered "I was stationed." Then there was a bang and when Amy asked what made that noise Jared said "I'm close." There were two taps on the stairs behind Jared and he said "They're scaring him." Jared complained several times that his leg muscles were twitching during the ESTES method and it was really interesting because they showed that the camera caught some of this twitching and Amy said that this has happened before at other places and she wondered if it had something to do with going into a trance-like state. They got out a spirit box and immediately it sounded like a child yelling "Mommy." Later they asked how many children were in the house and the answer was seven.

Adelaide's Haunted Horizons has investigated the castle and Alison told Amy that her group felt the same way as Amy. This was one of the few places that has really scared them. The group was investigated in one of the further away rooms near the nursery and the group heard disembodied footsteps and the swishing of a dress outside the room. Inside the room they heard the audible sound of heavy breathing. The atmosphere felt very tense and then they heard the sound of a large stone being thrown and they found this near them. A security guard came in a little later and the group was away from the room and telling him what they had experienced when they all heard these loud booming noises coming from the nursery area. Alison described the sounds as very unnerving and they had no idea what had caused them. They also say on their website, "We conducted a brief ghost box session and appeared to get a couple of interesting responses, not least a voice (almost electronic) saying ‘Bastard’.  Why interesting?  Because it sounded like Kag’s voice, as if she was being mimicked. (This is one of their team members.) We soon moved to the bottom of the staircase, but apart from a couple of loud thuds from upstairs, whatever was in the building seemed less talkative now.  We did get one interesting noise that I am unsure how to describe. If you watch the video, I will let you make up your own mind on what it is as we have no idea!  Even our security man, Dave, who joined us at the end, had never heard this before.  We didn’t hear it audibly."

Project Fear investigated as well. They had rocks thrown at them. They left a team member alone at the castle, while the rest went to the Abbey. Supposedly, Robert Scott is seen at the abbey as are figures that look like monks. Light anomalies are also seen. The team member at the castle was sitting on the stairs and there was a very audible sound like something being dragged. Near the Abbey, the thermal camera showed something weird in the field and they found out that it was a statue, but its one of the creepiest statues I've ever seen like a mother wailing over a child with this wide gaping maw. We found more information on the castle's website, "This was created by Glynn Williams. ‘The Shout’ (made in 1982), is a depiction of a desperate kneeling mother holding the body of her dead child. From the information we have found it was completed as a memorial to the victims of the war in Lebanon, the shocking images of which had been broadcast at the time on TV. He also completed a similar sculpture called the ‘Mother of the Dead’. The strength of the Shout sculpture – the feeling it conveys – are evidenced by the fact that it was moved to a secluded location in the park as visitors found it too disturbing when initially placed in a more prominent position." They used a Spirit Box and asked who it is that people keep seeing out there. Could it be a monk named Tom? And then "shoot" came through the box making them think it was Robert Scott. The guy in the castle heard a bunch of footsteps running up the stairs after he went upstairs and it scared the crap out of him. He shouted over the walkie-talkie for the other group to return. It was very dramatic, but we could understand how it would be really freaky to be alone in that castle. They tried talking to whoever this was later and they got a "No" about communication. However, it did later indicate that it was Robert. When asked if he was the one trying to scare them out of the castle, he answered "no." Now interestingly, Chelsea and Dakota were in the Nursery with a Spirit Box and it said "seven." Now they assumed it was referencing the 7-foot tall shadow figure that has been seen in there, but we watched this after Amy's Crypt and they got seven as the number for the children. 

