HGB Ep. 637 - Haunted Fort Smith, Arkansas

This Month in History - The Haymarket Affair

In the month of May, on the 4th, in 1886, a bombing took place at a labor demonstration in Chicago, Illinois. The event became known as the Haymarket affair. This was a rally that began peacefully on May 3rd, but then erupted into violence when police fired at the crowd of strikers. It was organized to support striking workers who were demanding to reduce their work shifts to eight hours per day. The initially peaceful gathering was held at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company plant on the West Side of Chicago. On the 4th, an unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at the police as they were working to disperse the crowd. The resulting gunfire from the police resulted in the deaths of seven officers and four civilians, with many others injured. Eight suspected anarchists were identified and charged with the bombing. The legal proceedings made international news. During the trial, one person was identified as possibly having built the bomb, but evidence at the hearing indicated that none of the defendants on trial had thrown it, with only two of the eight defendants on trial having been present at the Haymarket at the time of the bombing. Seven people were sentenced to death and one person received 15 years in prison. Governor Richard H. Oglesby commuted two of the death sentences to life in prison. One person died by suicide while awaiting his execution and the remaining four were hanged on November 11, 1887. In 1893, Illinois Governor John Altgeld criticized the trial and pardoned the remaining four deceased defendants. 

Haunted Fort Smith, Arkansas

Fort Smith in Arkansas was the gateway to the West. The city is over 200 years old and got its start as a military outpost. There are several haunted locations here that are connected to that military heritage. And some are connected to the law, like the US Marshals. And then there are places of ill-repute. Fort Smith was a place where outlaws, bootleggers, gamblers and ladies-of-the-evening flourished on the traffic that came up the Arkansas River. Join us as we share the history and hauntings of Fort Smith! 

US Army troops established Fort Smith in 1817 in Arkansas to help keep the peace between the Osage and Cherokee. They named it for General Thomas Adams Smith, commander of the United States Army Rifle Regiment. People started to settle around the fort and it was expanded in the 1830s. The town of Fort Smith was founded by John Rogers and was incorporated in 1842. It was a military and supply center during the Mexican-American War and the California Gold Rush. During the Civil War, the Battle of Devil's Backbone took place nearby and the Confederate post was occupied by Union troops. Formerly enslaved people took refuge in Fort Smith after the war. The fort was abandoned in 1871, but parts of the original fort are still visible at the Fort Smith National Historic Site. Before the historic site was established, the site was a federal court under hanging Judge Isaac Parker who sentenced 160 people to death and hanged 79 of them. The courthouse is part of the historic site. Fort Smith had an interesting history through the 1900s with legalized prostitution for awhile, Jim Crow laws, lynchings and strikes. The city continues to hold a strong military presence with Fort Chaffee and it also has quite a few haunted locations.  

Fort Chaffee (Chay fee)

Fort Chaffee was built in 1941 and started as Camp Chaffee, named for a World War I Cavalry officer named Adna Chaffee Jr. This eventually stretched over 72,000-acres. This military base was the training site for thousands of troops heading overseas during World War II. German prisoners-of-war were housed here. It later served as an annual reserve training center. Vietnamese and Cuban refugees were housed here during the 1970s. 

The Arkansas National Guard still uses 66,000 acres of the property and the other 6,000 has been redeveloped. 700 buildings were demolishedTwo interesting facts: Elvis Presley was processed into the army at Fort Chaffee in 1958 and Mark David Chapman, the man who murdered John Lennon, worked at Fort Chaffee in the 1970s helping Vietnamese refugees at the camp. People hear disembodied footsteps and whispers, some people feel cold spots and there is a story about a disembodied arm floating in mid-air. Ghost Adventures visited the fort during Season 4. Their evidence included strange noises like music, work sounds and banging. A ball of light was captured flying into Zak's chest. And they captured the following EVPs: "It's Getting Hot In Here", "Its Not The Cops", "Watch Your Back", "Come And Get Me", "If You Believe That ****", "Get On The Bed", "Coffee, Cafe", "Get Out", "It's Hot In This Building and I'm Here To **** You." 

