HGB Ep. 557 - Life and Afterlife of Karen Carpenter

Moment in Oddity - Stonehenge Altar Stone

Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England is a prehistoric megalithic structure. There have been various theories as to its purpose. At one time it was thought to be the remains of a Druid temple, or a burial monument, or possibly a meeting place for the people of the time. The most recent studies have proposed that Stonehenge enabled people to measure the skies like a modern day observatory, allowing the users to predict celestial events and the equinox. This enabled the users to better plan for their agricultural, social and religious needs. Nobody knows how the enormous stones were put into place, with the heaviest weighing over 20 tons and the average bluestones weighing about 2 tons. There is an altar stone that lies near the middle of the stone circle. Through chemical analysis it was recently determined to have not been sourced from Wales like the monument's bluestones. Instead, the grey-green sandstone was discovered to have likely come from northeast Scotland. There are various theories as to how the giant stones were brought to the monument. Some were sourced as close as 15 miles away. The smaller pillar stones came from 140 miles away, but the altar stone traveled a distance of over 450 miles and that, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - The Panic of 1873

In the month of September, on the 20th, in 1873, the New York Stock Exchange closed for the first time in its history. The event was caused by the Financial Panic of 1873. The stock market had crashed in Europe which prompted New York to shut down the American Exchange for ten days. These incidents began the first "Great Depression" which lasted from 1873 until 1879. Americans sold their investments, banks failed and the railway industry collapsed. Throughout the time there was a 14% increase in unemployment and almost 20,000 businesses declared bankruptcy. After the Civil War, currency consisted of specie which were metal coins like gold and silver. There were also Greenbacks that were issued by the government and they were not fully backed by gold. Paper money did not have the American peoples' trust behind it and the Greenbacks are thought to have greatly contributed to the Panic of 1873.

The Life and Afterlife of Karen Carpenter

Karen Carpenter was one half of the Carpenters, a brother and sister singing duo that sold over 150 million records and they had 17 hits. She was an amazing drummer and singer. Her voice had no equal. But despite her amazing talent, she was a tortured soul that suffered from an eating disorder at a time when such a thing was misunderstood and it eventually took her life. And quite possibly that may be why her spirit is at unrest. Join us as we share the history and hauntings of Karen Carpenter.

Some people, especially of the younger persuasion, may think of the Carpenters' music as just being cheesy easy listening songs, but the siblings were musical geniuses. Get ready for me to gush. I have loved the Carpenters from the time I was a kid and I loved the fact that Karen was a contralto because I myself sing at a lower level and when we would take music in school, I hated the choir stuff because the teacher always tried to get me to sing higher and it just isn't me. Karen died when I was twelve and I remember not understanding what exactly an eating disorder was. The made-for-TV movie The Karen Carpenter Story featuring actress Cynthia Gibb in the title role came out in 1989 and I remember watching it and being more familiar with eating disorders at that time because they started talking about them more in school. And I realized at that time what a tragic figure Karen had become. I had no idea at the time how personal, eating disorders would become for me. I'm going to talk about some stuff here that I never have before on the podcast, so bear with me for just a minute. I was in a relationship for 24 years with a person who suffered from both anorexia and bulimia. This is something that people don't just get over and it is probably the most difficult type of addiction/mental health issue to deal with because we have to eat to live. So a person suffering from an eating disorder has to learn how to eat in a healthy way while trying to recover. My ex's eating disorder started at the same time as Karen Carpenter's, which was a time where nobody understood why these people wouldn't just eat. Why would they starve themselves? The medical industry had no idea what to do to help these people. They were only really concerned with getting pounds back on people. Eventually, mental health professionals realized that people with eating disorders don't see themselves in an accurate way and that there were very deep psychological issues. For Karen Carpenter, many of her whys for going this route began with her relationship with her mother and for my ex, that was very much the reason as well. For the most part, my ex was able to live a relatively normal life and would speak at schools about the issue, but there were times she would struggle and I can say that when we split up, it was very difficult for me to make that decision because I was worried that the eating disorder would rear its ugly head and it did. But we can't stay in a relationship that isn't working for us because we are worried what will happen to the other person. Many of you have dealt with people who struggle with addictions and there really is nothing we can do. A person has to get well for themselves. And that was the case with Karen. She had to get well for herself and she just couldn't get there and its so sad because one can only wonder how much more amazing music she could have created through the years.  

