HGB Ep. 616 - Heceta Head Lighthouse

Moment in Oddity - Book Wheel (Suggested by: Michael Rogers)

Many of us love nothing more than snuggling up with a good book, especially in the fall when there is a bit of a chill in the air. With the busy, chaotic world that we currently live in, having that time to delve into a novel can be difficult to come by. Back in 1588, there was a unique invention created by Italian engineer Agostino Ramelli. His invention was the book wheel. The book wheel consisted of a large rotating wooden wheel with individual stands upon which books could be placed. A person sitting in front of the wheel had the ability to rotate it to locate the next book they wished to read without ever leaving their chair. The book wheel looked very similar to a water wheel. Often, the book wheel was used when a reader was studying a particular subject and wished to reference multiple books on the same topic. To keep the rotating books at a consistent angle, gears were installed on each shelf to counter rotate at the same rate as the entire wheel. The book wheel weighed in at a whopping 600lbs and could hold approximately 8 books. Although the mechanics behind the book wheel were quite impressive, a 600lb rotating bookcase, certainly is odd.

Heceta (Ha see tah) Head Lighthouse

Lighthouses are literally a light in the darkness. Many have been located in remote places and all of them are located in areas that have suffered shipwrecks. Families living at lighthouses faced struggles and sometimes death. The Heceta Head Lighthouse is no different. Today, it has been turned into a bed and breakfast with beautiful views and at least one ghost. A legend claims that a young girl drowned here and her mother has returned in the afterlife, looking to find her. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Heceta Head Lighthouse.

The human history for Florence, Oregon begins with the Siuslaw (sigh you slaw) people who settled here more than 9,000 years ago. European settlers would arrive in the 1800s and they would fish and log and eventually set this up as a maritime port. Florence was incorporated in 1893 and there are two stories about how it got its name. One is that it was named for a shipwreck that occurred nearby and the other is that it was named for state senator A.B. Florence. One of Florence's odd claims to fame, we covered as a Moment in Oddity in 2020: the Exploding Whale Park. A large dead sperm whale was found putrefying on the beach in 1970 and this posed a real health issue. Officials needed to move it, but the whale was too large to be moved. Officials came up with a great idea that proved to be a poorly thought out solution. Why not dynamite the thing? And that is just what they did on November 12, 1970. The whole town came out to watch. And many of them probably wished that they hadn't because when the dynamite blew, bits of whale were everywhere. It slammed into the local laundromat and other buildings in the area, a large chunk of blubber crushed a car roof and everyone in attendance got a gory shower of blood and blubber. One would think a city would not want to commemorate this moment in history, but Florence did. On June 13, 2020, a new park was dedicated with a name that residents voted for in huge numbers. That name was Exploding Whale Memorial Park. Something else that Florence is known for are Rhododendrons. They grow along Highway 101 and throughout the town. The science fiction book and movie Dune were inspired by the majestic dunes of Florence. And apparently there was an accidental ban on sex in the town back in 1977. The Florence City Council approved a poorly-worded ordinance on November 26, 1977 that stated that it was illegal to have sex "while in or in view of a public or private place." They really just wanted to prevent public, you know...and eventually amended the ordinance. 

It is said that the location of the Heceta Head Lighthouse was a magical place, sitting 150 feet above the sea on a bluff. The name Heceta comes from Don Bruno Heceta who was part of the Royal Spanish Navy and he was sailing from Mexico to the Arctic Circle. The ship made it as far as Oregon when Heceta decided to turn around because his men were suffering from scurvy. He mapped out the headland before leaving Oregon and it was named for him. There was a dark gap between the Umpqua River and Heceta Head, so the Lighthouse Board commissioned building the lighthouse in 1888. 

A seven-mile wagon road was built between the site of the lighthouse and the public highway. Construction began in 1892 and rock was quarried from the Clackamas River near Oregon City. Lumber was provided by local mills and masonry came from San Francisco. Along with the 56-foot tall lighthouse, a barn, oil houses and dwellings were built. The light was lit for the first time on March 30, 1894. The first-order Fresnel lens was made in Birmingham, England, which was unusual since most were made in France. The Heceta Head lens has 640, two-inch-thick prisms, arranged in eight bull’s-eye panels, and revolves to produce brilliant white flashes. The first head keeper was named Andrew P.C. Hald and he had served previously at the Cape Mears Lighthouse. Hald had been born in Denmark in 1856. When he was fourteen, he took to the sea as a cabin boy aboard a full-rigged sailing ship. When he grew tired of being on the sea, he decided he would like to join the Lighthouse Service. His first job came in 1888 and he served as third assistant keeper of Cape Flattery Lighthouse. The following year he became the first assistant. He also lost his nine-year-old son that year when he drowned at the island station. Then Hald was sent to Cape Meares and then on to Heceta Head Lighthouse. He served five years at Heceta Head. 

The crews changed often at Heceta Head. A one-room schoolhouse was built for the children of the keepers in 1896. One of the keepers named Frank DeRoy told his son that students used kerosene cans to store their books, so that rats wouldn't eat them. 

In 1896, a Norwegian man named Olaf Hansen came to Heceta Head as first assistant keeper. Just like Hald, he left home at 14-years-old for the sea. His wife Annie joined him and the couple had six children and homesteaded. Olaf was promoted and sent to another lighthouse in 1903, but Annie chose to stat at their homestead. He would come back to Heceta Head the following year and would remain there until 1920. One of the Hansen daughters later recalled an incident with Thomas E. Alexander, who was appointed second assistant in 1912. She said, "There was one weirdo came in as an assistant here, Mr. Alexander. Mr. Alexander had a horse and one time he lassoed and threw that horse, tied his four legs together and sat on the hillside and threw rocks at that horse. We went and told our Dad, of course, what he had done. He reported it to headquarters, but he had to wait a week for the mail to go back and forth. Many times during that week, my dad and the other assistant would not go to the tower alone. They went up together because they were afraid of that man." 