Fort Smith National Historic Site 

When it comes to the former Fort Smith, all that is left of that are the stone foundations. The Old Commissary Building still stands and is the oldest standing building at the historic site. This was built between 1838 and 1846 and initially was used for food and supply storage. Within a few years, it was the largest and busiest supply posts in the southwest. 

Both sides ended up using the building during the Civil War. From 1875 to 1890, Hanging Judge Isaac C. Parker’s office was on the second floor of the building. The first floor became home for the Hammersly family from 1890 to 1896 since two members of the family were court officials; Jacob Hammersly was the Court Crier and his daughter, Florence Hammersly, was a Deputy Court Clerk for Judge Parker. A group of local women saved the building when plans were made to demolish it. They opened it in 1910 as the Old Commissary Museum, which was the city’s first history museum. When the NPS made the building part of the historic site, the museum moved to the Atkinson-Williams Warehouse and changed its name to Fort Smith Museum of History. The Old Enlisted Men's Barracks was built in 1846 and was a two-story structure with porches on both sides at the first and second floor levels. Stone was quarried from Belle Point. A fire ripped through the building in 1849 because of a defective flue and it had to be rebuilt. It continued to house single enlisted men until the fort closed in 1871. But that wasn't it for the barracks. The next iteration for it would be as the courthouse for Judge Isaac Parker. While Judge Parker sounds like he would be a harsh man with the nickname of "Hanging Judge," he was actually a man who believed in redemption and he would weep as he sentenced a man to death. He would preach at the gallows before hangings. Parker had arrived in Fort Smith in 1875 at the age of 40 and at the time, outlaws had operated in the area with impunity for years and the justice system was in shambles. Parker fixed that and the gallows helped. The jail and US Marshal's Office was also located in the barrack's building. The jail was in the basement and had been the former mess hall and most people referred to it as hell on the border. Now it had two large cells that could hold up to 50 men each. There was limited ventilation and a bucket for the toilet. Today, the Barracks is the visitor center. The courtroom had been recreated on one end of the second floor with period desks and chairs. 

Eighty-six men would die on the gallows here, but it is the Judge who is thought to be the predominant spirit because he suffered psychologically and had nightmares constantly after becoming the judge. Visitors feel a heaviness near the recreated gallows structure. Anomalies appear in photos. 

A cleaning lady had been there late one night to do some dusting and when she entered the courtroom, she saw a man dressed in a dark period suit, sitting before the judge's bench. She excused herself, not wanting to disturb the man. She thought maybe he was a re-enactor or somebody left over from an event held earlier that day. But then she thought, wait a minute, nobody should be here at 10 o'clock at night. When she went back into the courtroom, the man was gone. Visitors have claimed to see this same figure and they describe him as being a large, heavyset man with a dark beard, and that is how Parker looked in his later years. People have also heard disembodied footsteps, smelled cigar and pipe smoke and heard whispered conversations and the rapping of a gavel. 

AM Nightshade wrote "Arkansas: True Hauntings, Urban Legends, and Paranormal Encounters from the Natural State" and in there he shares, "A ranger named Tom Yates, who worked the site for fourteen years before his retirement in 2018, described his first experience with the jail's sounds in an interview with the Fort Smith Times Record. He had been closing up the building on a winter evening when he heard what he was certain was a man crying in the lower cell block. He went down the stairs expecting to find a visitor who had stayed past closing. The cell block was empty. The sound stopped when he reached the bottom of the stairs and did not resume. Yates had several subsequent experiences in the jail over his fourteen years, all of them in the auditory range: sounds that had no visible source and that stopped when he approached them." 

Author Bud Steed had been taking pictures of the Barracks one day and he saw a man looking out the window from the upper floor. He didn't think much of it until the group he was with went inside and he realized that the upper level was padlocked and no one was in there. There were no other entrances or ways to get to the window. The shadowy form of a man has been seen hanging out around many of the museum's displays. (Jail experiences from Steed book)  

Fort Smith Museum of History

As we mentioned, The Fort Smith Museum of History is now located in the Atkinson-Williams Warehouse Building, which is located at 320 Rogers Avenue. This four-story brick building was built in 1907 and designed by architect Tllman Reddick. This was a commercial warehouse owned by Colonel Benjamin Atkinson and W. Buckner Williams who specialized in hardware. They ran the Atkinson-Williams Hardware Company into the first decades of the 20th century. 

