HGB Ep. 627 - Kennecott Copper Mine

This Month in History - Houdini Escapable Dive Suit Patent

In the month of March, on the 1st, in 1921, Harry Houdini's patent was granted for an escapable diving suit. During his career, Houdini astonished audiences by escaping from handcuffs, straightjackets, chains and other restraints while being submerged under water. The master magician and escape artist created a diving suit which the wearer could remove easily while being submerged underwater. Diving suits of the time required assistance to both put on and take off the suits. The diving suit that Houdini had created enabled the diver to do so without assistance. Houdini's diving suit consisted of two separate parts with a latch for locking the two parts together in the middle. If a diver disengaged the latch, the two pieces would come apart. This allowed the diver to easily exit the suit, even while submerged, allowing the diver to safely swim to the water's surface. Clearly this type of suit would have been very advantageous to Houdini in performing many of his tricks. Although it is said that he never used this type of diving suit in any public performance. 

Kennecott Copper Mine

The Kennecott Copper Mine in Alaska had been one of the richest copper mines in the world. A thriving mining camp developed around the mine, as was the case during the various gold and silver rushes around the country. And just like those rushes, eventually the town was abandoned and what has been left behind quite possibly could be ghosts wandering through the rusted machinery and crumbling buildings. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Kennecott Copper Mine. 

The McCarthy Road follows where the former Copper River and Northwestern Railway had once had tracks. This rail line was built in 1909 and ran from Cordova, along the Copper River, to Chitina and then east to the Wrangell Mountains. This railway was meant to facilitate the transport of the copper pulled from the Kennecott Copper Mines. The road itself doesn't go all the way to Kennecott. The Kennecott River has to be crossed via a footbridge that was built in the 1990s. Kennecott is an abandoned mining camp that is a National Historic Landmark. The town is named for the nearby Kennecott Glacier, which was named by geologist Oscar Rohn in 1899 after Alaskan pioneer Robert Kennicott. The following year, 1900, two prospectors, Clarence Warner and "Tarantula Jack" Smith were near the glacier when they spotted what looked like a grass-green meadow. This was high up in a location where a meadow couldn't thrive, so they went to investigate and found out that the green was caused by malachite that was also mixed with chalcocite (cal coe site). Now malachite is pretty, but its not really valuable. It was used as a pigment in green paint in antiquity and Spanish superstition claimed that if a child wore a piece of malachite, it would help the child sleep and keep evil spirits away. And apparently it can be protective for all people when it comes to lightning and disease. Pieces of malachite were engraved with the sun during the Middle Ages for health. For Egyptians, the mineral symbolized the power of resurrection, new life and fertility. And through smelting, copper could be extracted, but it was low grade, so not really worth the effort. However, chalcocite is a highly profitable copper ore and samples proved that this find was 70% pure chalcocite. This find would be called the Bonanza Mine Outcrop. 

The claims about the Bonanza Mine were confirmed by a man named Stephen Birch. He was a mining engineer who had gotten financial backing from the Havemeyer Family and James Ralph and he was looking for an opportunity to invest this money. The prospector Jack Smith wrote to Birch, "Mr. Birch, I’ve got a mountain of copper up there. There’s so much of the stuff sticking out of the ground that it looks like a green sheep pasture in Ireland when the sun is shining at its best." 

So Birch started buying up shares of the Bonanza claim and formed the Alaska Copper Company of Birch, Havemeyer, Ralph and Schultz. When summer arrived in 1901, Birch headed to Alaska to map out the claim and to obtain samples for testing and his confirmation of the discovery put the world on notice that this spot in Alaska had the richest known concentration of copper in the world. There were some legal challenges and Birch spent the next couple of years in court, but by 1905, his company was ready to roll. There was just one teeny, tiny little problem. There was no way to get the copper to market. The best way would be by railroad, but most people said that building a rail line from the coast, through the mountains and over rivers was impossible. And if possible, loads of money was going to be needed. In walks the Guggenheim family and J.P. Morgan. Now there is money! The Havemayers collaborated with Morgan and the Guggenheims to form the Alaska Syndicate. The Syndicate was going to do many things. First, it would purchase the Bonanza Mine and then it would also have a majority control of the railroad, steamship transportation and the salmon industry. Alaskans were a very independent people and they weren't crazy about having these businessmen from the East Coast running their affairs. Alaskans started saying, "First [we were] a Colony of Russia, then a colony of Guggenmorgan." There were also conservationists that didn't wanting the land damaged. These battles between conservationists and the mining and railroad interests made their way into the Oval Office with U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. In the end, President Roosevelt set up the Chugach National Forest in 1908 and the Alaskan Syndicate was able to move forward with their plans.

 So in the fall of 1907, railroad architect Michael J. Heney was hired to build the rail line and his crews worked over the next four years to get it done working in extreme temperatures, like forty below zero, and through some very unforgiving terrain. Stephen Birch had an entire steamship dismantled and hauled through the mountains, piece by piece, and reassembled on the Copper River. This steamship, horses and sled dogs would be used to bring in equipment and supplies and carry out ore before the railroad was completed. The railroad was completed in 1911 and the first train out of Kennecott carried $250,000 worth of copper.