When it came to the houses, the head keeper had the house closest to the lighthouse. The other house was duplex with the higher ranking assistant keeper being the next closest to the lighthouse. The chandeliers in the duplex reflected status as well with the first assistant having five bulbs in the chandelier and the second assistant had four bulbs. The head keeper had six bulbs in his chandelier. 

The keepers were responsible for manually winding the clockworks that powered the revolving lens every four hours. First shift began at sunset and ended at midnight. Second shift was from midnight to sunrise. The other keeper would be off. The keepers got every third night off. The watch room had a wood stove and a leather arm chair for comfort. Days were spent cleaning the lantern glass, polishing brass fittings, trimming wicks and filling the lamp reservoir. The npshistory website had this tidbit about the keeper's wives, "The Heceta Head women were fanatical window washers and cupboard cleaners, for the constant threat of a visit from lighthouse inspectors hung over their heads. These inspectors paid a surprise visit to the station once a year. They not only toured the tower and inspected lighthouse machinery, they also entered the houses and eyed cupboards, window sills and wood work. The more fastidious inspectors donned white gloves and ran their fingers atop sills and doors. Despite such stringent checks, few women were reprimanded for their housekeeping, although one was "cited" for a dirty laundry room because she had been sorting clothes into piles when the inspector came in, unannounced."
 
There was an accident near the lighthouse on the evening of March 25, 1927. A man named Frederick Huntington fell from an eighty-foot cliff above Sea Lion Caves to the rocks below and broke his leg. Head keeper Clifford B. Hermann and second assistant keeper Charles F. Walters hiked two miles to the spot and Hermann rappeled down a rope and set the man's leg, lashed him to a board and helped haul him up the cliff. All the keepers were commended for their work.

A garage and power plant was added to the station in 1934 and this electrified it. A 500-watt bulb replaced the incandescent-oil-vapor lamp and changed the light from a white flash every minute to a white flash every ten seconds. Electricity was added to the keeper's houses too. The addition of the electricity lead to the second assistant keeper position being eliminated. The bigger single dwelling house was razed and only the duplex was left. A coastal patrol was stationed at Heceta Head during World War II. Barracks were erected for the seventy-five coastguardsmen. The commanders stayed in the duplex. Clifford Hermann would be the station’s last civilian keeper and he retired in 1950. Full automation came in 1963. When the lens developed a bad lean, the Coast Guard proposed deactivating the lens, but the public shared their dissatisfaction with that so the Coast Guard opted to repair it. The lens eventually stopped in 2000 and was removed and replaced and reactivated in 2001. With automation, keepers were no longer needed, so the duplex was leased by Lane Community College. In 1995, the duplex became a Bed and Breakfast that serves up a seven-course gourmet breakfast. There are six rooms for rent. The house is a Queen Anne style house with a red roof and a white picket fence. The interior is themed turn-of-the-twentieth-century and there are black-and-white photos of former lighthouse keepers and their families. The people chosen to be the first innkeepers in 1995 were Mike and Carol Korgan. They started the restoration. When they retired, their daughter Michelle took over everything. 

There were two nearby natural structures of interest that no longer exist. The Heceta Head State Scenic Viewpoint used to be called Devils Elbow State Park. Within this area was Conical Rock or Parrot Rock. There was a divide here that people had to cross, by walking onto a rock next to Conical Rock. During low tide, this wasn't usually a problem, but at high tide, the tidal action was unpredictable. Currents could change up without warning. From the 1970s to the 1980s, seven people drowned here trying to get over the divide. This could be a reason for hauntings. Anyway, the Oregon State Parks Division and the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife made a plan to blow up a six feet by six feet section of rock. These people clearly like blowing up stuff. Now there is a big gap there, but no more drownings. The other natural structure was called the Eye of the Needle and was a rock arch at the southern end of the Devils Elbow Beach. It seems to have just disappeared in the 1930s from natural erosion. 

You really can't talk about lighthouses without talking about shipwrecks. These could be another reason for hauntings at a lighthouse. Clearly, the point of a lighthouse is to prevent the shipwreck. Many times, it was the amount of shipwrecks that decided what locations needed a lighthouse. And unfortunately, even after these lighthouses were built, there were still shipwrecks. One of the deadliest wrecks in this area, happened on November 4, 1875. This was the S.S. Pacific with 250 people on board and 600 tons of cargo. Some of that cargo was gold worth millions of dollars. The ship was doomed from the beginning of its voyage having left late from San Francisco and there weren't enough lifeboats on board. The cargo was loaded poorly too and the ship was tilting to the right side. So the crew filled the left side with water to even everything out. Eventually the ship tilted the other way and the water was removed. And we should probably mention that the Pacific had sunk once before and been repaired and was definitely past her prime. So on November 4th at 4pm, the Pacific had passed the Cape Flattery Lighthouse on Washington’s Tatoosh Island and was headed south into the Pacific Ocean. Several hours later, at 10pm, the Quartermaster, Neil Henley, was awakened by a loud crash and he saw water rushing into the ship. The Pacific had struck an 1,100 ton square-rigger named the Orpheus. Charles Sawyer was the captain of the Orpheus and he had just retired for the evening when he felt the ship turn dramatically to the port bow, so he went up to see what was going on. His first officer told him that he had seen a beam of light that he assumed was coming from the lighthouse and he turned according. The light wasn't from the lighthouse, but from the Pacific. Captain Sawyer stopped his ship and assumed the Pacific would change course, but it didn't. The Pacific blew her whistle and gave the Orpheus a glancing blow. But that strike was enough to leave the Pacific in grave danger as it wasn't structurally sound. The lifeboats couldn't be launched fast enough and the Pacific split in two. She sunk quickly killing everybody aboard the Pacific, except for two people. 

The nps history site wrote, "Despite the inclusion on the National Register, Heceta House gained public recognition not as a historic site, but as a 'ghost house.'" Henry and Anne Tammen became caretakers in 1973 and they were the first to report strange things. It started with noises they couldn't explain and they figured that this is an old house, there are strong winds outside, there are explanations for the noises. But the haunting ramped up. One night, the couple had another couple over to play cards. The game was interrupted by a high pitched scream. Some mornings, the Tammens would enter the kitchen to find several cupboard open. And then this really weird thing happened. They had put rat poison in the attic and one day they found it gone and in its place was a single silk stocking. 