A warehouse district grew up around it as this became a wholesale distribution center. The company became an exclusive distributor for John Deere and Studebaker. In 1979, that building became the home to the Old Fort Museum, now the Fort Smith Museum of History. The museum has more than 35,000 artifacts in its collection. The third floor is said to be the most haunted. Leisa Gramlich was the museum's executive director and shares that one of her most frightening experiences happened one day as she arrived to the third floor. She said, "We got off the elevator and heard a child's voice plain as day, like a child running and yelling. Playing is what it sounded like, and I even walked from the elevator back to the back here and said, 'Who's up there?', and I hear the voice jump from that corner to this corner so I came over here and there was nothing here." Investigators have reported getting a sudden cold chill in the museum's basement.  A slamming gavel is heard on the second floor that has some of Judge Parker's furniture. A child ghost has been seen on the second floor too.

Miss Laura's Social Club

The Row had been the former red-light district in Fort Smith. One of the brothels still stands today as a museum, Miss Laura's Social Club. This Victorian was built in 1896 and started as the Riverfront Commercial Hotel and was converted to a brothel in 1903 by Laura Ziegler, hence the name Miss Laura's. 

The house was quite grand and soon earned the nickname as the "Queen of the Row." The brothel was high class and only accepted the best clientele and working girls who made three times what was charged in other bordellos. The girls couldn't come downstairs unless they were fully dressed. Miss Laura made sure they got regular medical exams. Miss Laura sold the house in 1911 to "Big Bertha" Dean who ran it until it closed in 1948. The building served a variety of uses as it fell into disrepair and then in 1963 a man bought it and did a full remodel to open it as a restaurant. In 1992, it became a visitor's center and today is a museum. There are several ghosts here. People feel cold spots and catch the scent of cigars and brandy as though men still sit in the parlor waiting to converse with the girls and pick their "date" for the evening. The sounds of laughter have been heard audibly. A woman in a white gown has been seen, especially walking the upper floor. A ghostly piano is frequently heard playing in the mansion. 

The Clayton House

The Clayton House started as the Sutton House in 1852. William Henry Harrison Clayton bought it in 1876 and doubled the size of the house before moving in his family in 1882. He changed the look of it to Victorian Gothic/Italianate style as well. Clayton was the federal prosecuting attorney for the hanging judge. He had married a woman named Florence and they had six daughters and one son. Florence was part of a literary group that helped to establish the first public library in Fort Smith and Clayton was active with the Freemasons and Knight Templars in town. 

The house was six thousand square feet and had a formal parlor, a study, sitting room, dining room, ornate coal-burning fireplaces, a semi-detached servants’ quarters, a kitchen, four bedrooms and a common living area near the bedrooms. The Claytons lived here until 1897 and they left behind a few pieces of furniture that are still with the house, including a writing desk, a tea table and the family Bible. The house was a boarding house owned by Emma High for many years after the Claytons. Before the Claytons bought the house, it served as a Civil War hospital for the Union and many of the spirits here are thought to go back to this time. 

People claim to smell weird scents and some have been touched and had their hair pulled and there have been full-bodied apparitions seen. There is the Lady in Brown who seems to be residual as she usually sits just looking out a window and doesn't respond to anyone. She wears a long brown skirt and white linen high-necked blouse buttoned all the way up with her grey hair in a bun. People think she might be Emma High. She is seen for a moment and then disappears. 