Karen Anne Carpenter was born on March 2, 1950 in New Haven, Connecticut. She was the second child of Harold and Agnes Carpenter. Her older brother Richard had been born four years prior. The siblings liked the arts and Karen began ballet and tap dancing at the age of four. She was more of a tomboy and enjoyed playing softball outside, while Richard was quiet and stayed inside learning to play the piano. The piano was something he hated when he was being classically trained, but when he switched to playing by ear and a teacher who gave him freedom, Richard turned out to be a prodigy. The family moved from Connecticut to Los Angeles, California in 1963 because Harold had been offered a job there. When Karen started at Downey High School in 1964, she decided to join the school marching Band and the conductor gave her the glockenspiel to play. This was an instrument that she didn't care for and she longingly watched others playing the drums. One of those people was her friend Frankie Chavez and he convinced Karen's parents to buy her a $300 Ludwig drum set and he taught her how to play.

During these early years, it became clear to Karen that her mother favored Richard. So much so that she didn't feel as though her mother loved her at all. Agnes has been described as a controlling matriarch. It was Richard's talent that the family focused on and the Carpenters did whatever they could to put forward his musical career. Karen's first foray into performing with a musical group was in high school when she and two other girls formed the band Two Plus Two. The band was short lived because when they finally booked their first gig, one of the girls' mothers wouldn't let her go. In 1965, Richard invited Karen to join him and a college friend in a band he formed and named for himself, The Dick Carpenter Trio. They got several gigs in jazz nightclubs and even signed a contract with RCA Records to produce two instrumental records. Those records were never released. Karen and Richard were invited to audition bassist Joe Osborn, who would become part of the Wrecking Crew, a well-known session musician group. Osborn wasn't really impressed with Richard, but he liked Karen on the drums and when he asked her to sing, he got very excited and signed her to his label.

Karen was 5ft 4in when she graduated from high school in 1967 and she was a relatively healthy weight at 150 pounds, but she felt as though she were chubby and so she started something called the Stillman water diet. This was a high-protein, low carbohydrate, low fat diet that called for eight glasses of water a day as well. Basically, a fairly healthy way to lose weight. Karen enrolled as a music major at Long Beach State where Richard was attending and she joined him in the college choir. Karen had also been studying drum technique with Bill Douglass, who was a jazz drummer with Benny Goodman. The choir director immediately noticed the extraordinary instrument that was Karen's voice and he took her under his wing and trained her to have a three-octave range. The Carpenter siblings decided to form a new band at this time that they called Spectrum. They did a lot of experimenting and recording in Joe Osborn's garage studio, but nothing really came out of it record wise. 

The siblings decided to enter a TV talent show in 1968 and performed "Dancing in the Street." It really showcased Karen's drumming talent and the siblings won the finals. And then A & M Records came calling and signed the siblings to a recording contract in 1969. Karen played drums, a little bass and was co-lead singer on their first album "Ticket to Ride." The title song was a Beatles song that became a hit for The Carpenters and it hit No. 54 on the Billboard Hot 100. The next album "Close to You" was even bigger with two hits: "(They Long to Be) Close to You" and "We've Only Just Begun." The latter was a song that was written for a bank commercial by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols. Paul Williams was also under contract with A & M Records and Richard ran into him at the studio and asked if there was a full length version of the song. There was and as we all know, that song went on to be one of the greatest hits for The Carpenters and their signature song. It hit No. 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100, right behind the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There" in 1970. May 1971 brought a third studio album "Carpenters" with the songs "For All We Know," "Rainy Days and Mondays" and "Superstar," the greatest Carpenters song of all time! Fight me! June 1972 featured "A Song For You," the fourth studio album with songs "Hurting Each Other", "It's Going to Take Some Time", "Goodbye to Love", "Top of the World", "I Won't Last a Day Without You", and "Bless the Beasts and Children."

Karen saw herself as a drummer who also happened to sing. She even ranked higher than John Bonham in a 1975 Playboy poll about best drummers. So she liked her spot back behind the drums, but because she was fun-sized like Diane, it was hard for people to see her when she was singing and it was decided that Karen needed to get out from behind the drums. Mouseketeer Cubby O'Brien took over at the drums. This put Karen as the focal point on stage and she was uncomfortable with that. On top of that, now she would see pictures of herself. A photo from an August 1973 Lake Tahoe concert made Karen think that she looked fat, so she hired a personal trainer. He suggested she try a low calorie, high carb diet. She lifted weights and started bulking up, which just made her feel like she was fatter. She and Richard sat down and watched themselves on a Bob Hope television special in the fall and she asked Richard if he thought she looked heavier. He said, "Yes." Karen fired her trainer, bought a hip cycle and started limiting her calories. The Carpenters left on tour and she said of eating on the road, "When you're on the road it's hard to eat. Period. On top of that, it's rough to eat well. We don't like to eat before a show because I can't stand singing with a full stomach… You never get to dinner until, like, midnight, and if you eat heavy you're not going to sleep, and you're going to be a balloon."