The Tammens were caretakers when the school rented the buildings and so students were often on the property. Two students were on the porch one day when they claimed to see something gray ascend the porch steps. This gray thing was like a puff of smoke that floated, but it was long, like a human form. Most people attribute the paranormal at the bed and breakfast to one spirit, a spirit they have called Rue. There is no proof that there was ever a Rue at the lighthouse, but the legend goes that she was a former lighthouse keeper's wife and the couple lost their daughter to drowning at the lighthouse. We're not sure how Rue passed away, but because she is still broken-hearted, she has returned to the lighthouse to find her daughter. She mainly haunts the duplex where she supposedly had once lived. Her apparition has been seen floating in the halls, she takes guests belongings, rearranges furniture in the attic and knocks on the walls. Some students from Lane Community College are credited with coming up with Rue's name and this came from them using a Ouija board. Guests at the bed and breakfast are invited to record their experiences in journals in each room. Some stories talk about the weird knocking on the walls and another claimed to see the ghost of Rue sitting in a chair. 

One story claims that a worker named Jim Anderson was cleaning a window in the attic in 1975 when Rue appeared to him. It scared him so bad that he fled the house. He did come back a couple days later, but he refused to go into the attic again. He later was working outside the attic and broke a window and he repaired it from the outside, leaving the broken glass in the attic because he was that afraid to enter. When someone went up to clean up the glass, they found it swept into a neat pile. Other workmen had experiences too. Their tools would go missing and then they would reappear later where they were supposed to be. Things locked with padlocks would be found unlocked. 

Jessi Bunch wrote for PDX Monthly in August of 2024, "We also swapped Rue reports. The young woman staying next to us said she’d heard furniture moving. An older man mentioned the bang of a door downstairs. His wife said she’d had to take a Tylenol PM and was ready to leave. As we packed our bags in our room, the bathroom lights started to strobe. My dubious husband blamed old wiring. I’m not so sure." LordXenu23 wrote on Reddit, "My parents lived in the keepers house for a year in the mid 70's, before I was born. My brother told me he saw the ghost on a couple of occasions." The general manager in 2019, Misty Anderson, told KVAL13, "We make the beds, and then someone sits on it and there's an indentation like she's sitting there looking out the window. There was one lady that sat here in the middle of the day, and I was here, and said she watched the woman just float down this hall way like she was going to go out the front door, but there was not really anyone there." There are those who claim to hear conversations so is there more than one ghost here?

The lighthouse protected ships for years from danger. Does the property now harbor a ghost? Is the Heceta Head Lighthouse haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 615 - Haunted Placerville, California

This Month in History - Chunnel Breakthrough

In the month of December, on the 1st in 1990, the chunnel breakthrough occurred. Soon after 11am on that date, 132 feet below the English Channel, a hole was drilled through sedimentary rock, large enough to drive a vehicle through. This hole was a link between two ends of an underwater railway tunnel. For the first time the Chunnel linked Great Britain with the European mainland. It took nearly four years and 13,000 workers to dig 95 miles, approximately 150 feet below the seafloor. Once the project was to be completed, the Chunnel would consist of 2 rail tracks going in opposite directions, as well as a service tunnel. The Chunnel connected Folkestone, England to Calais, France.  After the connection was made in December of 1990, the completion of the tunnel took an additional four years, first opening for passenger travel on May 6th, 1994. Of the 31 miles that the shuttle train runs, 23 of them are underwater, taking approximately 20 minutes from point to point.  As of 2025, the Chunnel remains the longest undersea railway in the world.  

Haunted Placerville, (Pla like plaster) California

Placerville is one of these California towns that got its start during the Gold Rush. This was a rough and tumble Wild West place also known as Hang Town. The Cary House Hotel was built to accommodate people coming in for the Gold Rush and was the jewel of Placerville. The hotel is believed to be quite haunted and there could be several reasons why. The Odd Fellows were strong in this town and met at the hotel. And there were two deaths there. But it isn't the only haunted location. Several buildings have spirits. Join us for the history and hauntings of Placerville, California.

Gold was found in Sutter's Mill, California in 1848. Placerville would grow up near it after gold was found there as well. The name was Dry Diggin's at first because miners moved cartloads of soil through water to separate out the gold. Like all gold mining towns, this one was rough and tumble. Murders and robberies were common in the camps and strikes were stolen. A year later, it was more commonly known as Hangtown because three men, two Mexicans and a white man, were hanged for robbery without a trial. Placerville would become the new official name in 1854 and was inspired by placer gold deposits. Placerville quickly filled with stores, banks and lodging and was considered a central hub for the Mother Lode region. An early branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad helped with the growth. A wooden hotel was built in the 1840s where the Cary House Hotel would stand and it was called the El Dorado. The hotel also sold supplies and was a Gold Exchange. This burned down in 1849. The town of Placerville would actually burn three times by 1856. They put up a fire bell on a tower in 1878 to help with warning people and this bell still stands today. The builder of the Cary House Hotel was an East Coast businessman named William Cary. This was his first venture into business on the West Coast. Because of the fires, Cary made sure to construct his hotel out of red brick and it was completed in 1857. This was three-stories and done in the Italianate and Second Empire architectural styles and the interior featured 77 rooms, bathrooms on every floor with hot and cold running water and stained-glass artwork in the lobby. But there was no heat. A few wood stoves were all that the hotel had.  In 1911, the Raffeto family purchased the hotel and owned it for 68 years. They decided to add a basement to the hotel and as they were digging, they found a cache of gold dust and gold nuggets. This gave them the opportunity to add a fourth floor and they added steam heat. The hotel was renamed The Raffles Hotel during this time. In 1926, an elevator was added and this is the second oldest running elevator west of the Mississippi. The family sold the hotel in 1979 and the name went back to the Cary House Hotel.