Margam Castle  is one of the most magnificent buildings around. It's a bummer that the interior suffered a bad fire, but it still looks amazing and it had such a creepy, Gothic feel to it, that the movie Da Vinci's Demons was filmed here and interior sets were built that were left behind. People claim this is one of the most haunted places in Britain. Is Margam Castle haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 602 - Haunted Crystal River

Moment in Oddity - Bishop Castle (Suggested by: Chelsea Flowers)

Back in 1959, a 15 year old young man named Jim Bishop purchased a plot of land in Colorado. Ten years later he embarked on a unique journey with the goal of single-handedly building himself a home on that property. The initial structure began as a stone cottage, however residents of the area started commenting about how much the home looked like a castle. Those thoughts sent Jim Bishop's imagination into overdrive. Over 44 years, Mr. Bishop continued adding stone and iron to his home, gradually making it more and more castle-like. By the end of its creation, Bishop's Castle displayed a tower that stands over 160 feet high, intricate spiral staircases, stained glass arched windows with a view of the surrounding mountains, grand halls divided by stone and steel arches and a fire breathing dragon on the front peak of the castle. The dragon does actually breathe fire with the assistance of a hot air balloon burner and due to a cleverly designed chimney, the nostrils do blow smoke! Bishop's Castle is open to the public for visits and it works off of donations to help preserve the unique structure. Sadly, Jim Bishop passed away in November of 2024, however, it is reported that his son is continuing with his father's vision and will keep maintaining and building onto the incredible structure. 

Haunted Crystal River

The town of Crystal River in Florida is the home of the manatee. This is where they can be found in the winter, congregating in the natural springs found in the area. Those springs attracted indigenous people as well and some of them left behind their mounds. These not only have cultural and historic interest, but they have paranormal activity as well, which we discovered for ourselves. There are other locations with ghost stories too, one which also has a connection to Elvis Presley and his film "Follow That Dream." And we found a wonderful small historic cemetery that not only had some sad stories to share, but the activity we experienced there, brought us back for a second trip. Join us as we share the history and hauntings of Crystal River! 

The town of Crystal River sits along what is known as the Nature Coast of Florida. This area is home to manatees and a wide variety of other animals that enjoy the natural springs, marshland and flowering plants. Florida's early pioneers, known as Crackers, built their simple and sturdy wooden homes here that featured high ceilings and large windows for airflow. But long before they arrived, the people of the Deptford culture were here, followed by the Santa-Rosa-Swift Creek culture and the Fort Walton period and they left behind their mounds. They abandoned the area for unknown reasons. Native Americans had called the Crystal River, Weewahi Iaca. After the Armed Occupation Act of 1842 was passed, twenty-two settlers filed claims for land in Crystal River. Not many people would come here until after the Civil War, but during the war there were small skirmishes because the Union Navy blockaded the entire coast of Florida because the state was an important source for supplies for the Confederacy. The Spanish had planted citrus trees all over Florida and this also attracted people from the North. Crystal River not only was a fishing economy, but turpentine became a major business as did cedar mills. The Dixon Cedar Mill employed everyone, including women and blacks. The richest phosphate deposits in the world were discovered in 1889 and the area boomed until 1914 thanks to that. The railroad showed up at the same time as the phosphate discovery, so that helped as well. Crystal River would become an official town in 1903 and was incorporated in 1923. 

Crystal River Archaeological State Park 

This state park is located at 3400 N. Museum Point and features all varieties of mounds left behind by what is believed to be the Deptford Culture. Those mounds included not only the trash or midden mounds many indigenous groups would leave behind, but there were also ceremonial mounds and burial mounds. At this park, there are only six mounds that still remain. It's possible that there were more, but settlers had used them for fill dirt and that is how the artifacts buried in them were discovered. Two unique steles (Stee-leez), or stone monuments, were left behind as well. These were large pieces of limestone and have carvings on them, one of which looks like a human face. What makes this site so fascinating for us is that there were clear connections to Central America civilizations and also groups from the Ohio River Valley. As a matter of fact, this is the southernmost site in the United States to have a burial mound layout like the ones in the Ohio River Valley. So despite Florida being this peninsula, it seems to have attracted separate cultures migrating or traveling via trade routes from both Ohio and Central America. 