Karen initially lost 20 pounds and the sister of an old boyfriend told her that she looked fabulous. And she did and that would have been great had she stopped there, but she didn't. Around this same time, Richard himself started taking Quaaludes and he became heavily addicted. Between the issues both siblings were dealing with, concerts started being cancelled. In 1979, Richard checked himself into rehab and took a year off from touring. Karen decided to try her hand on a solo album and she recorded with producer Phil Ramone in New York. A & M Records shelved the album, even though Quincy Jones came forward and asked A & M Records co-owner Herb Alpert if he could remix the album. A & M wouldn't budge and they even charged Karen $400,000 to cover the cost of recording, which was paid out from The Carpenter's future royalties. The solo album was eventually released in total in 1996 under the title "Karen Carpenter." It was received well.

Karen had many friends and enjoyed going out with them and she often would hide the fact that she wasn't eating her food at restaurants by offering lots of tastes to everybody and by pushing her food around and hiding it. She would wear clothes that were too big so that people couldn't see that she was rail thin. She would wear tighter and sexier clothing on stage and her manager Sherwin Bash was horrified when he saw how skeletal she had become. Audiences would gasp when she took the stage because she was so gaunt. Karen's relationship with her mother continued to deteriorate through this time. When Agnes would be eating with Karen, she would scoop food onto her plate when she noticed her passing off her meal to others. Randy Schmidt shares in the biography he wrote about Karen Carpenter "Little Girl Blue" about a time that a family friend spotted Karen sunbathing topless outside. That friend said, "They put this screen around her so nobody else could see her. She loved to go lay out in the sunshine. I don't know whether it was to get a tan or get away from her mother. Anyhow, I happened to go out to the kitchen for something and I saw her out there. She just had on her little bathing suit shorts. You couldn't tell whether it was a girl or a boy. She had absolutely no breasts."

The occasional friend would encourage Karen to get help, but Karen always said she had no problem. And her family was no help as Agnes insisted that the family could take care of themselves. And she certainly didn't want any shame brought on the family. Anorexia is about control and this seemed to be the only thing Karen had control over. She could control what she ate, which probably eased her pain that she couldn't get her mother to love her and Richard controlled the music. And the only time Agnes seemed to pay any attention to Karen was when she was rail thin and in failing health. Agnes would nurse her back to health at those times. 

Karen was terribly lonely in love as well. In 1980, she met a property developer called Tom Burris and the two began a whirlwind romance that led to them getting married within two months. Before the wedding, a friend asked Karen if she was sure about rushing into a marriage. But Karen was desperate for love and she also wanted to get pregnant. The wedding was almost called off when Karen found out that Tom had had a vasectomy. He promised to reverse the procedure, but Karen told her mother that she was going to cancel the wedding. Agnes told her she would do no such thing because this would embarrass the family and all these people were traveling to come to the wedding. And the wedding had already been paid for. So Karen married Burris and it was an awful union. Burris was broke and he spent most of Karen's money while he emotionally abused her saying that she was an ugly bag of bones. He also informed her that he wasn't going to have children with her. Karen filed for divorce in 1981. A devastated Carpenter fell further into her eating disorder and she withered down to just 90 pounds.

Karen was using a variety of techniques to drop weight from overexercising to taking thyroid medication to taking fistfuls of laxatives, up to 90 tablets a night. The Carpenters left for a European tour in October of 1981. While doing an interview on BBC television, Karen was asked about rumors floating around that she had anorexia. Karen just said she was fine, but tired. The interviewer then said that reports claimed she had gotten down to six stone in weight, which is 84 pounds. Karen became agitated and said that that was untrue. But perhaps this broke through a bit because after returning home, Karen set out on a year long recovery. She started seeing a psychotherapist named Steven Levenkron who had written a book on eating disorders called "The Best Little Girl in the World." He took the thyroid medication away from Karen. She started purging to continue her weight management. The Carpenter family flew to New York to do a therapy session with Karen and Agnes refused to tell her daughter she loved her when prompted by Levenkron. Richard for his part, tried many times to help Karen, but he couldn't understand the disorder. He would try to love on her and then he would try cajoling her and then he would try anger and yelling. But after this meeting, the family returned to California and gave up.