When the rich and famous came to California to visit, they stayed at the Cary Hotel. These people included President Ulyssess S. Grant - who was an Odd Fellow and that may have attracted him to Placerville - John Studebaker, Mark Twain - who used to write for the Mountain Democrat in Placerville - Bette Davis, Elvis Presley, Levi Strauss, Horace Greeley, Brooke Shields and Lou Diamond Phillips. Phillips' film Route 666 from 2001 was filmed at the hotel. Placerville has had quite a few movies filmed there - particularly horror. The Invited was filmed there in 2010. The Cary House Hotel still features its original 1850s woodwork and bricks. The interior was renovated with expansion of rooms and adding of bathrooms, so now there are only 40 rooms available and many of them are suites with kitchenettes. The lobby also has display cases with artifacts from the hotel. This is wine country, so the theming is very much centered on that. But the third floor rooms are named for famous guests like the Studebaker Room and Mark Twain Room. The current owner is Vijay Patel and the hotel is part of the Lexington Collection.

The Cary House Hotel is said to be haunted and it gets so bad with the activity that employees have quit because of it. One year, the hotel had 11 employees quit because they couldn't take the activity anymore. The hotel rooms all have journals for guests to record their experiences. One housekeeper claimed that shortly after she started working there, she was poked really hard from behind when in a room on the second floor and when she turned around, no one was there. Many people have complained about being poked or grabbed by something unseen. The General Manager Josh claimed that he wasn't really a believer in the paranormal, but he had heard enough stories from guests and employees that he became a believer. He said, "These guests came down and told us that they were pulled out of their bed and that's actually been a common occurrence here. People freak out and decide not to stay here. When people get pulled out of bed, it is always the same room on the second floor. That's where most of the haunted activity actually takes place." 

There are several spirits here, but two of them are the most prominent: Stan the bellhop and Irish Dick. Now it seems that Stan was a flirty guy, which could get him in trouble and it actually lead to his death. One day, he flirted with the fiance of a guest and that guest had a knife. He stabbed Stan to death on the stairs and Stan toppled all the way to the bottom, where a pool of blood formed beneath him. 

Irish Dick's real name was Richard Crone and he was a gambler. He liked to gamble at the hotel that stood before the Cary House Hotel and one night, he had a dispute over a monte game. It was about 2am and he stabbed to death the man with whom he had the disagreement. He ran off to a bar where he was captured at 8am. The Mountain Democrat reported, "The news of the murder spread like wildfire in the neighboring canyons, ravines and flats, and by 1 p.m. there were in Hangtown, fully 2,000 angry men, everyone armed with something that would hurt, from a pick-handle to a rifle. The farce of a preliminary examination was allowed to be gone through with before Justice of the Peace Humphreys in the middle of the street. The evidence was brief, and the Judge ordered Dick committed to the custody of the Sheriff (Uncle Billy Rogers) [William Rogers], and Alexander Hunter and John Clark, Constables, to be placed in the county jail at Coloma, the then county seat of El Dorado county. The Judge had scarcely made the order when a lariat was thrown over Dick's head, and he was literally dragged along Main street and up Coloma street to an oak tree. The loose end of the lariat was thrown over a limb of a tree and Dick was pulled up and strangled to death. One of the principal leaders of the move was a large, powerful man, who bore the sobriquet of “Dutch Ben.” 

Stan likes the ladies still in the afterlife and occasionally touches them. One woman claimed that she entered her room and locked the door. Then she decided to go out on the balcony and after she stepped out, she heard the door close and lock from the inside. When she turned, she saw the apparition of a bell hop who waved at her. She was locked out, so had to call down to people on the street for help. There was no employee in the hotel who matched the description of the bell hop. Stan likes to crank the stereo too down at the bar. The stereo will shutoff when the bartender yells for Stan to knock it off. Even though Irish Dick had never been in this actual hotel, he seems to be haunting the ballroom. And a female ghost that smells like lavender has been experienced.

Katrina and Jack visited the hotel and stayed overnight during Season 2 of Portals to Hell. They decided to set up some trigger objects in the ballroom. They put cards on the table and an empty bottle of alcohol. They had a GeoPort and when they asked if Irish Dick wanted a drink, they got a "no." They took the bottle cap half off the whiskey and were hoping that it would get tossed because they had been told by the manager that this had happened once to him. Then they felt something under their feet like a bang coming from under the floor. This would be in the basement, so they went down there. Jack went down and asked if he could join the Odd fellows. Then he felt an extreme cold chill around him. he actually shivered because of it. Katrina and Jack invited Psychic Medium Michelle Belanger to join them and she walked through blindfolded, picking up on a distinguished looking gentleman in what she thought was a ballroom (maybe Irish Dick), rituals in the basement and blood at the bottom of the main stairs. Michelle said that they would have practiced some kind of ritual, they would have been practicing some sort of magic and what they were doing might have gotten out of hand. There might have been some things that happened here that weren't supposed to happen here in regards to the types of rituals they did and if that's the case, what doors did they open?" Katrina asked if she thought there was a portal there and Michelle thought the basement had one. She said, "I can tell you that over time if you were doing things like that, it changes the fabric of the space and makes it more conducive for spirit activity. One of the purposes of running rituals is to thin the veil, which is basically making a portal. 

Romero was a longtime worker at the hotel and he told YouTuber Jack Devan in October of this year, some of his experiences. He said, "One time, I think it was probably like 9:00, 9:30 or 10 the most. I was coming down from the third floor and as soon as I step out of the elevator, I heard this loud scream. It was loud like those horror movies when they're chasing the girl and they're going to stab her...so I looked through the window. No one was there. And then I heard like big steps running from this room right here, all the way towards the front. So followed that sound and there was a lady and her daughter standing there and I asked them, 'What's going on back there?' And the mom goes, 'Did you hear that?' And I go, 'Oh, yeah, of course. I heard it all the way to the front.' They verified that it was really loud. And the daughter was shaking with fear." He told the girl not to be afraid because the ghosts at the hotel weren't bad. Romero said that the ghosts like to turn the lights out on him in the basement. 