Bonanza wasn't the only mine in Kennecott. There were actually five of them.The other four were Jumbo, Mother Lode, Erie and Glacier. Bonanza and Jumbo were about 3 miles from the town of Kennecott on Bonanza Ridge with Mother Lode on the east side of the ridge and Erie on the northwest end. Glacier was just an open pit mine at the end of the Bonanza, which was only mined in summer.  An aerial tramway carried buckets of ore to Kennecott and then from Kennecott the ore was hauled mostly in 140-pound sacks on steel flat cars to Cordova on the rail line. Miners in Kennecott had to made of tough stuff. Mining conditions weren't good anywhere and even today can be very dangerous. But the wilds of Alaska and the extreme weather presented even harsher conditions. Men came because the salaries were higher here. They would climb up into the mountains and work seven days a week for long hours and only come down off the mountain for holidays or if they were actually going to leave Kennecott. At its height, there were around 500 miners and their families in the company town that was run as a dry town. The company provided housing in bunkhouses, which were painted red because it was the most inexpensive color at the time. There was a real community here with a school for the kids, a hospital that had the first X-ray machine in Alaska and a Recreation Hall where movies were shown and dances were held. Inger Jensen Ricci grew up in Kennecott and wrote, "They had the community dances down in the community hall a lot. In fact, it was almost every Saturday. Everybody came and the children came and danced and then afterwards they had coffee and cake. I can always remember all those  delicious cakes that the women brought." Mildred Erickson Reis wrote, "We had a movie twice a week, Sundays and Wednesdays. And I got to take the tickets, if you took tickets, you got in free, otherwise you had to pay 10 cents. This was fine when I was a little girl, but when I came back up there and was 17 and one of the young men asked me to go to the show with him. The ticket salesman, said, 'Oh, is Mildred with you, well she always pays 10 cents.' I was so embarrassed, I was grown up you know. The adult fare was 35 cents." 

Kennecott wasn't completely isolated. Down the hill was the town of McCarthy and the two towns would join forces for festivities on the 4th of July. Mines and mills would close for the day and the Kennecott Copper Corporation would sponsor a $200 prize to winning team at the annual baseball game between the two towns. McCarthy actually flew in a pitcher from the lower-48 for one game they were so intent on winning. This was a very important game every year! There was ice cream, a big cookout and a little bit of prohibition moonshine.

The National Park Service shares the following story we wanted to pass along, "Many families sought to take short vacations away from Kennecott to explore the surrounding countryside. Visiting George Flowers became a favorite for many of them. A man with a tenacious spirit, he became a lifelong friend of the Kennecott Kids, who still tell stories of his guitar playing and fishing lessons. A share-cropper turned gold-rusher from the American South, Mr. Flowers arrived in Seattle only to be denied passage to Alaska on the steamship because he was black. Not one to bedeterred, he walked to Alaska, arriving long after the gold  rush had ended. By the mid- twenties, he settled at Long Lake where he fished, trapped and may have worked as track -walker for the railroad. After the mines closed he corresponded with former Kennecott Kids who sent him the rare care package of Alaskan necessities. Deborah Vickery House was a kid in Kennecott and she wrote of George, "...we went to Long Lake and lived in a little cabin and fished in the (creek). [George Flowers] cooked fish like no one else. He put it all in the frying pan and cooked it and then turned it all over like it was one big fish cake. It was marvelous, you could eat the whole thing." 

The miners hard work paid off. They had their peak year of production in 1916 with $32.4 million in ore. Through all this success, the Alaskan Syndicate still faced opposition. There were calls that this was a monopoly and the climate in the country was turning against this use of syndicates. The feelings were so intense, that President Taft lost his re-election bid to Woodrow Wilson who promised political reforms that would make syndicates nearly impossible. The Alaskan Syndicate responded by going public in 1915 and forming a new corporation, the Kennecott Copper Corporation. The same people were in charge, but their methods changed with management.

A Kennecott geologist brought the community some bad news in 1925. The end of the high-grade ore bodies was in sight and by the early 1930s, the highest grades of ore were largely depleted. The Glacier Mine was first to close in 1929. The other mines held on for almost another decade with the Mother Lode closing at the end of July 1938. A few months later the Erie, Jumbo and Bonanza were shut down. The families of Kennecott packed up there things and the last train left Kennecott on November 10, 1938. From 1909 to 1938, the Kennecott mines produced $200 million worth of ore, which is $3 billion in today's money. And now, it was a ghost town. 

Ernest Gruening became governor of the Alaska territory in 1939 and he proposed that Kennecott be preserved as a National Park. This recommendation was sent to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 18, 1940 and nothing happened with that. So basically, Kennecot was left deserted, but there was a family of three who stayed on as caretakers to try to preserve the town and they stayed there until 1952. And still, nothing was done at a national level to protect the ghost town. There were some businessmen who thought perhaps the tailings left over from the mines could be reprocessed and they plans to transport the ore by plane, but by the time numbers were cruched, it looked like transporting the ore would take away most of the profit. The company that still owned the land decided they wanted to demolish the ghost town because buildings were falling into disrepair and they didn't want to get sued by adventurers who would visit the town, so in the late 1960s, some of the structures were razed. They stopped after that for some reason. In 1976, The Great Kennecott Land Company was formed and it subdivided the land and the ghost town and put it up for sale to private owners. A group of doctors and lawyers from Anchorage purchased the property. Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve was established on December 2, 1980  and this was the beginning of hope for the crumbling ghost town. In 1998, the National Park Service acquired many of the buildings and land and established the Kennecott Mines National Historic Landmark. They started efforts to stabilize the structures and started the arduous work of restoring the buildings that continues today. They demolished any buildings beyond hope. NPS Archeologists and historians gathered artifacts that are on display in the visitor center. What is still left of the town includes a dairy barn where small cows had been kept, the Recreation Hall which hosts educational and community events, the school house which also served as a church, the rebuilt Kennecott Glacier Lodge, cottages on Silk Stocking Row that had indoor plumbing, the West Bunkhouse that was built in 1917, the Refrigeration Plant that used ammo­nia cool­ing and a mechan­i­cal­ly cooled meat lock­er to keep meat and oth­er per­ish­ables fresh even though most of the time Kennecott was full of snow, the Company Store and Post Office, the ruins of the sawmill and carpentry shop, the Train Depot, National Creek Bunkhouse, the Assay Office, East Bunkhouse, the hospital, General Manager's office, Ammonia Leaching Plant, Concentration Mill, Power Plant, Machine Shop and Electrical Shop.  