Almost unbelievably, Karen starved herself down to a low of 77 pounds. She was hospitalized in September 1982 with an irregular heartbeat and dizziness. The hospital got her up 30 pounds and she maintained a steady weight after this, but her heart had clearly been damaged by the starvation and medication abuse. She returned to California after being released. Carpenter attended a gathering of past Grammy Award winners in January of 1983 and Dionne Warwick said that she seemed upbeat and exclaimed, "Look at Me! I've got an ass!" She also said she had a lot of living to do and was excited to start working on music. She met with Richard on February 1, 1983 to discuss new projects and this would be the last time the siblings saw each other. On the morning of the 4th, Karen got up early to prepare for the signing of her divorce papers and she collapsed on the floor of a walk-in closet at her parents' house. Her mother found her and called 911. Paramedics found her in cardiac arrest with a heart beat every 10 seconds. She was rushed to Downey Community Hospital where she was pronounced dead. She was 32 years old. The coroner ruled she died from emetine cardiotoxicity, which was basically ipecac poisoning. Ipecac is a drug used to induce vomiting and Karen had apparently been using it to control her weight. That kind of abuse causes the heart muscle to dissolve.

We can never know, but if Karen had suffered from her eating disorder today, she would probably not have died. Paul McCartney said of Carpenter, She had the best female voice in the world: melodic, tuneful and distinctive." Many female artists claim to have been influenced by Karen and there is no doubt that she was one of the greatest voices in history. Drummers heap praise on her for her drum skills as well. Her death was not in vain as it brought Anorexia Nervosa onto center stage and her family started the Karen A. Carpenter Memorial Foundation to raise money for research on eating disorders.

One can't miss the Jim Henson Company Lot that is located at 1416 N. La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles. Kermit the Frog towers above the front gate and he's wearing a Charlie Chaplin's The Champ suit, holding a cane and tipping his bowler hat. And thers's a reason for that because this property was established as Charlie Chaplin Studios in 1917 by the actor. Chaplin wrote in his autobiography, " I decided to buy land in Hollywood and build one. The site was the corner of Sunset and La Brea and had a very fine ten-room house and five acres of lemon, orange and peach trees. We built a perfect unit, complete with developing plant, cutting room, and offices." Chaplin built his studio in the English cottage style and a large orchard was torn out for a backlot where large outdoor sets could be built. There was already a large home on the property that Chaplin was going to use as his personal residence, but it instead was used by studio personnel and his brother Sydney. Most of Chaplin's classic films were shot here. Chaplin sold the studio in 1953 to a group that planned to tear down the studio, but they decided to lease to television production company Kling Studios. The adventures of Superman with George Reeves was filmed here. Red Skelton bought the studio in 1960. In 1967, this became A & M Records and served that purpose until 1999. Jim Henson's kids bought the studio in 2000 to be the new home of The Jim Henson Company.

For thirty years, the A & M Studios were one of the top studios in Hollywood. Studio 2 was the favorite studio for Richard and Karen Carpenter. Christopher Ward is a songwriter who has written songs for Hilary Duff, Diana Ross, The Backstreet Boys, Wynonna Judd and Alannah Myles, which was her song "Black Velvet." On his website he shares, "A few years before that, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers had been recording in Studio 2 and things just kept going wrong. Nothing major, but enough to derail the process and necessitate a series of calls to studio maintenance. A buzz here, a faulty patch there, funky headphone sound. Death by a thousand cuts. The band didn’t want to abandon the room they were comfortable in but eventually it was beyond nuisance level. And no one had a solution. Then someone suggested consulting a spiritual advisor. 'Karen Carpenter’s ghost is unhappy', they were informed by the consultant and as a remedy it would be necessary to install a sizeable crystal in one of the studio walls. And the crystal had to be lit 24/7. Done! Tech issues solved. Happy Heartbreakers. Recording resumed. I found myself working there because Diana Ross asked me to record a gospel choir for the song 'Hope is an Open Window' which Tim Tickner and I wrote with her and were producing for Diana. Since the album was done and time was tight, Diana wanted the choir recorded by Friday. The call came on Wednesday. Our project coordinator booked us into the Crystal Room at A&M. Fortunately, the session went off without a hitch. The crystal did its job. The choir sang beautifully and Diana loved it. I don’t know if the crystal is still there but somehow I suspect it is. It seems to me it would fit in nicely in Muppet world." A former employee at the Jim Henson Studios said, "...when I worked there I was told specifically never to turn off the light on the crystal in B because Karen's ghost would get mad."

Ghost Hunters investigated the studios in 2007 and one piece of evidence they captured was an EVP of what sounded like a woman muttering. Charlie Chittenden Paranormal did a ghost box session in 2016 and tried to contact Karen. There was a female voice that came through and he said it sounded like "I love them." I heard the love but not sure what the rest was. It could've been her voice and it might not have been. Jim Harold had a listener join him on the Campfire in 2012 and this listener saw the full-bodied apparition of Karen.