There are other haunted hotels in the area. Just three miles south of the Cary House Hotel stands the Diamond Springs Hotel. The hotel is named for the small town where it is located and this was built up around some clear water springs. This was a stop on the Carson Emigrant Trail and a Pony Express stop. The hotel was built in 1916 by Anton Meyer and is the only hotel and boarding house to still survive. In 2004, Moon and Amy Shim bought the hotel from Dan Dammett and it runs as a restaurant now. The list of ghosts here include a little girl in a yellow dress, a dog that likes Table 19 in the restaurant, the first owner of the hotel - Anton Meyer and a woman named Rosa. Many people have heard the sound of children running around upstairs. Customers in the restaurant have claimed to smell cigar smoke and watched as chairs have moved at nearby tables. A cheap perfume has also been smelled when it's early morning and staff is starting to set-up. Celebrity Psychic Nancy Bradley claimed that a corner of the dining room had a vortex for spirits. Kevin Schultz had been a chef at the hotel since 1997 and he had his share of experiences. He told the Mountain Democrat in 2010, "They’re around. This [referring to investigations] will probably stir them up again and they’ll be back in the dining room." Another longtime cook at the hotel named Leonard Landers told the paper, "I took the garbage out to the dumpster one night and locked the gate closed when I came out. The next morning, Dan was yelling because I had left the gate open." Landers maintained he had locked the gate, so the men checked the security cameras and sure enough, Leonard had locked the gate. They then watched it slowly open on its own at 3am. Both cooks had seen an apparition in a bone-colored shirt going around a corner in the kitchen. The article also shares about the owners at the time, "Amy didn’t believe in ghosts anyway — until things started to happen that couldn’t be explained away. First it was the sound of heavy footsteps coming up the stairs when she and Moon were alone in the hotel upstairs doing paperwork. Another time, after picking up her two sons from summer camp, Amy brought them back to the hotel. As her boys walked ahead into the hotel, Amy stopped to greet a couple of regular customers, sitting on the patio having lunch. During the course of the conversation, the wife in the couple referred to Amy’s three children. Amy corrected her by holding up two fingers and saying, “Only two, not three.” The woman stared at Amy and then said, “But you just brought them home, your little boy, a little girl and a bigger boy.” The woman had seen three children walking together from the parking lot into the hotel with Amy, one of them being a little girl with long hair wearing a yellow sundress — a little girl whose presence has also been seen and heard by paranormal investigators."

El Dorado Chamber of Commerce is located at 542 Main Street in Placerville. And this place is haunted because, well, you know how Placerville was called Hang Town? Well, this is where the hangman’s site was. The first building here was the Kossuth House, which was built in 1852 by Phillip L. Platt. This was a log building that catered to miners as a hotel. Dr. Platt died in 1853 and his widow sold the property to Anna W. Clark for $200 in 1856. She owned it for a couple decades. 

When the building was bought by the County of El Dorado in 1923, Marcus P. Bennett was the owner. He was a highly respected Superior Court Judge. The county demolished the hotel and built in its place a building to serve as the American Legion Hall for Post No.119. The El Dorado County Chamber of Commerce occupied this building beginning in 1972 after the Legion had moved to Veterans Memorial Hall. The reports of hauntings include feeling cold spots and pictures falling off the wall. Toilets flush on their own and EVPs have recorded voices speaking French, Russian, and English with a Scottish accent. There are sightings of a full-bodied apparition believed to be named Darrel, who is a bearded man dressed in black. He likes to peer over the staircase and stares down the street at night. A spirit wearing green overalls has also been seen.

The Sequoia Wedgewood Mansion is also known as the Bee-Bennett House and is located at 643 Bee Street in Placerville. The Sequoia Mansion sits atop a wooded knoll and is a glorious Victorian mansion built in 1853 by entrepreneur Colonel Frederick Bee. The house features a multi-gabled roof and wraparound porch. Bee was a protector of the immigrant Chinese workers and he built a tunnel from his house to Placerville's Chinatown to help protect them. 

Bee lost his two-year-old son to the croup in 1855. The Conklin and Duncan families lived in the house next. Judge Marcus Bennett and his wife Mary would be the next owners and they expanded the house in 1889to have 16 rooms and they added a tin ceiling to the verandah. Two of the Bennetts' children died in the house. Marie was only a few months old when she passed and Marcus Jr. passed when he was three. He tumbled down the stairs apparently. The Elks Club owned the house from the 1970s to the 1980s. Today, this is a wedding venue with the Nello Olivo Winery tasting room in the basemen. Here Comes the Guide writes of the location, "The upstairs Get-Ready Room, decorated with gilded mirrors and rich red velvet, affords a peek out the window to watch as guests arrive. A graceful dual staircase descends to the main floor, to a choice of three ceremony sites. The first is a glass-enclosed, light-filled stone Veranda, a cozy space that recalls a bygone era and overlooks a charming garden lawn. Next is the sprawling lawn itself, which enjoys a backdrop of the mansion's quaint façade and the snow-dusted mountains in the distance. Lastly, there's a lush forest retreat around the corner, where towering sequoias, pines, and a lily pond seem right out of a fairy tale." Sightings of the apparitions of Mary Bennett and her children have been reported, as were cold spots. A cook who worked at the Elks Club arrived one afternoon to prepare the meal for an event that evening. When she got to the porch, she saw a man and woman sitting on the porch swing. Then she noticed they were in Victorian era clothing. But then she thought that perhaps they were dressed to go with the house for the event. She passed them and said, "Hello." The couple nodded cordially to her. The cook made her way to the kitchen at the back of the house and as she started to get out equipment, it hit her that the porch didn't have a swing on it. And then she thought more about the clothes the couple were wearing. She suddenly became afraid remembering stories that others had told her about weird stuff at the house. The cook ran out to the porch, saw no swing, and kept going until she got to her car. She got in it and never returned to the Elks Club.

Mary was also called Molly and her favorite place to haunt is the second floor and the room she particularly likes has been called Molly's Parlor. Brides getting ready in this room have claimed to see the spirit of a women in period dress who is smaller in stature. Linda J. Boojer writes in her 2014 book "Gold Rush Ghost of Placerville, Coloma and Georgetown" of Molly, "She materializes regularly to staff members of Camino Flower Shop, whose floral designs regularly grace weddings. In 2014, Molly, dead for over sixty years, was seen on the sweeping staircase by the shop's owner, Dottie Cole McKenzie, and a mother of a bride. A few weeks earlier, her entity appeared in the form of a fast-moving mist to McKenzie's daughter, Matti." 