When people are walking through the ghost town, they feel as though they are being watched by something they can't see. Park rangers and visitors have all claimed to experience weird things while wandering the ghost town. Disembodied footsteps are heard in buildings. There are disembodied voices and shadow figures. Sometimes the rusted out machinery is heard clanking and creaking. Strange mists float on the air and orbs have been seen and photographed. 

The Railroad Line

As we shared, the Alaska Syndicate would get the Copper River and Northwestern Railway built. It consisted of two rail lines, the Copper River line and the Northwestern line. There were several bridges that needed to be constructed, one of which was known as the Million Dollar Bridge, which was completed in 1910 and was considered to be one of the great engineering feats of all time. The bridge crossed the Copper River between two active glaciers: The Childs Glacier to the west and the Miles Glacier to the east. This bridge was a multiple-span Pennsylvania truss bridge that still stands today, but can no longer be accessed. It was converted into a highway bridge in 1958. An earthquake in 1964 damaged the Million Dollar bridge and some rudimentary things were done to keep it passable. It wasn't permanently repaired until 2004. Workers died while building the railroad. One can only imagine how dangerous it was to build this thing that clung to rock walls, stretched over canyons and spanned wild rivers. It's not hard to believe that there might be ghosts along the line.

The Anchorage Daily News reported, "Over the years, travelers on the road and visitors to the present-day Kennecott historical landmark have claimed they've seen tombstones just off the old dirt path that in places where it parallels the CR & NW, the Old Copper Railroad. Thing is, on the way back from their adventures, these wayfarers have consistently reported that the grave markers are gone, vanished into the still, cool mountain air." 

When a government housing tract was built near the old railroad tracks, construction workers said that they heard the sounds of long-dead miners and they described these as wails. The disembodied sounds of children were also heard. Their tools would go missing, not only from their toolboxes, but right off of their tool belts. The apparitions of workers have been seen along the route of the Copper River and Northwestern Railway. These workers would disappear when approached. Workers were hard to keep and the state decided that building the housing wasn't going to work and they abandoned the plan.

The Kennecott Cemetery

The Kennecott Cemetery is about a quarter mile south of Kennecott and is accessed by an old Wagon Road. The cemetery covers about a quarter acre and has around 50 graves markers. A white picket fence marks the border. Edward Donaldson was the first to be buried in the cemetery in 1908. The final burial was in 1938. The bulk of the people buried here were from families who couldn't afford to ship the body back to their homeland or didn't have any family at all. Some had their families in town who wanted them buried nearby. There were a few people who died from disease, but most met their end in a mining accident. People have claimed to see shadow figures darting around the tombstones. We haven't heard any stories of these tombstones disappearing, but anything is possible. 

Concentration Mill 

The Concentration Mill is a 14-story tall, red-painted wooden building that stands in the center of Kennecott. The mill was built on a hillside so that gravity could be used in the processing of the ore. Shipping ore to Tacoma was expensive and the copper ore needed to be concentrated. The ore was brought to the mill from the five mines via the tramway and it would go through a series of crushers and sorters that used gravity and water to move the rocks around. Waste would be removed and the concentrated ore would be loaded into burlap bags that were then loaded onto rail cars. Construction on the mill began in 1908 and took 10 years to finish. The mill was used from 1909 to 1938 and evolved as new mining processes were developed. Through the years, the NPS has stabilized and restored the mill. A $5.7 million dollar project was completed in 2021. St. Elias Alpine Guides run tours through the town and they are the only way to get access to the mill. 

There are several haunting things taking place here. Phantom sounds is the most prevlent with people claiming to hear the sounds of equipment operating and the voices of miners shouting. The apparitions of workers have been seen inside the building. Debbie wrote, "When I went to the 14-stories mill, I was terrified. I got this unexplainable feeling inside the building. My friends were not affected like I was inside. Never have I felt such so uneasy and petrified.  I could feel the spirits following me. After I left the mine…I no longer felt terrified. The lodge was not haunted to me. I felt nothing. But I will never enter those buildings again. Completely terrified." 