Tim Jackson was filming a video at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in which Ksenia Buzina and Leonid & Friends were performing the song "Superstar." Jackson writes, "A very odd thing happened when I was videoing the newest song from Ksenia Buzina and Leonid & Friends, Ksenia appeared to be a ghostly figure while the other members did not! Ksenia mentioned that Richard Carpenter had heard their version and loved it and maybe this was the way of Karen making her presence known on stage with Ksenia!!" It probably was just a lighting thing, but it was very odd looking.

 

Karen Carpenter once said of her anorexia, "It's like being haunted. It's the worst thing in the world." Clearly she was very haunted by the spirit of anorexia. Is that why she may still be around in the afterlife? Is the ghost of Karen haunting places? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 556 - Nashville's Belmont Mansion

Moment in Oddity - Three Stags Head Pub (Suggested by: Lyn Beasley)

There is a pub called Three Stags Heads located in Wardlow Mires, just outside of Derbyshire, England. The structure is a longhouse that was built in the mid to late 18th century with a simple whitewashed exterior. The facade is adorned with three stag skulls, hence the name, while the interior harkens back to days gone by where it is said that modern phones and such are not allowed. There are various versions of lurcher dog art to be seen as well as consumed. It is said that their Dark Lurcher beer is quite strong. They serve other local brews and food as well. One item within the pub however is quite unique, at least to modern times. Within a glass case in a corner, sits a mummified cat. The animal was found inside the chimney and is said to have been placed there to ward off evil spirits. There are some European cultures that would often place a deceased cat within a building's walls. This was done because of the belief that cats were thought to bring good luck to the people residing in a building and that the cats could ward off bad luck. Most accounts have shown that this practice proved to have used felines that had previously passed away before being concealed within a buildings' structure. Regardless, finding a mummified cat within the walls of a building, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Attica Correctional Facility Riot

In the month of September, on the 13th, in 1971, New York State Police stormed Attica Correctional Facility. A riot of inmates began on the 9th in the overcrowded prison with 1,281 inmates at the maximum security institution, taking over a large portion of the facility. The rioters were seeking to negotiate to improve conditions and treatment at the prison. The police were able to retake most of the facility on the 9th, however, the rioters moved to an exercise field called D yard and there they held 39 prison guards and employees hostage for four days. Prior to that, one guard was beaten to death. Eventually negotiations stagnated and the New York Governor issued a mandate to regain control of the prison by force. On the morning of September 13th, a final notice was read to the inmates by police, ordering a surrender. The convicts responded by holding knives to their hostages' throats. Shortly thereafter, helicopters flew overhead and dropped tear gas. During the melee, officers fired 3,000 shots killing 29 of the inmates and 10 of the hostages while wounding 89 others. Many of the deaths and injuries happened during the initial gunfire, however some inmates were shot and killed after they surrendered. The resulting deaths of both prisoners and hostages caused condemnation by the public and prompted a Congressional investigation. It was not until January 2000, that New York State settled a 26 year old class-action lawsuit that had been filed by the Attica inmates against prison and state officials. The payout totaled 8 million dollars that was then given to former and current inmates.

Belmont Mansion

The Belmont Mansion is haunted by a woman who knew devastating loss, Adelicia (Add ah lish ah) Hayes Franklin Acklen Cheatham. That's a lot of surnames because there were a lot of marriages. The mansion is located in Nashville and is now a part of the Belmont University Campus. This is an elaborate antebellum villa that served as a summer respite from the Louisiana heat. And it just might be a respite for Adelicia in the afterlife. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Belmont Mansion.

The story of Belmont Mansion begins and ends with Adelicia Acklen. Her parents were lawyer and minister Oliver Bliss and Sarah Hightower Hayes and she was born on March 15, 1817 in Nashville. This early Nashville was a couple years from the first steamboat arriving, which would bring the town out of isolation and starts its build into a big city. Adelicia was raised in Nashville and attended the Nashville Female Academy. It would be after her graduation that tragedy would begin in her life. She met a man named Alfonso Gibbs and the two became engaged. Gibbs never made it to the altar, dying before the wedding. A new love would come into her life in 1839, when she was twenty-two. This was a wealthy slave trader and planter named Isaac Franklin. The slave trade he owned was one of the largest in the south. He was twenty-eight years Adelicia's senior and the couple had four children: Victoria, Adelicia, Julius and Emma. Tragedy struck again as Julius lost his life in 1844 at birth. Two years later, Adelicia senior would lose Victoria to croup, Adelicia Jr. to bronchitis and her husband Isaac. She wasn't yet thirty years of age and she would now be the wealthiest woman in Tennessee. Isaac Franklin passed onto her the Fairvue Plantation in Tennessee, four cotton plantations in Louisiana, some land in Texas, stocks, bonds and hundreds of enslaved people.