Bud Steed wrote "Haunted Fort Smith & Van Buren" and in it he shares a story a tour guide named Amy shared with him, "Amy had been working in the office, which is located at the back of the home when she thought she smelled something burning - an odd type of smell that was unfamiliar to her. She searched all throughout the house, checking to make sure that nothing was on fire. Finding nothing that would account for the smell, she went back to the office to continue her work, but while passing through the study, she once again smelled the odd smoky odor. While standing there trying to figure out where it was coming from, she realized that it seemed to be all around her but concentrated just in the study, not in the adjoining rooms. At about that time, a maintenance worker who was doing some restoration work outside came in for a moment, and she asked him if he smelled the smoke as well. He said that he did and it smelled like high-end pipe tobacco. A bit nervous now, she half-jokingly asked whoever it was that was smoking if they could refrain from doing it in the house and while she was working. Within moments, the smell of pipe tobacco completely disappeared, and she has never experienced it since." Perhaps this had been Clayton visiting the house in the afterlife since the scent seem concentrated to the study. Or something residual frozen in time, although it went away when asked to do so. 

Lanky-Concentrate wrote on Reddit, "So, I currently work here! There is a servant's door with a large buffet on the other side. This door has a history of opening on its own! It's happened at 2 in the morning when no one was in the house! On the other side of the door is a table with a silver tea set that rattles all on its own. I've had so many experiences that it's easy to block it out which sounds insane. In the same area I've seen a woman several times. Unsure if it's the nurse or a servant. There are also footsteps in the study that you get used to."  

OceanStorm1914 had worked at the Clayton House and they wrote on Reddit, "All that being said, there are 4 or 5 active spirits and residual energy/hauntings from when it was a Union hospital during the Civil War. There's the gentleman in black (men wore dark colored clothes, he's always been perfectly polite to me), 1 or 2 women (not sure on that count. I've seen one lady almost clear as day except no color and others have said they've seen someone else), a young girl, and a grey cat. Based on hair style, I'd say it is a photo of the girl. She's most likely around 10, maybe younger, and during a spirit box session conducted during an investigation the team let me shadow and help with, her name is Grace. To me, she was a sweet heart and a shy little thing. I never physically saw her like the 3 others, but once we were introduced she made her self known. Edit: took another look at the photo. Someone mentioned the spirit having a shawl or similar and that's a definite possibility. If it is, it's the woman in brown that I never saw."  

Martha Siler had been the former director of the Clayton House and she had some experiences. She said that one bedroom on the second floor had doors that would slam hard and people would hear music playing and hear boots stomping. Martha saw the apparition of a woman dressed in a linen shirt and brown skirt in Mr. Clayton’s study one day. A carpenter took some pictures and he captured what appeared to be a woman in one of them and he was the only one in the house. Paranormal Investigation and Research of Western Arkansas has been to the house numerous times and recorded EVPs, including a meowing cat, a man shouting obscenities and someone calling Anna. 

There is a spirit that hangs out on the upstairs landing area and the bedrooms near the stairs and people call him "The Angry Man." People think he was a soldier and he is often seen dressed in black and he paces the floor impatiently. He was possibly seen at a wedding at the house. (Printed story) A volunteer once heard the piano in the house playing. She freaked out because this piano is a Mathushek orchestral square piano from 1884 that is worth $40,000. She thought a visitor was pounding on it. She ran to the room where it was and the music stopped right before she got there. She looked into the sitting room and no one was in there. She searched the whole downstairs and no one was there. It then occurred to her that maybe a spirit was playing it so she asked aloud if the person would stop playing the piano because it was an expensive antique and if anything happened to it, she would lose her ability to work there. She never heard the piano play again.  

Fort Smith has all the charms of a southern city, including the ghosts. Maybe. Are these places in Fort Smith haunted? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 636 - Hotel Metlen

Moment in Oddity - The White Baneberry

Many varieties of flora can take unusual forms, they can be beautiful or strange in appearance, and some can even be deadly. We've previously featured the naked man orchid, the white egret orchid and also the corpse flower whose bloom smells like rotting flesh. Another strange plant with a creepiness all its own, is the White Baneberry. This is an upright plant featuring fern-like leaves with white flowers and distinctive white berries. These white berries have a black dot resembling a pupil, giving this perennial plant the nickname of "dolls eyes". Not only are the multiple eyes watching you creepy, but the entire plant is quite toxic, especially the berries. The compounds of the eyeball berries can cause cardiac arrest. This perennial herb dies back to the ground each winter and can be found in wooded areas from Eastern Canada down to southern locations like Georgia and west to Louisiana, Missouri and Minnesota. It thrives in rich, moist deciduous forests, especially under northern hardwoods in humus rich, acidic soils. To many people, dolls in general are creepy and they sometimes can be haunted, but a toxic plant whose berries look like creepy doll eyeballs watching you, certainly is odd. 