Kathleen Walls wrote "Finding Florida Phantoms" in 2004 and she wrote in there that a ranger reported that voices had been heard among the mounds when no one was present, and some apparitions have apparently been spotted here as well. So we brought our recorder and K2 with us when we visited. We started at Burial Mound G, which was not a really tall mound. This is thought to be one of the earliest mounds based on radiocarbon dating. Many of the artifacts found here were items that weren't very valuable, which made us think that people of a lower status were buried here. But these also could've been a less developed culture. We passed several midden mounds, which were trash heaps with oyster shells, animal bones, charcoal and broken pieces of pottery. The top mound at the site was Temple Mound A, which rises 30 feet and has a flat top that could've been seen by the entire group, so it is believed that a temple was built atop this and that rituals would've been conducted here. It was probably built in 400 AD and only one-third of it still remains. Before we got there, Kelly was carrying the K2 and she noticed that it was going off. The K2 rarely ever goes to red for us when we use it at haunted buildings. But this thing was pinging red for us over and over and in response to us. We aren't sure who was communicating, but there was no way any EMF was setting it off as we were out in the middle of nowhere in the midst of these mounds. Perhaps the spirits here have been disturbed that their mounds and burial places were disturbed. 

Riverside Drive in Yankeetown

We ventured a little out of Crystal River to a small fishing village about 12 miles north named Yankeetown. This is closer to the coast and is just upstream of where the Withlacoochee River flows into the Gulf of Mexico. This village was first settled by an Indiana lawyer named Armanis Knotts in 1923. He decided to build a lodge to cater to the fisherman flocking to the area. He named the lodge, the Izaak Walton Lodge, after the author of the fishing classic "The Compleat Angler," Izaak Walton. That book was written in England in the 1600s. The lodge still stands and has been converted into the Blackwater Restaurant, which serves up hand-carved steaks and fresh local seafood. And ghosts. It is said that water taps turn themselves on and music will play when nothing is turned on. A young woman's image has been seen in a mirror. And there are even reports of being pushed by something unseen.

There are some haunted houses here as well and several places that served as filming locations for Elvis Presley's movie "Follow That Dream." Much of the filming was done toward the end of County Road 40 where the Bird Creek Bridge was built. The road was renamed "Follow That Dream Parkway" leading into Yankeetown and we followed that past the Nature Coast Inn where some of the cast and crew stayed and arrived at the bridge. Many locals played extras and worked to create a beach on Pumpkin Island. We also drove over to a town called Inverness to see the Old Citrus County Courthouse, which is now a museum, but was the set for the courtroom scenes in the movie. We made a short video that is up on YouTube and Tik Tok if you want to see all of that.  

Yankeetown has many great examples of Old Florida cracker homes. Crackers were early settlers to Florida and they built homes condusive to the hot and humid weather. The streets were narrow and pretty beat up and with the large oak trees draped in Spanish moss lining Riverside Drive, it felt like we were going back to a simpler time. Not only was the lodge on this street, but there were a couple of haunted homes on this street. One of them is across from the lodge. Mama DD wrote, "I have heard many ghost stories about some of the houses on Riverside Dr. The one I know happened was the old house across from Izaac Walton Lodge. Yankeetown is called an “original cracker town” and the houses by the river still had the slave quarter houses standing. My sister lived in one of these houses so one day going to do something at her house I remember seeing an old black man sitting at the top of the slave house staring down at us with worn clothes and as I tell my mother there is someone here and she replies that there is no one there. She drags me back to the truck and we leave. She has also told me stories when she was in the large plantation house and she thought her son was in the house trying to scare her but she realized he was outside. So she started running for the door and she heard louder footsteps chasing her. When she got outside she slammed the door and refused to enter the house alone after that. There have been other stories told about this house but I can not remember all the details."