In 1849, she met and married attorney Joseph A. S. Acklen who hailed from Huntsville, Alabama. Huntsville had been founded by and named for his grandfather John Hunt. He was born a year after Adelicia and started at the University of Alabama at the age of fourteen. He went to fight in the Texas Revolution in 1835 and served under Colonel James W. Fannin, Jr. Nearly the entire company was executed at Goliad, Texas, on March 27, 1836, but Joseph had already left for home and escaped the massacre. He studied law in Huntsville and President Martin Van Buren appointed him the United States Attorney for the North Alabama Judicial District in 1840. He visited Nashville in April of 1847 and attended a ball where he met the recently widowed Adelicia Franklin. They started a long distance relationship and within two years, Joseph had moved to Nashville to marry Adelicia. And an interesting note here is that Adelicia bascially got him to sign a prenuptial agreement that stated she would retain ownership and control of all the property she brought to the marriage and Joseph agreed. 

The couple decided to build Belmont Mansion in Nashville and began construction in 1850 on 175 acres. The mansion was originally called Belle Monte or "beautiful mountain" and sat on a hilltop. This would take ten years and when it was finished, it was the largest home in Tennessee at the time. It was designed by architect Adolphus Heiman in the Italian villa style and included 36 rooms. The Grand Salon was really something and was designed to impress. The room was larger than most people's homes and featured a columned chamber that was filled with natural light from floor to ceiling windows and the barrel-vaulted ceiling that rose 20 feet was adorned with a dramatic painted sky. A six foot cast iron fountain provided natural water sounds. The walls featured carved woodwork and painted finishes. All first floor rooms connected to the Grand Salon. A stairway connected the Grand Salon to the private bedrooms upstairs and the upper hall had access via another stairway to the cupola, which was a full on octagonal room that could be opened up in the summer months to cool the house and provided a view of the grounds. There was also a telescope in the room. 

The Central Parlor had an optical illusion on the ceiling to make people think they are sitting in a Roman palazzo. The original mirror and Cornelius and Company gas chandelier still remain in this room. The parlor still has eight of the twelve pieces of the Acklen’s parlor suit. The grounds themselves were beautiful with gardens and gazebos, a water tower, a two-hundred-foot long greenhouse and conservatory, bathhouse, bowling alley, art gallery and even a zoo. The Gardener’s Monthly featured an article about the greenhouse at Belmont in 1868 describing it as "built of iron, [was] truly a Crystal Palace, with its high dome and spacious wings." The greenhouse had plants from all around the world with a two-story conservatory in the center. A furnace under the greenhouse helped to control the temperatures. The heat from the furnace would rise through the vents in the floor providing climate control. The mansion really was a showplace and the family even opened the gardens and zoo up to the public.

The couple had six children, Joseph, William, Claude, Pauline and Laura and Corinne who were twins. The twins were named for her sister. Tragedy struck yet again in 1855 when the last surviving child from her first marriage, Emma, passed away from Diptheria. The Acklens commissioned a painting from the artist Gschwindt that was described in The Daily Picayune as, "The child is reclining on a sofa and seems to be just awaking from a pleasant dream, of which the last scene is just fading away. From the clouds, in the background, we see the vanishing form of an angel emerge, clasping the hand of the unconscious child, and pointing to the future. We need only to add that the child soon after died." This portrait was hung in the library of the mansion, but no longer exists. At this point, Adelicia has lost all four of her first children. But 1855 wasn't done with her. The twins, Laura and Corinne, died from Scarlet Fever at the age of three. So she has lost six children at this point. Adelicia would take a trip to Europe after the Civil War and bought a sculpture featuring two little girls cuddling each other and she had inscribed with "Laura and Corinne."

As we mentioned, there was an art gallery on the property and Adelicia and Joseph amassed quite the art collection. This was the first major art collection in Nashville and the couple loaned their collection to various exhibitions. Adelicia was even appointed by the Governor in 1875 to serve on a committee that decided what art pieces would represent Tennessee at an exhibit held in Philadelphia for the United States Centennial. She became very involved in charity work and was elected Treasurer for the Ladies Soldier's Friend Society in 1861. The Nashville Refugee Clothing Association was an organization that supported refugees of the Civil War and Adelicia served on its board in 1864. She donated to orphanages, purchased city bonds for post-war redevelopment in Nashville, invested in the Maxwell House Hotel and in the 1880s, served on the Board of Directors for the Working Women Exchange. Adelicia loved to entertain. There were cotillions and galas and balls and most were held out in the gardens under the full moon. She would pick different themes for the parties and use exotic decor like Japanese lanterns to light the festivities. 