Hotel Metlen 

Dillon, Montana has served some important purposes in its time. This was the terminus for the Utah and Northern Railway and was the supply and shipping hub for the Beaverhead Valley, meaning it supplied most of the mining in the area. Eventually this would be the wool capital of America. The Hotel Metlen was built here and it still stands today in the town's historic district. There are several ghosts that reside within the hotel and not all of them are friendly. Join us for the history and hauntings of Hotel Metlen!

Like many states in the west, precious metals would bring settlers to Montana to establish towns. In the mid 1800s, silver and then gold were discovered in what would become the Beaverhead Valley. Not only was this ore rich, but this was also agriculturally rich. Immigrants flocked here and the railroad took notice with the Utah and Northern Railway founding Dillon as a railroad town in 1880. They first named it Terminus since that is what it was for the railway, but they eventually changed the name to Dillon in honor of the Union Pacific Railroad President at the time, Sidney Dillon. Dillon had been the key architect for getting the railroad through Butte, Montana. The town was situated perfectly to be a support hub for all of the nearby boomtowns like Virginia City, Bannack and Argenta. We've done an episode on the ghost town of Bannack. The introduction of the gold dredge at the same time as Dillon was being established, really helped the town flourish as well. Dillon was incorporated in 1884 and really started growing at this time. And then the gold mining was done and most boomtowns faltered, but Dillon held on because of agriculture. The area was perfect for cattle ranching and especially, sheep ranching. Dillon would become the largest exporter of sheep wool in the country. In 1897, the Montana State Normal School opened to train teachers for the state and it is today University of Montana Western.

Before there was a Metlen Hotel, there was the Corrine Hotel. This was a unique hotel made from canvas that could be moved. It was named for the town where it started, Corrine, Utah, and it traveled with the railroad to Dillon. It's hard to believe a flimsy hotel of canvas could thrive, but it did.

Joseph C. Metlen had been born in Pennsylvania in 1834 and he traveled to Montana with his brother where they settled on Horse Prairie in 1867 and started in a business to bring supplies from Corrine, Utah to Bannock. By 1871, Metlen was involved in politics, representing Beaverhead County in the territorial legislature. In 1883, when he was elected county treasurer, Metlen moved to Dillon. He ran for sheriff in 1884, but lost. The Corrine Hotel had been improved from a canvas hotel to a wood hotel by 1884 and so Metlen decided since he wasn't going to be sheriff, he should get into the hotel business and he bought the Corrine. Unfortunately, the hotel burned to the ground in 1892. Unthwarted, Metlen decided to rebuild and he chose the Second Empire architectural style with the distinctive mansard roof that was really popular at the time. The building was three-stories and made from white sandstone brick and there was also a central tower. The third story has dormer windows all along and around the mansard roof. Ashlar was quarried from the nearby Daly's Spur Quarry to serve as the foundation. The front entrance was recessed with a semi-circular arch over the top that was filled with a three-lite fan window and was beneath the tower. A second entrance was to the right when facing the building and this led into the saloon. There had been a balcony on the front originally, but that no longer exists. The building took up the entire city block. Inside there was Oregon pine and on the first floor was the lobby, bar and billiard room, dining room, double parlors, kitchen and the proprietor’s room. The second floor had a women's parlor and the twenty-seven guest rooms. While the hotel appeared to be just two-stories from the outside, it did have a third floor under the mansard roof that had twenty-nine rooms. The tower was accessible and had seats so guests could get a good view of the countryside and town. The hotel remains much the same today, although a large neon sign with the hotel's name stretches across the roof. During World War II, there was an aircraft warning facility added to the roof, which was like a penthouse apartment.

The hotel officially opened in February 11, 1898 with an afternoon reception and an evening ball and gala. Everyone who was anyone in the state attended, including Governor RB Smith, Attorney General Nolan, State Auditor TW Poindexter, Chief Justice Pemberton and several other judges. 