And another house that we couldn't pinpoint because of lack of details was shared by a woman named Mary Cashulette. She wrote in 2019, "I stayed at a home on Riverside Drive. I had no knowledge ahead of time of hauntings. During the night when I got up to go to the bathroom. I heard a woman saying, “help me”, in despair. I heard a deeper man’s voice saying it would be alright. I thought it was my friend having a nightmare in her room and her husband comforting her. When I returned to the bedroom, I asked my daughter if she heard anything, she said she heard a distressed voice going across the room. She couldn’t make any words out. When I asked my friends the next morning, they said nothing happened and they heard nothing."

Karma Cottage and Heritage House

The Karma Cottage is located at 652A N. Citrus Ave. This is a metaphysical and rock shop that opened in 2010 by owners who came from Denver. The Citrus County Chronicle reported in 2016, "In Crystal River, Karma Cottage owners Katie Novak and Andy Crane say the upper level of their building, which was the former garage to the main house that is now Dayz Gone By, located next door to them on Citrus Avenue, had been removed from the main house and added to the top of their building. The son of the owner of the main house reportedly lived in that upstairs apartment until he died. “We have heard footsteps walking upstairs when we know nobody is up there. I have heard things fall up there, as if someone dropped something, and go up and check it out, and there’s nothing,” Novak said. But it goes beyond just hearing. “I have actually seen a man looking out the upstairs window when I was out front,” Novak said. “I’ve named him ‘John.’” She doesn’t feel threatened by what she’s seen and heard, and actually thinks he is just curious.: 

Heritage House is a gift shop located at 657 N. Citrus Ave. It is part of the Heritage Village which is made up of several historic homes. The Heritage House was built in the late 1800s The Chronicle also wrote of it, "Across Citrus Avenue in Heritage Village, Laura Lou Fitzpatrick, owner of Heritage House, whose family owned those buildings, says she’s never had a personal ghostly experience, but one of her former tenants has. Dorothy Koehler, who now works at All About Nature, once ran an antique shop in Heritage House. “I had been down in St. Pete when I got a call that an elderly lady customer of mine, Uma Cross, had passed away,” Koehler said. “I stopped at her the house to look at her things, and bought some of her antique kitchen items.” Right after bringing them back to her shop, Koehler was helping a customer at the front counter when an older woman came in and just wanted to browse. “I was still wrapping the package for the customer at the counter when the elderly lady came back up from the kitchen area and said, ‘I want you to know you have a spirit in the shop.’ ” Surprised, Koehler asked, “How do you know that? What did you see?” The customer described seeing an elderly woman wearing a long dress with her hair tied back in a bun. “That was Uma Cross,” Koehler confirmed. “She always dressed that way.” She told the customer, 'I just came back from St. Pete from her kitchen and those are her things. She must have been checking out her stuff.'"

Crystal River Cemetery

The Crystal River Cemetery was established in 1860 and is fairly small. Many of the pioneers from the area were buried here. And for being a small cemetery, it had quite a few Woodman of the World headstones. One of the burials here was a very small headstone that just read Pope Culbreath of Tampa. We found out more about him:

There were many children buried in this cemetery and five plots really caught our eye. If you follow us on social media anywhere, you may have seen the reel that we made featuring these headstones. We'll play the audio for that here. (King Audio)