The Civil War brought change for the Acklens and strife. Tennessee seceded from the Union in June of 1861. Joseph paid to get a Tennessee militia armed and in uniforms. He got little thanks for that when the nearby Fort Donelson fell and the Confederate army decided not to defend Nashville. Adelicia stayed at Belmont, but Joseph ran to Louisiana to run the plantations they had there. About a third of Nashville's population left. Now before you think Joseph ran off scared, he actually went to a worse situation. One of the plantations was on the Mississippi River and this area was controlled by Federal gunboats. The Confederates liked to cross here though, so skirmishes happened often. On top of that, both sides wanted to burn the cotton on the plantation because they didn't want either side to benefit from it. Joseph was trying to protect around 8,500 bales of cotton. The Union came to him and offered to protect the cotton, but Joseph didn't want the Confederates to retaliate against him. The Union did eventually provide protection against his will. Despite being only 45, Joseph was sick, tired and so arthritic he couldn't write by 1863. He asked a friend to write a letter for him to Adelicia that the South was going to lose the war and slavery would be over and he was happy that this was going to be the case. Joseph then died of malaria and Adelicia had lost her second husband. 

This left Adelicia in a quandary. The cotton down in Louisiana was worth a lot of money. A story told about her is that she traveled secretly down to Louisiana and used her beauty and charm to get both sides of the war to help her with the cotton. She convinced a Confederate General she was friendly with, not to burn the bales of cotton and then she contracted with a Yankee wagon train to transport the cotton to a New Orleans port. This was with the help of a Union Admiral she was friendly with. The only problem was getting the cotton from the plantation to that port without having rebels rob the train. Somehow she managed to convince some Confederate soldiers to escort the cotton on the train. Neither side knew that she was working both sides. The cotton made it to New Orleans and was sold to the Rothschilds in London for nearly a million dollars in gold. That would be worth nearly 17 million today. 

The couple's eldest son Joseph was off at military school during much of the Civil War. He then went overseas to colleges in France and Switzerland and returned to Tennessee to finish his law degree in 1871 at Cumberland College, School of Law in Lebanon, Tennessee. He set up shop in Memphis and married a woman there named Hattie Bethell and then moved to her sugar plantation in Patternsonville St. Mary Parish Louisiana. Hattie became pregnant shortly thereafter and died in childbirth. The baby also passed. Joseph, Jr. stayed on at the plantation until 1884 and served in politics in Louisiana. He moved back to Nashville in 1884 to practice law again and lived at Belmont until it was sold in 1887. He married again and had eight children and passed away in 1938.

Adelicia would marry for a third time in 1867 to a doctor named William Archer Cheatham. He was a medical reformer and ran the Tennessee Insane Asylum. While there, he implemented the most advanced theories of moral treatment for the mentally ill that had been developed during the 19th century. Dorothea Dix considered the Tennessee hospital the most superior for mental health and it really was one of the best in the nation. Cheatham first wife had passed in 1864 and he brought two children into the marriage, Martha and Richard. He established a private practice in Nashville and worked at that until his death in 1900. Adelicia remained at Belmont Mansion until 1884 when she left for Florida with her three other adult children. The following spring they went to Washington D.C. and this is where Adelicia died in May 1887. Before her death, she sold Belmont Mansion to a developer who sold 15 acres of the land and the mansion to two women from Philadelphia. They opened a school for young women called Belmont College in 1890. This merged with Ward Seminary in 1913 and became a junior college named Ward-Belmont. Minnie Pearl graduated from here as did Mary Martin. In 1951, the school changed ownership and is today Belmont University, which reopened as a coeducational, liberal arts school offering bachelor and graduate degrees.

Today, Belmont Mansion is open as a museum and conducts tours under the care of the Belmont Mansion Association. For years they have painstakingly restored and refurbished the mansion and it is gorgeous. Many pieces of furniture belonged to Adelicia's family. The Rose Garden remains, although it is only about a quarter of the size it had once been. There were roses of every color here and many were show-worthy. A Freedom Fountain has been installed where some of the enslaved cabins would have been at one time. Some of those people included Brutus Jackson, Frances Jackson, Aggie, Fred, Ben Gant, George, Rena Gibbs, Julia Ann, Mortimer, Randolph, Rose, Salley, Manuela and her two children, Betsy and her children: Alexander, Amanda, Harriet, Ivey, James, and Joseph; and Maria and her children: Ezekiel or Zeke, Mary Ann, and William. They've done a great job at the mansion with digging into the history of the enslaved who were here. There are names of other enslaved people who had been at the other Acklen plantations on the fountain as well: John Baker, Betsy or Bettie Baker, Ruffin, Georgina, Eva Snowden Baker, and London.