Erie Mine Bunkhouse

The Erie Mine Bunkhouse was built in the early 1900s and is high atop a cliff-side and has had no restoration efforts, but still is relatively intact. How they built this thing, we'll never know, but we can see why they haven't tried to restore it. This is a really hard location to access and the hike there sounds terrifying to me. One of the stories told is about a couple of hikers who were hoping that the grand views at Kennecot would pay off with an Aurora Borealis spectacle. It was early fall and the weather was perfect, so they set out early in the morning for the long hike up the cliff-side. They figured they could camp out in the old abandoned bunkhouse, but when they looked through an open window and saw all the peeling paint and caved-in floors, they decided they would be safer setting up camp outside. The hikers set a couple of alarms so that they could wake up throughout the night to get views of the Northern Lights. The two men had just fallen asleep when one of them woke with a start after hearing footsteps. At first he assumed his partner had gotten up to perhaps relieve himself, but he saw that he was still curled up in his sleeping bag. Then there was the sound of creaking like the sound of wooden boards beneath feet. Could the sound be coming from inside the bunkhouse he wondered? The awakened hiker decided to wake up his buddy and he whispered that someone was inside the bunkhouse. They decided to call out, "H-hello, is a-anyone there?" The footsteps suddenly stopped and they heard nothing further. Neither of the men fell asleep the entire rest of the night and no person ever came out of the bunkhouse. 

The Kennecott Copper Mine is probably the best-preserved example of early 20th-century industrial copper mining. It is a testament to the strength of character that these Alaskan miners and their families must have had. Are some of their spirits still hanging around the ghost town still? Is Kennecott Copper Mine haunted? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 495 - Haunted Schools

Moment in Oddity - Tunguska Event

Most of us have seen the movie Armageddon about an asteroid that is threatening to collide with Earth. It's estimated by scientists that asteroids hit the Earth once every 500,000 years. Meteors, on the other hand are very prevalent at approximately 17,000 impacts per year. There was an event back in 1908 that occurred in a remote area of Siberia called the Tunguska Event. It occurred on June 30, just after 7 a.m. in what is now believed to have been a meteoric air burst. 80 million trees were flattened, some were burned and people 60 kilometers away were knocked off their feet. Eyewitnesses described a fireball in the sky. The stony asteroid of about 160-200 feet in size approached the Earth at what was estimated to be approximately 60,000 mph. Although it is classified as an impact event, the asteroid is believed to have exploded around 3 to 6 miles above the Earth, leaving no impact crater. The Tunguska event is the largest impact event in recorded history. Although there was no impact crater, the impact zone was approximately 5 miles across where trees had been scorched and stripped of their branches yet still remained upright. However, trees that were further away from ground zero had been partially scorched and knocked down in directions facing away from the center, thus creating a circular pattern of downed trees. The information of the event that I provided tends to be a common opinion, however there are some who believe Tunguska could be related to extraterrestrial activity. Regardless of origin, the Tunguska event certainly is odd.

This Month in History - The Death of Billy the Kid (Suggested by: Sarah Silver)

In the month of July, on the 14th, in 1881, 'Billy the Kid' was shot and killed. As the story goes, Billy showed up at his friend's house at 12:30 a.m.. Unfortunately, his friend was being questioned by Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett, at the time. Both Billy and Garrett drew their weapons, but the sheriff shot first, killing 'Billy the Kid'. However over the years other theories have emerged. Some believed that the sheriff shot the wrong man and Billy got away. To add to the mystery decades later, two separate men came to light which many believed to be the famous outlaw. The first man was John Miller, who lived in a small village in New Mexico. When he died, there was found in his possession a pistol with 21 notches on the grip, the same count of deaths attributed to 'Billy the Kid'. The second was a resident of Hico, Texas. His name was Ollie "Brushy Bill" Roberts. 'Brushy Bill' secured an audience with the governor of New Mexico in 1950. He sought a pardon for Billy's murders which failed and Roberts died soon afterwards. These tales are not surprising or unusual given the fact that we have heard similar stories about famous figures some believe to not actually dead. Elvis Presley or Adolf Hitler anyone? Actual literature of the time seemed to centralize around sensationalized newspaper articles and books hammered out quickly to cash in on the event. Researcher and author Jim Montavalli seems to believe that the 1882 biography written by sheriff Garrett, is the most trustworthy account of 'Billy the Kids' death, noting that Garrett deemed the shooting a lucky break. According to Garrett, he and his deputies traveled to Maxwell's ranch and upon arrival, saw some men camped out. They heard one man speaking fluent Spanish (which Billy was known for) and this man started walking towards Maxwell's home. Garrett quietly entered the house and questioned Maxwell who had been sleeping. Maxwell confirmed to the sheriff that Billy had been around the property. Suddenly a man came into view holding a gun and knife asking in Spanish "Who's that?". Sheriff Garrett raised his weapon and shot twice, killing the outlaw. According to the account, a Coroner's Jury held an inquest and determined that indeed, the body was that of 'Billy the Kid'. Unfortunately we will never know for certain if indeed the body was correctly identified. A flood in September of 1904 washed away the grave markers in Fort Sumner's Old Military Cemetery leaving the definitive location of the outlaws body a mystery. 

Haunted Schools

School is scary enough without having ghosts running around the halls. There's all that social pressure and expectation of good grades. A haunted school means that you don't just have to skirt the visible bullies, but the shadow figures lurking in the corners. Join us as we explore these reputedly haunted schools from around the world!

Riverside Park School

We're going to start with a doozie right here in Florida in Jacksonville. This originally was known as Riverside Park School, but today has been dubbed the Devil's School. The original school was just a tiny place built from wood in 1891. After being deemed a fire hazard, it was rebuilt in 1917 out of brick and renamed Riverside Grammar School. It was designed by Rutledge Holmes and was the county's fourth public school. There was an auditorium, offices and a large cafeteria with a fireplace on the first floor and classrooms on the second floor. The school changed names again in 1950 to Annie Lytle Public School in honor of the principal Annie Lytle Housh. The construction of two major interstates, 95 and 10, isolated the school and by 1960, it was closed. For the next ten years it was used as storage and office space. The property was sold in 1980 with a plan to turn it into senior apartments, but that never came to fruition and the building fell into disrepair. A fire in 1995 caved in the auditorium roof. Another effort was made in 1999 to turn the property into condominiums, but public outcry over its historical significance shut that down and it is today a historic landmark. One that was marked with graffiti and dogged with tales of hauntings and satanic worship.