You know us. We had to know more. As Diane thought about the last name King, she wondered if that had any relation to the fact that there is a King's Bay here. And sure enough, there was a connection. Turns out that King's Bay was named for Edwin King, who was the father of four of those children. He was born in 1836 at Kings Ferry, Florida, which yes, was named for his family. Apparently, his father Thomas King III was a ferry operator on the St. Mary's River. And that III was something Thomas adopted because there were two other Thomas King's in the area. Thomas actually died before Edwin was born because he died in 1835. He was 55 at the time and Edwin was his thirteenth child. Edwin would eventually take over the ferry business with two of his older brother's, Andrew Jackson King and Henry Perry King. In 1854, Edwin went to law school in Boston. In 1859, he married Mary Ann J. Stafford. The couple would move to Crystal River in 1863 and the lawyer decided he wanted to be a merchant, so he opened a general store. They had a home on the bay that would take their name. During the Civil War, Edwin wrote his brother Josiah that he would like him to come down to Florida when the war was over. An excerpt reads, "It is with much pleasure that I seat myself to write you a few lines hoping it will find you and your family well as it leaves me and my family at present...I am getting along finely down here. I have plenty to eat such as Cane Sugar, Syrup, Potatoes, Rice and Bacon. I want you to move down here when the War is over. I have a good place for you where you can get more fish than you can eat and raise as many hogs as you please and cattle accordingly. I have no news to write you. All is quiet down here. The Yankees came up the River sometime ago but we killed some of them and sent them back!" A couple of his brother's did join him and his brother Andrew Jackson Perry took over the King's Ferry business after the war. He had a daughter named Martha King, who died at 17-years-old. Her's is the fifth tombstone we mentioned in that video. We're not sure why she was buried here in Crystal River, rather than King's Ferry. Edwin and Mary had eight children and the other four headstones belong to four of those children: 

Leila Elizabeth King b Apr 20,1866,d Mar 2,1868
Edwin R. King Jr b Nov 17,1869,d Jan 16,1870
Franklin R. King b Aug 27,1875,d Mar 2,1877
Lottie Eloise King b Sep 8, 1877,d Apr 2,1879

Edwin R King Sr and his wife Mary Stafford King are buried in unmarked graves here at the cemetery. We were unable to find out what the children died from.  

We don't usually do investigations in cemeteries, but we decided to do one here and based on our experiences, we returned the following day for verification. Here is our first video of the EMF activity. For those just listening, the EMF went to yellow and kept going off, but it only seems to be in the one area. (EMF 1) So as you hear, we decided that somehow, even though we were in the middle of the cemetery, that we were somehow catching EMF from somewhere and that this wasn't a spirit. We decided to return the next day to the same spot and see what happened. After this, we decided that we indeed did have a spirit hanging around us. (EMF 2) Later the EMF did ping to orange, so we didn't get red but the orange was nice. And a couple times, Diane felt like her arm went threw a spider web. 

Plantation Inn on Crystal River

Our final spot, we only got to see the outside of because it is being renovated. It has a really cool fountain outside of it. The Plantation Resort, as it is called now, is located at 9301 W. Fort Island Trail. This is a replica plantation house built in 1962 that covers 232 acres and features golf, adventures, three restaurants and a spa. There is at least one spirit here that is said to be the ghost of a young girl who can be heard calling for her mother. Guests have reported unexplained phenomena and we have several of those stories to share.

Dee wrote in 2016, "I stayed at the Plantation Inn about 11 years ago and I have told numerous people about my experience there. This evening my daughter and I were talking about the remake of the movie Roots and we got on the subject of ghosts. I told her about my experience at The Plantation Inn. The first night I stayed at the Inn, I was a little unsettled because I felt like I should not be there. It was just a feeling I had because the look of the place reminded me of the “big house” with slave quarters on each side. I even mentioned it to my white co-worker and she just kind of laughed it off. Anyway, later that night when I went to bed, and I am a very light sleeper, but about 30 minutes after I got in bed, I was still awake but just about to fall asleep, I felt tugging on the bed spread, I opened my eyes and laid there very still, then it happened again. At this time I was scared, but I got up and looked around and opened the closet door, looked around the bed, but no one or nothing was there. So I said a prayer to God and went back to bed and went to sleep. I told my co-worker what happened and I told the lady at the front desk, but I don’t think she really think she believed me, but she just kind of laughed it off. I walked around the Inn inside and out and went to the golf shop which was a short walk from the inn, but I kept looking back at the Inn, and I still had a feeling that slaves lived there at one point. I still don’t know if this is true or not. But the second night, before I went to bed and I checked around the entire room, double checked the lock on the door. I watched TV for a while, then I turned off the TV and started dosing off and it happened again, this time the tugging was harder. Finally, I said out loud “look I have to be here because of my job, please leave me alone, I am leaving here tomorrow. I’m sorry for what happened to you, but please leave me alone.” I said my prayers again and fell asleep and it didn’t happen again. After the meetings I was rushing to get out of there. Every year, I talk about my experience at this Inn. It’s something I will never forget."