The rooms were considered luxurious and there were call bells in each room. The hotel had electricity and steam heating throughout and there was hot and cold running water. The hotel was proud to advertise that their boiling was "absolutely free from hammering." Metlen ran the hotel until he died in 1906. The hotel was a social center for the town and still remains so today. It is said that it has the coolest back bar in the state made from solid oak with a mahogany bar top. There have been a series of owners with the hotel being put up for sale as recently as 2021 for $1.3 million. We believe the current owner is Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan who upgraded many things about the building, focusing on the bar by adding a new sound and lighting system to drum up business. They advertise, “Come dance with us at the only dance floor for miles around! Our state of the art sound and lighting system is perfect to get down to everything from country western to hip-hop hits.” The hotel still rents rooms and has a bar and cafe and there are ghost tours offered inside.

There are several ghosts in the hotel. Patrons and employees have smelled phantom cigar smoke, seen apparitions and shadow figures, watched as items floated through the air, had items go missing and have heard disembodied voices. An EVP once captured a male or female voice saying, "They don't know that we are dead."

Here are some of the ghosts that are thought to be here. A male spirit hangs out upstairs and he is very angry. This entity is so malevolent that the third floor has been padlocked at time for the protection of the living. Investigators have captured EVPs of a male voice cursing. He particularly likes to say, "Eff you, get out!" There is a Lady in White seen floating on the dance floor. She is usually smiling and seems pleasant. The room above the bar is Room 19 and this woman has also been seen in there and a woman claimed to see a woman in a white dress staring back at her from a mirror in the women's restroom. She was alone in the restroom when she turned around. A previous owner had a wife that liked to wear a black bonnet and there is a female ghost that hangs out in the back bar that wears a black bonnet, so everybody assumes that is who that is. There has been a cowboy ghost wandering around. The hotel's general manager in 2018, Bailey Murphy, spoke with NBC Montana and he said, "Everybody thinks it's haunted. I would say it probably is. I think a lot of them are the cowboy customers that still wander these halls. I think they're cowboys because of the noise their boots make on the hardwood floors. They're fun ghosts. The ghosts that are here had a good time. We like to say we are the caretakers of their place." Bailey went on to say that sometimes keys go missing, doors unlock on their own, furniture moves and staff hear footsteps. 

A group of people were hanging out in the little tower of the hotel and when they entered, all the windows were closed. When they left the tower, they noticed that the windows had been opened slightly and they hadn't noticed it or heard it. Some investigators decided to use a Ouija board and the first thing they got to come through was "I don't want you here." 

Ghost Adventures was here during Season 13. When the crew was setting up their equipment, Billy heard a voice whisper "Bill" into his ear. The group heard an audible disembodied scream. Something unseen grabbed Zak's arm. There were many unexplained noises like boards moving, stomping sounds, the ceiling cracking and footsteps. The spirit box said, "Taken", "Want some?", "Be gentle", "You're welcome" and "Yeah." The Ovilus got the words, "RAN", "LOOK", "FOUND", "NANA", "GREAT", "ROCKET", "CHEAT", "BEG", "MALEVOLENT", "FORTY" and "CLOSET." The thermal imaging camera captures a figure walking from left to right which carried a cold signature. Right after, Billy felt chills.    