Renovations have been attempted at the school with paint being applied to graffiti and broken windows being replaced. But that doesn't fix the legends connected to the school. Stories claim that a principal of the school had been a cannibal. The principal would call students up to his office and they would never be seen again according to these tales. The details got even darker with claims that the principal had converted a closet into a meat locker and he would hang the children up in there. There are versions that claim that multiple staff members were in on the cannibalism. There is a alternate version with the principal just going berserk and murdering a bunch of kids. 

There was a bad janitor here too who would take students down to the boiler room and boil them alive. One kidnapped student managed to escape when the boiler room exploded. Sounds inspired by Freddie Krueger. There was a fire and several students were killed and these students ghosts haunted the school after that. Then there are stories of Satanic rituals taking place on the school grounds. And that possibly may be the only bit of truth in these legends as much of the graffiti in the school is of Satanic iconography. There are some who believe the fire that happened in 1995 was caused by candles used during one of these rituals. The truth is that the building became a dangerous place when it was abandoned. Whether there are ghosts there or not, its definitely not a place for children anymore.

Tonk Upper Primary Government School

This school is located in India and was established in 1999. It's a co-educational school that teaches in Hindi and provides an upper primary level education. In 2014, three students at the school claimed that they saw the spirit of a young girl in the restroom and that she tried to push them down into the toilets. All three had passed out in the restroom and that is what they claimed caused them to faint. All the students were told to stay home for a week while the school was cleansed of evil spirits. The story claimed that 300 people took part in the cleansing and one of them was a villager that was said to be possessed by the deity Tejaji. The villager said that since it had been two months since a puja had been conducted at the school, the spirit came in. The villagers then agreed to be sure to perform a puja ceremony at least every two months to prevent spirits at the school. A Puja ceremony ranges from a brief daily ritual to an elaborate temple ritual and is observed in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.

Lee William’s High School

This school is located in Kingman, Arizona. The high school opened in August of 2012 and is named for Richard Lee Williams who was a former school principal and firefighter who died while fighting the Doxol Disaster in 1973. Eleven firefighters perished in this blaze that is also known as the Kingman Explosion, which happened during a propane transfer from a Doxol railroad car to a storage tank. A hairline crack allowed the propane to leak and static electricity ignited the gas leading to the explosion. The original Kingman High School opened in 1917. In 1993, a north campus was built for upper classmen, while freshman continued at the original old school. Eventually the new north campus became the high school for all students and the old campus was converted into a middle school. The old school was gutted in 2010 to update it and make it a second high school. The only original part remaining besides the outer walls is the gymnasium, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A new auxiliary gym was built. Something else preserved during the renovation was the "Mohave County Union High School 1917" monument sign. 

But something was disturbed during the renovation. There was a pioneer cemetery here with eleven graves, seven coffins and several artifacts. But even before that, the land itself was witness to conflict between pioneers and the indigenous people. The haunting activity was so pronounced that the principal, Steve Elwood, spoke to the Los Angeles Times in 2013. Principal Elwood shared that ghosts of women and men in period clothing from pioneer prairie times have appeared at graduation events on the football field. Students claim to have seen a spirit wearing a bowler hat and long coat lurking in the hallways. There are reports of disembodied footsteps, alarms that go off on their own, lights that flicker and hand dryers that go off on their own too. The spirit of a little girl calls out that she wants to play. The school janitor has probably had the most experiences as the ghosts seem most active at night when he is there alone. He often hears voices in classrooms when no one is in them. He told the LA Times, "Some nights I hear footsteps. Last fall, I was [cleaning] in the girls’ bathroom and I heard someone going into the boys’ lavatory. I hear voices coming from some rooms, little kids mumbling. I can’t really hear what they’re saying. It’s kind of freaky, but it really doesn’t bother me. I just tell them all to go home."

El Paso High School

El Paso High School is the oldest operating high school in El Paso, Texas and is nicknamed "The Lady on the Hill." It was built in 1916 by the Trost & Trost architectural firm in the Greco-Roman style and features a Corinthian porch. Because of the time that it was built, this is a fancy school. The bathrooms and shower rooms are made from marble and porcelain. The main corridor floor is from marble and classroom floors were laid from hard maple. A bronze tablet above the front doors reads, "A Cultivated Mind is the Genius of Democracy: It is the Only Dictator that Free Men Acknowledge and the Only Security that Free Men Desire." The school became a national historic landmark in 1980.

The school is said to be haunted because it was used as an overflow morgue during the Spanish Flu of 1918. Then it served as a hospital for casualties from World War II. The most well known ghost story told about the school involves a picture. This is a class picture taken in 1985 that sits in a trophy case. A woman in white is seen in the center of the picture, somewhat blurry and students and staff claim that this was no one who went to the school or worked there. No one was actually standing in the spot when the picture was taken. And since this was from 1985, it couldn't have been photoshopped. People think this is the spirit of a female student who committed suicide many years ago when she jumped off one of the school’s balconies. Sometimes that spirit appears as a residual haunting jumping from the balcony. A strange mist sometimes fills the halls as well. Sometimes noise is heard as though a group of people are playing basketball in the gym, but there is nobody in there when people check.