Seasons Bed and Breakfast is located at 2934 Bedford Avenue in Placerville. This site originally held a gold stamp mill before 1859. A merchant, undertaker, and sexton named Abraham Vedder built a home on the property in the Gothic Revival style, using tombstones for the foundation. Apparently, they had engraving mistakes. He sold this to Henry Ollis in 1862 for $100. Ollis once employed John “Wheelbarrow Johnny” Studebaker - yep, the guy who invented the Studebaker. In 1874, Ollis sold the home to a Canadian named Francis Plumado for $600 in gold. The Plumado family would keep it for 75 years. A chicken coop on the property was refurbished into a home for Miss Jo, a local seamstress. Ann Gladwill owned the property and named the establishment after a series of paintings she did featuring life in El Dorado County at different times of the year. Robyn Rawers is the current owner. Staff and guests have claimed to see an apparition named Martha who likes to rearrange the furniture.

Cuppa Coffee and More is located at 442 Main Street. The brick structure that houses it was built in 1855 in the Gothic Revival style by Caspar Hart. This was their private residence for five years and then they sold it. The building went through a variety of owners and tenants. There was the Piedmont Cafe and a pool hall before being the printing shop, "The Line & Letter Shop." Cuppa Coffee and More opened in 2010 under Jill Barnes and chef Melissa Arcona. 

They were the first ones to talk about the ghosts. Apparently there are two, named Tom and Amy. Tom is around twenty years of age and a prankster. Amy is a ten-year-old. People have claimed to see a vapor hovering near the ceiling and some believe that this is from a gun that was used to shoot Tom on the street in front of the shop. Amy likes to play with the radio and kitchen equipment. She also likes to pinch people. Paper towels in the bathroom have also gone flying and completely unrolling in piles. Haunted Hangtown Ghost Tours said of the place in 2018, "I can substantiate that when we were in here that Tom can be smelled. He likes to move the chairs. We've had our REM pods going off and we caught an EVP when we were leaving telling us to come back.

Linda J. Boojer writes in "Gold Rush Ghost of Placerville, Coloma and Georgetown," 

 

Placerville has some interesting Gold Rush history and very old buildings. Is it possible that ghosts from that earlier era are here? Is Placerville haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 614 - Rolling Hills Asylum

Moment in Oddity - Agar Art Contest (Suggested by: Chelsea Flowers)

Some say that art is in the eye of the beholder. It can take many forms and utilize many different media. Art can be created by drawing with pencil and ink, or painted in oil, acrylic or watercolors. Sculptures can be made out of too many materials to name. Art can be digital or mixed media and encompass numerous techniques. There is a very unique method of 'painting' that is celebrated globally every year by the American Society for Microbiology, also known as ASM. This is the Agar Art Contest. The individually designed pieces of art are created in petri dishes which are filled with a jelly-like 'agar' that is a nutrient rich food source for microbes. You heard that right, the art itself is made up of different colored microbes. Microbes is a broad label to describe different microscopic organisms. Some examples are fungi, protists and viruses. When the microbes are grown in a petri dish they develop into different colors over 24-72 hours. Serratia creates bright red, Bacillus is a warm yellow, Chromobacterium is a deep violet and so on. Participants carefully inoculate different parts of their petri dishes with different microbes and after a couple of days, their art comes to life! ***The process kind of reminds me of glazing pottery since you can't really see the finished colors until after firing. The ASM Agar Art contest was first held in 2015 and continues through today. We definitely encourage listeners to look up some examples of the entries. They are truly incredible. While the art is beautiful, creating it with microscopic bacterias and viruses, certainly is odd.

Rolling Hills Asylum

Rolling Hills Asylum in East Bethany, New York was once known as the Old Country Home and served as the Genesee County Poor Farm for decades. The main building spans over 60,000 square feet with a subterranean tunnel and has stood for almost 200 years. It saw its share of tragedies and hardship through the years. Today, it serves as a museum and paranormal hotspot, featuring tours and investigations. This is said to be one of the most haunted locations anywhere in the world. Join us for the history and hauntings of Rolling Hills Asylum.

Bethany in New York was first settled in 1803 and was a part of the town of Batavia. This was a Roman name for part of the Netherlands. These towns are all referenced as hamlets and have never had large populations. A stagecoach tavern sat on the property that the Genesee County Board of Supervisors bought to establish the Genesee County Poor Farm. They had made the decision to build the poor farm during a meeting on December 4, 1826. An official announcement was placed in the Batavia Times on December 9, 1826 and read, "Notice is hereby given that the Genesee County Poorhouse will be ready for the reception of paupers on the first day of January 1827...The Overseers of the Poor of the several towns of the County of Genesee are requested, in all cases of removal of paupers to the county poorhouse, to send with them their clothing, beds, bedding and such other articles belonging to the paupers as may be necessary and useful to them." The original main building that still stands today was built in 1827 on the Kirkbride Plan and in the Gothic Revival style of architecture. So it has that long multi-wing look that helped to segregate all the different populations that would be housed here. Lots of windows provided plenty of light.

We've talked about several poor houses on HGB. These were basically cast-off houses for widows, orphans, the elderly, the disabled, mentally ill and lesser criminals. The term "farm" was appropriate though as these were indeed farms that were self-sufficient and the people who lived there, the inmates, all participated in running things. This could include raising of Holsteins, ducks, chickens, pigs, draft horses, and raising crops. Genesee County Poor Farm also had a bakery where jams and pastries were sold and there was also a coffin shop. So come on down to the poor farm to buy your final resting place!