Finney L. Bryant was a caretaker at the hotel and had numerous experiences. He wrote on Facebook, "My first experience took place in the Basement. There used to be a guy named Bill that was a gunsmith and lived in an apartment that was located in the front of the hotel in the basement. He was the night watchman and restocked the bar for about 35 years I was told. He had some health issues and his son had moved him out about a month before we took over the Metlen Hotel. It was a good month before I had entered his apartment. There are many rooms in the basement and in one of the rooms was a freezer that had maybe 20-30 packages of game meat well wrapped and dated less than a year previous. (Of course, we ate it all.) One night around 10:30, I went down to check something in the basement. I went down the stairs and unlocked the basement door and continued down the long hallway and as I passed the room with the freezer, I looked in the dark room and about 20 feet away was the freezer against the wall with a green light on. (Anyone that has a chest freezer that has malfunctioned knows why its good to always see the green light on) this means everything is still frozen. I continued down to the end of basement where my shop is and then returned back upstairs again passing the room where the freezer is located and saw the green light on again (just habit). I locked the basement door and returned to the bar. Of course, Sophie told me to check the soda bibs which I forgot so I returned to the basement door, unlocked it and continued down the Hallway. First thing I noticed was a wrapped package of elk meat right in the middle of the hallway, and then another, and in almost every room there were packages of game meat scattered around the floor maybe 10-12. Absolutely no way it could have happened in less than a couple of minutes - when you go down to the basement you always have to turn on the lights because its devil dark down there.
The packages of meat were still frozen. I collected them and returned them to the freezer. I checked and the door was padlocked from the inside of the basement, then I went to the very back of the basement where the exit door has a big slide bolt. It was locked from the inside. Hum that's weird. Only one way in and one way out. Never figured that one out. Strange."

He also shared, "My second strange event at the Hotel Metlen was my daughter bought me a Samsung smart watch to keep track of how many steps and stairs I take everyday. Jjust in the hotel, I average about 5-7 miles a day and at least 20-25 flights of stairs. In the very back of the basement I have a large workshop that I spend most of my time in. Whenever I am in the hotel, I lock the front door so I don't get disturbed by tourists wanting to check it out. One day I came in, locked the front door and continued down to the basement to my shop, which is about 150' from the front door walking. There have been a few times where I was in my shop and heard people walking around on the first floor because I forgot to lock the front door, so I would would go upstairs and meet with them and usually because I have the gift of the gab, I would talk with them for some time about the history and usually it turned to the paranormal stuff. After they would leave, I would go back to work in my shop. One day I was working in my shop, which is directly under the back bar area, and I heard someone walking in the bar upstairs, real hard footsteps like boots. I followed the footsteps all the way to the front and continued up the stairs, and like I had many times before, I yelled out "Hello!" There was no answer so I went to the back bar and there was no one there. The back bar exit was locked from the inside. I went to the kitchen exit and again, found another door locked from the inside. I returned to the front hotel door figuring they left already and that was locked from the inside. I think "hum weird." I walked the entire hotel twice, all the floors, and I found no other humans and all the doors were locked up tight. My wife Sophie was the only other person with a new key for the locks and she was in Bozeman. So, who was walking the entire run of hallways? Strange."

"My third strange event at the Hotel Metlen happened two months ago. The bar is only open on thursday, friday and saturday nights starting at 7pm. Normally, the front door is always locked and it was about 3 in the afternoon and I had just unlocked and opened the bar front door to empty the garbage can outside. At this moment, my Daughter Mana and my wife Sophie walked up and came inside the bar. We sat down at the end of the bar, facing the front of the bar and we were talking. I was on a bar stool with my boots up on the bar and my daughter and my wife were seated in such a way that we all could see the front entrance. All of a sudden, the front door opened as if somebody was walking in. The door swung like 45 to 50 degrees and there was no one there and then it just closed. We all watched it.They were freaked out because we were looking right at it when it opened (I was so happy this happened with them there because usually i don't tell them the things i see in the hotel.) My daughter Mana ran to the front door and went outside and looked up and down the streets and there was no one around at all. When she came back inside, we all kind of laughed at how weird that was. I never changed my posture, boots still on the bar and my hands clasped behind my head and just for kicks, because we still hadn't recovered from the event, I said out loud, "On the count of 3, show yourself!" We were all watching the front door and I counted "1-2-3" and nothing. I kept counting and when I got to five, it happened again while we were watching. No wind, no drafts, it was a sunny day and most important, the hydraulic door closer was cranked down so was really hard to open the door. The door is heavy and it keeps the drunk football players from ripping it open. It was really strange." 

There is another haunted location in town, the University of Montana Western. The university got its start as the Montana State Normal School in 1893. The purpose was to train teachers according to a model used by other states. The first term wouldn't start until September 6, 1897. To earn a degree in elementary education, it took two years. There was also a one-year professional course for all teachers with two years of prior experience. A four-year Latin course was also offered. Eventually this became a four-year college and was renamed Western Montana College. It became part of the Montana University System in 2000 and its name was changed to University of Montana Western at that time. 