West High School

West High School is located in Anchorage , Alaska. The school was established in 1953 on Romig Hill. For a time, Anchorage Community College held classes at the school until they had a campus built in the early 1970s. An earthquake in 1964 destroyed most of the school's second floor and damaged part of the first floor. All that survived on the second floor is the band and choir rooms and nothing else was rebuilt. A science wing was added in 1996 and the school underwent a major renovation in 1998. The auditotium is the largest of any high school in Alaska and holds 2,000 people. It was constructed in 1954. Many rock concerts were hosted here featuring Ozzy Osbourne, Steppenwolf, Ted Nugent, Johnny Cash and the Bee Gees.

A woman in white haunts the auditorium. The theater teacher named David Block told the Anchorage Daily News in 2017, "I've never, ever seen a ghost in there -- I can't say I even believe in ghosts. I haven't ever seen her, but enough people have seen her that I have to believe that something is going on." Block also said that two assistant principals and a security guard saw something white flash through a corridor behind the balcony and that one of those principals was so rattled that he won't talk about the incident. Block continued, "Even I don't like going into the passage behind the balcony." The spirit has been seen among the seats, sometimes walking a hallway, sometimes hiding backstage or down in the basement. People also claim that a former janitor haunts the school still doing his cleaning job. Disembodied footsteps are heard and doors slam.

Mgotjane Primary School 

This primary school is located in Swaziland. It's always the girls' restroom isn't it? Three girls went to the bathroom together and while one of them stood outside of the stall, the other two entered a stall. They both heard a voice screaming at them from down in the toilet that they should stop peeing on it. The girl waiting outside also heard the voice also and asked who was in the stall with the girls. The voice in the toilet got louder and louder and the three girls ran back to their class and reported what happened to a teacher. The teacher was skeptical, as were the parents of the girls. And then other girls in the junior class started reporting the same phenomenon. And that wasn't all. A female teacher left the school in 2013 and refused to return because she claimed that evil spirits had attacked her in the school. Another teacher soon followed, claiming that he felt unsafe at the school.

A teacher named Thulani Dlamini said, "At times it comes as an evil spirit or in the form of a person. One night in June, I was in my room when I overheard footsteps of people approaching my quarters.  My colleagues had once told me of how their sleep was interrupted by a strange spirit and that got me thinking. I immediately reached for my bible and started reading it. As I read my bible I heard one of my colleagues shouting that he was being attacked by four short men who were trying to strangle him. The time was after midnight if I recall correctly. Late that same night, at around 2am the ‘four men’ came to my house. Two entered through the back door and the other two through the main door. Upon entering, two stood at the edge of my bed and the other was by the headboard. They kicked me on my back after they could not sit on me or strangle me. They also tried to press me face down so I couldn’t breathe but they couldn’t. Just before the crack of dawn Mduduzi came knocking pleading to come and spend the night in my room." The school was closed for a few days and a prayer session was held with parents, teachers and students. We're not sure if it did the trick or not, but there haven't been any more recent reports of hauntings.

Majiji Primary School

There is another haunted primary school in Africa. Majiji Primary School is located in Zimbabwe. In 2022, reports came out of this school of paranormal activity. These reports claimed that a goblin was attacking students and staff. The school closed for a while and then a prophetess named Sithembiso Moyo came to the school to conduct a cleansing ceremony. She claimed the goblin was caused by the spirit of a late teacher. Moyo said, "There is a spirit of a male teacher who died at the school. The family of the long deceased teacher failed to perform traditional rituals to cleanse his spirit from the school and his spirit is now troubled. It is today that we get rid of it and make sure that the spirit of the late teacher will be exorcised and tamed so that he rests in peace." We're not sure if it worked or not.

Roy High School

The high school is located in Roy, Utah and was built in 1965. It soon became the county's largest high school and was ranked in the top ten of schools in the nation. And its also one of the most haunted schools in America. There is a female spirit that hangs out in the theater named Mable. Students claim that she moves props and plays with the lighting. There is also the spirit of a floating head that students have claimed watches them when they are in the school alone. There are people who think the head belongs to a boy who was hit by a train when he was walking to school. Another spirit who likes to wear a purple hat has been seen and this spectre tries to get students to follow her. She gives off a malevolent feeling. 

Sophi B. Wright Middle School

It really isn't shocking to hear that a school is haunted in New Orleans. That is where Sophi B. Wright Middle School is located. Middle schools are always scary, but this one even frightened the National Guard. The school was the first all-girls school in the city and was built in 1912 by local architect E.A. Christy in the “Collegiate Gothic” style. Sophie B. Wright spent her life working in education and this started at the age of fourteen when she opened a day school for girls in a spare room at her family's home in 1880. Right before she died in 1912, the Sophie B. Wright High School was opened and named for her. In 2007, the school became a charter school catering to grades 6 to 12. It underwent major renovations in 2016. 

During Hurricane Katrina, the school was evacuated and the National Guard used it as living quarters. They were the first to report strange things happening at the school. Sergeant Robin Hairston reported that she saw the apparition of a girl in a doorway. Specialist Rosales Leanor claimed to see the shadow of a young woman when she was in the bathroom and she ran out in terror. Once these stories came out, staff from the school told stories about paranormal experiences that they had endured as well. One said he opened a closet to find a little girl ghost giggling at him. After the National Guard vacated the school, a chaplain was called in to cleanse the school and apparently it worked.