In 1828, it was decided that the property needed to be used to house not just the poor, but the mentally ill, so a stone building was constructed next to the main building and the mentally ill and minor criminals were put there. The mentally ill would be moved to a different facility in 1887. The property grew as more land was acquired until it covered 200 acres. The asylum's superintendent in 1915, George Fleming, put forward the effort to plant trees around the property to create wooded areas. He planted 31,000 trees and in the 1920s, the state of New York provided more trees and help with planting. This continued for a decade until there were over 169,000 trees on the property. This is now Genesee County Park & Forest hat everyone can enjoy. In 1938, the Genesee County Infirmary was added as a general hospital. For the time, the hospital was very modern. It was not only fire proof - the first building in the county with that claim - but it was one of the most contemporary facilities at the time. The Genesee County Nursing Home would be the new iteration for the property in 1964. It ran that way until it closed in 1974. There would be three private owners after that from 1980 to 2009. Sharon Coyle bought Rolling Hills in 2009. She said, "I gave up my home, my marriage, everything, and moved 3,000 miles out to Western New York, with just one suit case and not much else, except gumption, drive, fostering the dreams and aspirations of saving this historically rich and architecturally beautiful property, now encompassing just a little over 11 acres, 60,000 sq. ft of main buildings and several out buildings." And she is still there today, preserving the site and running events. 

There was a cemetery here, but it has been lost to time. People who died at Rolling Hills without family, were laid to rest on the property. There are no formal records left, but a document from 1886 read, "The burying ground we have improved by building a fence in front and grading and leveling the ground as much as could be done without injury to the graves." Fortunately, a memorial was placed in the Genesee County Park in 2004 after five headstones, dated from 1887 to 1888, were found. 

There are many stories of tragedy connected to Rolling Hills, as is the case for every poor farm and asylum we have covered. Roy was a long-term resident of Rolling Hills. He had been born into a prominent banking family in New York and he was born with a blip in his genetic code that left him with extreme gigantism. Roy's hands and feet were incredibly big and the left side of his face was deformed. His family didn't want a circus freak show in their family, so he was dumped at the asylum when he was twelve years old. Roy grew to a height that was well over seven feet. He actually thrived at the asylum and was described by everyone as having as big heart to go with his stature and he was kind - so important in this world. He loved to listen to opera music. Roy remained at Rolling Hills his entire life until he passed at the age of 52. The psych ward and solitary confinement had iron brackets, more than likely to help control unruly patients. There are reports that people in these areas were treated cruelly.   

Rolling Hills is considered in the top 10 of haunted locations in America and has made appearances on nearly every paranormal show on cable and YouTube. And finally, we are covering it! The list of what people experience here is vast. A man wearing a suit has been seen standing in doorways, typically by Intake. A tour guide named Jay was taking a group through and everyone heard audibly, "Thank You" in the infirmary. People have witnessed a ball roll out of a door, turn in direction and come back into the room through another door - all on its own. A book was lifted off a table and slammed back down. Doors are heard slamming all the time.  

There are several ghosts here. Our kind-hearted Roy is here. Weird NJ shared, "Sharon tells a story about running into a rat in the infirmary about two months after moving into Rolling Hills. Terrified by it, she screamed and ran away. The very next day she found the rat dead on the stairs, blood oozing from its mouth as if its neck had been broken. On the wall above the rat was a giant bloody handprint. Sharon believes that the ghost of Roy witnessed her distress and killed the rat for her." Roy is most often seen as a large shadow man. There was an elderly blind woman here named Hattie who would yell out "hello" to get the attention of nurses and this female "hello" has been captured on EVP. Sharon herself captured this and played it for a former nurse at the facility and she recognized it as being Hattie. And there was a mean nurse who may still be walking the halls. She was known as Nurse Emmie and she was cruel. Inmates and staff alike were afraid of her and tried to avoid her because they believed she could put curses on people. EVP captures of a cackly-like laugh have been attributed to Nurse Emmie. A number of EVPs have been captured over the years. EVPs have been caught many, many times of a woman screaming. When Sharon moved in an old antique washing machine and asked Queenie what she thought, an EVP of a woman said, "Happy with it." Another time they asked Chuck, who was with him and an EVP said "Erin." 

A woman said that she had come all the way from California and the Spirit Box said, "Grateful." Jay and Drew, who worked on the crew of Rolling Hills in 2017, were conducting an EVP session and specifically trying to talk to the spirit Cecil. They asked him if he would like them to bring him a sledgehammer to finish taking down a wall he had once been working on and he answered, "No, that's ok." 

The superintendent we mentioned earlier who planted all the trees, George, well he ended up getting really sick and he had a couple of strokes and had to be given a tracheotomy and he was cared for at the asylum. He did pass away here. People claim to hear him growling or making a gutteral noise because of the tracheotomy. There is a chair in George's room that people will sit in and they feel they're being touched on their shoulder or on top of their head. People will open the closet door in there and if they go inside, sometimes the door will be closed on them and the handle will be held. George has been caught on EVP laughing when this happens.  

Kurt Filipiak visited in 2010 and wrote, "Three years ago myself and my two friends, Bobby and Tommy, were in the Christmas room doing EVPs and when we reviewed the audio, we discovered an EVP that said, "kill them." Interesting EVP here: https://www.tiktok.com/@groundedparanormal/video/7024971238351179013?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7519268673312622135

Just like Waverly Hills with its fourth floor of shadows, Rolling Hills has its own Shadow Hallway too. This is on the Second Floor of the East Wing, in the old men’s dormitory. Sharon told Weird NJ, "This is where we see a lot of shadow people. When you look down toward the infirmary section you start to see shadow people, and they could look like you and I, solid, they can be light grey, medium grey, dark grey or pitch black. They could be normal human shaped or anamorphous shapes. They come in and out of doorways, walk across the hall. Sometimes they’ll poke an arm or a leg out, sometimes they crawl on the floor, and that can be creepy, especially if you’re sitting on the floor during an investigation and one is coming at you––because you can actually see the shadow moving toward you." 

The Morgue had two large walk-in refrigerators where bodies were stored and this area is rife with activity. More than 1,000 died at Rolling Hills. People have been shoved in here. Disembodied voices have been heard.