Vivian wrote in 2017, "About two years ago I stayed at this hotel for business purposes. I was sleeping but felt tugging on the sheets and I woke up to see a tall dark silhouette standing by the side of my bed. I screamed and screamed tried to move but was paralyzed with fear and couldn’t move suddenly it was gone and I could move again at first I thought someone had broken into my room. I looked through the room and there wasn’t any evidence of a break in. I didn’t say anything to the front desk thinking I must of had a nightmare but I was very scared. I was staying on the first floor it was room one hundred something but I couldn’t remember the exact number. I did tell a coworker about the incident who then said there had been a haunting incident there. I was telling my niece about the incident yesterday and she pulled up the hotel name after I told her the story and she read what happened to the person in room 107 it was so dauntingly similar that the same wave of fear that I experienced that day came back for a few minutes. This place is haunted I had to stay another time there a week after the incident which I very nervous about but it was a different room and nothing happened that time. Thank God!"

Kate wrote in 2018, "I didn’t have any experiences, but my toddler seems to have been frightened by something. He had nightmares every night during our stay. The final night, he woke up crying at one point. I asked him what was wrong and he said his pillow was moving and he saw something black by the chair. I held up my jacket that was hanging on the chair, but he said it was something else. He seemed to be struggling to describe it, but said what he’d seen was “too black.” I assured him it was just a nightmare, but an hour or so later, he woke up crying again. This time my husband, who hadn’t heard the first episode got up with him. I heard my son telling him the exact same thing; that his pillow was moving and something black was on the chair by his bed. This time he insisted on sleeping in our bed for the remainder of the night. I asked him about it in the morning because he’ll usually tell me about his scary dreams. This time, however, he kept insisting it was 'not pretend!'"

Yani wrote in 2019, "During our recent visit I was having a lot of difficulties to sleep, I kept having nightmares. On our last night, I continued to have problems falling asleep. When I finally did, I started having nightmares and woke up around 1am with a feeling that something was in the room watching.. I prayed, turned and hugged my husband. I felt asleep again and woke up around 3am with a nighmare of a young woman beeing in our room looking at us. I woke up super scared and on my side of the bed I felt this precense and saw a black shadow.. I closed my eyes and started praying again.. I turned n hug my husband and felt that the thing went away.. The next morning I told my husband what happened, my dream, feeling and what I think I saw and my husband told me he had also had difficulty sleeping because everytime he closed his eyes he will see a young woman with hair up to her shoulders coming towards him.. he felt this presence the whole night and when he woke up there was a black shadow around him… We both thought that the places was probably haunted because that has never happened to us.. and for both to see, dream, and feel the same thing .. thats not coincidence.." 

Anonymous wrote in 2023, "We stayed here last week because I thought it looked beautiful and knowing absolutely nothing about the history. We drove up and thought how fabulous it was. We walked inside to check in and both immediately had a weird feeling despite the beauty and the kind staff. Later in the evening we heard a girl crying for nearly 2 hours and could not figure out where exactly it was coming from. We fell asleep exhausted from driving all day and I was woken up from a deep sleep at 3am to all these very weird noises and the feeling was bazaar, if my husband had not been with me I would have thought I was crazy. By about 4am we looked online and I swear to you I read it was haunted by a little girl crying for her Mother and I was in shock reading about it, we are low key no drama people and never experienced anything like this. By 6am we were out of there." 

Crystal River is a beautiful area and the springs are not to be missed. Especially in the cooler months when hundreds of manatees gather in the warmer waters. Is it possible that some ghosts have gathered here as well? Is Crystal River haunted? That is for you to decide!