Yanagawa High School

Yanagawa is a private high school in Japan that was established over 80 years ago. It made news in Japan Today in 2014 when videos from inside the school started going viral. These featured dozens of girls collapsing and it was claimed that a vengeful spirit was causing the issue. One girl started the frenzy when she yelled that she couldn't move her body. Girls near here started yelling that they were paralyzed too. Some screamed, “kill me” or “die.” This behavior continued for a couple of hours. Apparently the girls had gone on a field trip to Mt. Hiko and the Aburagi Dam area, where a headless ghost is said to wander. People thought the girls had somehow brought the ghost back with them. Maybe one of them had been possessed. The school closed for the rest of the day when the frenzy started and students were sent home. It remained closed the following day while authorities investigated. It was eventually blamed on some kind of group hysterics. But many still believe there was a ghost involved, maybe even Hanako-san, a spirit that haunts bathrooms in Japanese schools. 

Parker Roads Elementary

Diane has several family members who live in Florissant, Missouri and this town is home to our next haunted school, Parker Roads Elementary. Apparently, this school was built over an old burying ground. Before the school was built in the 1950s, the state of Missouri ordered Leaf Brown Cemetery to dig up all the bodies in the cemetery and move them to another cemetery, but as usually happens, at least one body was left behind. This is a spirit that is seen only by the children. They claim that she is a blonde woman wearing a black dress with no eyes. She usually hangs out in...you guessed it, the bathrooms.

Westall High School

This school in Melbourne, Australia isn't exactly haunted, but it did experience a weird UFO visit. It was around 11 am on Wednesday April 6, 1966 that students and a teacher from Westall High School reported seeing a UFO. They claimed that it appeared to be saucer-shaped and was a silvery-green color. The craft was twice the size of a standard car at the time and descended, then flew over the school. It then headed to a stand of trees where it disappeared. The stunned students claimed that the UFO reappeared around 20 minutes later and then sped up and flew to the north-west.

Farrar Schoolhouse

The Farrar Schoolhouse is located in Maxwell, Iowa and was dedicated in 1922. A man named C.G. Geddes donated six acres of his farm for the Washington Township Consolidated School District. This school building would combine all the one-room schoolhouses in the area to one building. Some people in the district were not happy with the new schoolhouse because it cost $100,000 and had the modern amenities of electric lights, indoor bathrooms and boiler heating. The school was named for the town of Farrar, which eventually became part of Maxwell. The school closed down in 2002 and sat abandoned for five years. Jim and Nancy Oliver bought the schoolhouse in 2006 and quickly noticed that things were off. They were told when they asked around about hauntings that students had experienced unexplained stuff for years before the school closed. They would watch doors slam themselves and saw shadow figures. Former janitor Bill Webb would find the gym lights on all the time after he would shut them off. He would also hear disembodied footsteps when he was in the school alone.

Nancy Oliver herself saw the ghost of a young boy near the gym. She also heard the giggle of a little girl and looked in a classroom where she heard it coming from and saw the figure of a girl with a long, frilly dress and curly hair. Steven Tracy founded Iowa Paranormal and he said that his team once saw a full-bodied apparition on the third floor near the principal's office. His group thinks that a former principal might be haunting the building even though nobody died on the property. Other experiences had by people investigating the building include balls rolling by themselves in a classroom on the third floor, music has been heard coming from the gym, the spirit of a boy was seen coming out of Room 206 and a nine-foot tall shadow figure was seen on the third floor.

The schoolhouse has been featured on Discovery Channels "My Ghost Story" and "Ghost Stalkers" and been investigated by a number of paranormal celebrities like Johnny Houser, David Rountree and Christopher Booth. John E. L. Tenney said of Farrar, "Farrar flummoxed me, and in doing so, I fell in love with it. It was quiet and loud, inactive and hyperactive. It was cold and hot and warm and spoke and sang and laughed all while standing mute. Lockers slammed, ethereal footsteps ran down hallways, and yet, for all the multitude of experiences and non-experiences, the one thing I came to learn was that this school could teach me something."

Pocatello High School

We covered Pocatello High School in Ep. 49 back in 2015. Pocatello High School is located in Idaho and the city of Pocatello is known as the Gateway to the Northwest. It was founded in 1889. Many of the historic buildings from Pocatello's earliest days still exist today. One of those buildings is Pocatello High School. The school was built in 1892 and named West Side School. The building featured a belfry, gables and arched windows. All grades attended classes in the school. The school was a matter of pride for the city and because of this, two presidents spoke at the school. Those presidents were Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 and William Howard Taft in 1908. The school thrived until 1914, when a fire broke out. A boiler had apparently started the fire. Students and teachers rushed to save what they could and the fire department arrived on horse drawn carriages. It was no use. The school was completely destroyed, burned to the ground. The town decided to rebuild the school in the former's footprint. Students met on the lawn and in churches while they waited for the new school to be built. That new school was finished in 1917. The school was expanded in 1939 and a gymnasium was added. Major renovations were done in 1996 and a new gymnasium was completed in 2006. The school would seem to be a typical high school, until one hears about the supernatural occurrences that have been experienced within the school.