The ghost that haunts Old Main is named Marie. There are a couple of stories about how Marie met her fate. In both versions, Marie was a Dillon resident who came to campus for musical lessons. The Western Centennial History Book has her as a cello player that came to campus to practice and play with the campus orchestra. In the other account, Marie was an elementary student who came to campus after school for piano lessons. She would go home after school, leave her books and then come to campus. One afternoon, she was running late and didn't bother to go home. She went directly to campus. Marie hurried home after her lesson and forgot to grab her school books. After dinner, she went to do her homework and realized she had left her books on campus. She rushed back and was struck by a car on her way to campus. Students and faculty have all experienced haunting experiences. They have heard piano music playing in the Main Hall when the room is dark and no one is in there.  

Mathews Hall is said to be haunted by the most famous ghost on the campus, Matilda. The story goes that she was a student in the early days of Montana State Normal College. During her second year at the college, she passed away suddenly. At least according to one telling. Another more dramatic story is the familiar, Matilda got pregnant out of wedlock and hanged herself. Matilda returned as a mischievous spirit who likes to pull pranks such as opening drawers and emptying the contents while the room occupants are asleep. When the dorms had radios in them, there was rule that radios had to be off when the resident was gone. One of Matilda’s favorite pranks was to turn the radio on after the resident left. That usually got the resident written up. The resident was left with no credible explanation other than “Matilda did it!” Students have heard disembodied footsteps and seen Matilda's full-bodied apparition.

Suzie O'Connell wrote in 2015, "Matilda primarily haunts the third, uppermost floor, but one night, she came all the way down to the basement floor where my roommate and I resided. We were up goofing around, cracking jokes in the wee hours of the morning in the dark, and my roommate suddenly asks why I went into the other room of our two-room suite. I was still in my bed, but she SWEARS she saw me get up and walk into the other room. We also heard stories of small appliances (microwaves, TVs, curling irons, etc.) turning on by themselves and people waking up with scratches." 

Daen wrote in 2017, "My daughter literally called me 30 minutes ago from Matthews Hall where she is a freshman. She said she was sitting in her bed reading and her door handle started shaking like someone was trying to get in. Thinking it was her roommate, she let it go for several seconds before she got up and went to the door. It stopped and when she opened the door, no one was there. Immediately the sink faucet started lightly running. She walked toward the sink and the handle turned by itself full blast! She is a little freaked out at the moment."

Jen Phillip wrote in 2025, "I was a student down in Dillon at Western and I lived in Mathew’s dorm on the 3rd floor. I never noticed Matilda until I had my own room on the third floor of Mathew’s. Every night it sounded like someone was up in the attic walking back and forth bouncing a ball. This always took place between early hours around 2:00am. Matilda never scared me or bothered me other than re-arranging my posters in my room and turning on my TV and radio. I would go home on the weekends and not all the time would it happen, but my posters would be upside down on the opposite wall I had them on. At first I thought it was my RA playing games on me, but when I asked him, he said it wasn’t him. He explained that if he were to ever go into a students dorm without it being an emergency he could get into a lot of trouble. Matilda never hurt me or scared me. She would always let me know she was around but she NEVER once harmed me. I heard she liked to mess with the girls, but it was never anything bad or scary, she just wanted me to know she was around. There were times when I could swear there was someone at my door, but when I answered the door there was no one around. I always used to tell her hello and whenever I would get the sensation she was around, I would always say hello and ask her how’s she doing. After I found out I wasn’t losing my mind, I would always tell her to behave and to leave my posters alone. I told her if she wanted the TV or radio on, that was fine, but to leave my posters alone. There were times when I would get back to my dorm after the weekend was over to find my radio and TV on, but she never did mess with my posters again. I thought it was pretty cool to have a ghost in the dorm." 

Dillon, Montana has decades of history behind it. Is it possible that these two locations, the hotel and the university, have spirits? Are they haunted? That is for you to decide!