On the website, Sharon shares this along with several clips, "I wanted to share the results of an experiment I've been doing at Rolling Hills Asylum in conjunction with George Lopez, of Port Orange Paranormal Society on March 5, 2011 (the night after Roy's birthday) via his Blog Talk show - DEAD AIR. The experiment consisted of George and I conducting a live dual spirit box/Frank's box session broadcasting live from Florida. George has four people in the spirit world whom he communicates with regularly: Amanda - former team member who was killed in a car accident 2 yrs ago. Gabriel - Amanda's friend who is in spirit world and helped to cross Amanda. Collette - George's Spirit Guide. Michael - George's Spirit Guide. George communicated to all four, through his Spirit Box live on the radio. I then called in from RHA and put him on speaker phone as I used my Frank's Box (#87) in Shadow People Hallway. Both FL and RHA recorded the session. George then sent his four spirit contacts to RHA where he provided test questions - many of the answers we'd heard audibly (some were clearer during playback). For instance, George asked Amanda to say Rolling Hills Asylum three times if she had made it up here - and she did! We heard her say "Rolling Hills. Rolling Hills. Rolling Hills." Amazing! While in the Shadow people hallway I had asked the spirits to call out one of our names (one of the living) in the hall, "Sharon Coyle" was heard clearly by all. When I asked for a second name - we couldn't hear it audibly - but upon play back you hear "Damn it! That's who I know!". The experiment consisted of three parts: the 1st part - talking to George's spirits in FLA; the 2nd part was sending George's people to RHA and communicating with them and the RHA spirits together at RHA; and finally, the 3rd part was sending George's spirits back home to FLA accompanied by Roy and communicating with them via George's Spirit box. Over all we had over 200 direct responses! This included, interactions between living and spirit as well as interactions between spirit and spirit - all in a three hour period! It was truly amazing!!" 

Mike from New Jersey Paranormal Research wrote, "We were just went up the stairs by the office area and started looking in rooms for a digital recorder we had left, when we caught this loud 'Please stay in your room' then 'It's nothing' we didn't hear these things when we recorded them only on playback." 

Past Intel on YouTube posted a video from their investigation in 2010. They said, "Several Groups of investigators went to Rolling Hills Asylum in Bethany NY. We decided to try communicating with the Spirits using a Frank's Box also known as a Ghost Box. During the live session we picked up a word or two, but after listening to the session a few days later, I found that we had several answers, and when one of our investigator coughed/sneezed we had an INTELLIGENT response ( Bless you and Gesundheit ) I was tickled pink to say the least! check out the video, and PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT as to what you think." (Bookmarked) 

Celestial Spirit Investigators wrote in 2011, "We had an amazing night! had about 45 minute K2 session in the shock therapy room and the most EXCITING part of the evening was we turned on the phantom of the opera and low and behold out came Roy. he was wonderful to see him swaying back and forth to the music."

Username Ghost Encounters wrote on Reddit, "In the morgue, there was an autopsy table I think it was where people claimed that there was a heaviness on their chest when they laid down on it. I laid on the table and didn't feel anything. There was a suit hanging on a string nearby that if you asked questions about people in the room, the suit would turn in that person's direction. When a few other people entered the morgue they asked if the suit would turn to my Mom and I. It was still and nobody had moved it then it slowly turned toward my Mom and I and stopped. When I was laying on the table, it hadn't moved at all. But now it was turning towards us. Pretty creepy but I wanted to see some more parts of the building and kept moving."

Cake Nibbler wrote on Reddit, "My friend was pushing me around in a wheelchair when I saw a black shadow person run across the hall but bending in ways people shouldn’t bend, so I got up and froze and to my surprise my friend just goes “what someone just crossed the hall” and I said something along the lines of “that wasn’t human” and we proceeded to debate if it was a person or not and we realized we can easily just clear the hall room by room and see if anyone was on the floor with us. After searching the wing we realized not only was there no one was in the room we saw it run into, no one was even in entire wing." 

Gibbenz wrote on Reddit, " I really only had one strange and inexplicable experience while I was there, and it came in Nurse Emma's room upstairs. To make a long story short, I knocked on the door frame, introduced myself, and sat in a chair and attempted to speak to her in German for about ten minutes. My brother refused to enter the room and remained in the doorway. While I was in there nothing happened, but I did feel rather comfortable being in there, unlike other areas in the building. Now here's where it gets strange. As I was leaving the room I said, "Danke. Guten Nacht, Emma." Just after I said it I heard what sounded like a slight shuffle from the closet and I turned to see the door move about an inch. I'd be lying through my teeth if I said that chills didn't instantly run through me haha. I just kind of stood there, whispered for my brother to come back, then walked away. Man, it was really weird. Other than that I thought I saw a shadow pass into a room at the end of the shadow hallway, but I'm going to chalk that up to my eyes and the poor lighting playing tricks on me. I also had eerie feelings on some rooms compared to others, but you can take that as you will." 

Username S-81_Music posted on Reddit about a ghost hunt they participated in at Rolling Hills last year. They wrote, " Anyways, the main reason for this post is because I am quite unsure what I have captured in this photo. Mind you, the building was pitch black as the ghost hunt took place from 7pm-11pm, so the reason it appears bright is due to my iPhone 11's flash. Pictured to the right is my grandfather entering a room and my grandmother was already in the room. I am 100% certain that we were on the second floor at the time, but am not entirely sure what room I was looking at when I snapped this photo. I will provide both images; the photo straight from my iPhone 11, and the edited photo. Just for some context, I specifically squared up the end of the hallway to raise the exposure 5 stops and try and do some significant noise reduction. I am curious if this is one of those instances where your phone's camera creates artifacts or random patterns of noise or not." Here is the first picture and then the second picture.

 

  

Interesting TikTok (48 seconds in) https://www.tiktok.com/@heelsandhalo/video/7471522965943897375?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7519268673312622135 

And this one: https://www.tiktok.com/@hauntedtherapist/video/7558297438134537486?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7519268673312622135 

Rolling Hills seems to be an incredibly active place with a wide variety of paranormal activity. Are Roy and George and several others who lived much of their lives here and who passed away in the building, still here? Is Rolling Hills Asylum haunted? That is for you to decide.