The east campus entrance for the university had once been the service drive and entrance. Delivery vehicles would damage the oyster shell lined carriage drive, so this separate drive was created with an entrance on the east side of the house where the kitchen was located. A white Italian marble fountain is still located in the front of the mansion and was installed in 1857. And guess what? It actually still works and is said to be the oldest operational fountain in its original location in the American South. A water tower fed water via gravity to this fountain and two others. And there is also a cast and wrought iron gazebo that dates to 1853 that was bought out of the Janes, Beebe & Company of New York catalog. The center featured a large cast-iron outdoor aquarium filled with gold and silver fish. The original Aviary is still here and would have been filled with exotic birds that included a white owl Adelicia had received as a gift.

Unexplained things have happened in this house for a very long time. Adelicia herself claimed that she was haunted by the spirits of her twin daughters. She kept their room as it had been when they were alive and she would spend hours in there, running her hands over the furniture. She would tell friends that she sometimes heard their laughter. The main spirit here is thought to be Adelicia though. Faculty and students have both claimed to see her disembodied spirit. One employee claimed that she was walking down a hallway, cleaning up and checking things after an event, when she ran in the apparition of Adelicia who was wearing an elegant evening gown. On another occasion, a tour guide saw the spirit of Adelicia and as told that the furniture in one of the bedrooms was not in its proper place. 

Adelicia seems to gravitate towards holiday seasons and so is most often seen around Christmas. People believe this is because the university conducts an elaborate ceremony in which a massive tree is set up in the main hallway and a chorus descends the stairway dressed in period clothing and carrying lit candles. Adelicia would've loved this kind of pomp and circumstance. Thoughts as to why she would be here in spirit include her sadness over the loss of her children and possibly that she was greedy and unwilling to give up her earthly treasures. Haunted Nashville written by Frankie and Kim Meredith Harris in 2009 has some great ghost stories and this is one connected the Christmas hauntings. (pg. 84)

And they share these other stories as well. (pg. 86)

David Weatherly wrote on the Eerie Lights blog in 2019, "Susan, who shared her ghostly encounter with me, had spent a lot of time at Belmont in the early 2000's and it was during this period that she had her own run ins with the spirit of Adelicia. As she reports, 'I was friends with one of the security guards at the time, and he worked in the mansion and on its grounds. He would tell me quite often how the motion detectors would go off in the middle of the night when the building was completely empty. They would investigate of course, and find nothing, and they'd have to reset all the alarms. A friend of mine had sworn to me that she'd seen the ghost of the woman, Adelicia, right outside the building one night. A ghost that she swore vanished when she was looking at her. I was doubtful and thought maybe she'd just been up to many hours studying, or maybe she'd been drinking or something, but she always swore she'd had nothing to drink and wasn't tired. Then, one night I was in the main building myself. It really is a beautiful building and there are a lot of items that are original and belonged to the family like furniture and artwork. I was looking at some of the things when I heard what sounded like a child crying. I knew there were no kids in the building. It didn't sound like a baby, more like a little kid, maybe 5 to 7 years old, crying from being upset or hurt. I only heard it twice then it was as if there was silence beyond what's normal silence. I felt a chill and the hair went up on the back of my neck. It's like that feeling, you know someone is behind you and it was almost like slow motion, I turned around, and there she was, this woman in an old-fashioned dress. I know my jaw dropped and I felt frozen, just staring at her. It felt like a long time, but I know logically that it was only seconds. She was looking around like she'd heard that kid crying, and she had her left hand up to her face like she was upset. I saw her and then she just faded away! That made the whole thing even scarier! I knew right away that I'd seen Adelicia Hayes. Maybe she was looking for one of her kids who had died in the house. I never doubted my friend again, and in fact, we both had another sighting of the woman when we were together outside the mansion a few months later. We saw her out front and the same thing happened, she just faded away. I've been convinced since that time that ghost exists and that Adelicia Hayes still stays around the old mansion.'"

The Belmont Mansion is really something to see and that might be why Adelicia has returned in the afterlife. It must have been hard to leave and hard to sell, but now she has the freedom to come and go as she wishes, if it is indeed her haunting the place. Is Nashville's Belmont Mansion haunted? That is for you to decide!

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!