A peculiarity of this high school is that a real skeleton was used in science classes. Obviously, the school decided this was not a good idea and they switched to using a plastic skeleton. Apparently, the spirit behind the skeleton was not happy about this switch. Science teachers started finding bones from the real skeleton tucked inside cabinets and in other places within the science department. It was in the 40s or 50s when two girls at the school decided that life for them was over. They made a pact with each other that they would commit suicide. Only one of the girls went through with the plan because the other chickened out. The girl who followed through with the horrible plan, hung herself from her locker. She wore a distinctive perfume that is smelled in the hallways to this day. The most intense scent came from her original locker. It got so bad that her locker was finally removed. Custodial staff sees a young girl's apparition in the hallways at night.

On several occasions, the tinkling of piano keys has been heard coming from the music room at night. When someone goes to investigate, there is never anybody found playing the piano. Toilets flush on their own when no one is in the restrooms. The same thing happens with the lights. They are repeatedly turned on and off and it gets so intense that police are called.  Whispers are heard throughout the school and no one is found in the areas from which the whispering originates.

In 2014, a dark, shadowy figure was captured on a security camera moving from a bench into a bathroom. The lights also flickered in the video and the security alarm went off. The video was widely circulated online and on TV. Some people have debunked the video claiming it is a cobweb or string that has caused the weird anomaly walking around in the video, but that doesn't explain the lights. They have investigated the school several times over seven years and John Brian said that they were doing investigating near the bathroom where the security footage was shot and they had equipment go missing there. A janitor found it in a stairwell up in a window well out of reach of most people. He had gone up there to dust and saw the equipment. Don Contant was a principal at the school and he claimed to witness several paranormal things and heard many stories. He would hear banging on the floor and go over and bang back on the floor and tell the ghosts to stop banging because he had work to do. When A&E brought Ghost Hunters back in 2019, they visited the high school.  

Milton Schoolhouse

The Milton Schoolhouse was covered by us in 2015 on episode 90. In 1904, the Milton Schoolhouse was built. The original parts of the school consisted of four classrooms, restrooms on the ground floor and a boiler room. Two new additions were made to the school in 1930 and 1937. This construction saw the addition of eighteen new classrooms, a gymnasium, and a cafeteria. The school served elementary students and was the main schoolhouse for Alton from 1904 until it was closed in 1986. The Milton School sat abandoned for 4 years after that. In 1990, a man named Gary Levi purchased the building. A warehouse was added to the building in 1993 and he operated the Intaglio/Levay Glass and Giftware company from it until 1998. After the glass company was shut down the building sat dormant again, this time for eleven years. In 2009, it was purchased by Meredith Elston who rented out space in the school to small local businesses. Those businesses included a coffee shop, massage parlor, an aromatherapy store, three photography studios, a pet groomer, an electrician and a party bus company. Doug Mattingly bought the school before the pandemic in 2020. He is renovating the building and attempting to rejuvenate it. They have built out and rented a couple of apartments in the north wing and the south wing is becoming commercial studios. The gym is being set up as a place to host weddings, concerts and receptions. Some commercial tenants have carried over from previous years, including Maeva's Coffee.

What is most commonly associated with the school building; however, is the hauntings. Over the years, there have been reports of many kinds of activities in the schoolhouse. These vary and include footsteps, shadowy figures in a basement stairwell, a shadow seen peeking out of a second floor window, strange noises in the boiler room and other odd things. Patrick Keller mentioned on his Big Seance Podcast featuring this location that the cellar was very creepy. Exploding boilers killed many people. Did someone lose their life here? Or did something happen on the land? The most commonly reported occurrence of activity over the last 60 years revolves around the haunting of the school by a young girl supposedly named Mary and possibly also the spirit of the twisted man who would be her killer. 

According to legend, school had dismissed for the day on a fall afternoon. Everyone had gone home except for a girl who was working on a seasonal bulletin board for her class. A janitor took advantage of the opportunity and dragged her away to a locker room where she was found assaulted and deceased. A few days after this, the body of the janitor was found hanging in the school with a note scrawled near him which simply stated "I did it." The story has no evidence to support it, so it more than likely never happened. But there are things happening here that lend credence to a young girl ghost being in the school. For years following this, children claimed to have encounters with strange figures, hear sounds all around the school and the name Mary floated through the halls like a secret word on the tips of everyone's tongue. When Intaglio Design took over the building, employees claimed to see the apparition of a small girl while working there. They claimed to find glass items shattered near a specific shower stall in the previous locker room. 

There was even one employee who claimed the apparition of the young girl became very attached to her. Her office was located by a stair well outside of the gymnasium. An apparition of a young girl was often seen in her office, out of the corner of her eye in other rooms, and was even reported to have typed on the computer when no one else could have possibly been in her office. Little X's and O's were left behind on the screen. This employee grew attached to the spirit of the little girl. Over the years, she claimed another spirit was in the school as well. This one, she said, was threatening. Other employees felt short of breath and panicked in the area surrounding the girls shower room and even supported the story that they had seen the office employee terrorized by a spirit in a hallway. The woman eventually left her job and refused to return to the building. A few years later, it was shut down again, until the purchase in 2009. Ghost Hunters investigated the property in 2010. They experienced lights turning on and off by themselves and heard disembodied footsteps. They also heard a disembodied voice shush them.

Poasttown Elementary

We covered Poasttown Elementary on episode 228 in 2017. Poasttown started off as a town in Ohio named West Liberty and was platted by Peter Post in 1818. There was another town in Ohio with that name, so in 1848 it was decided to change the name in honor of the founder. Poasttown Elementary got its start on August 18, 1936, when the voters of Madison Township passed a bond issue for a consolidated elementary school at Poasttown to replace the township's one-room school. On September 7, 1937, the new school on Franklin-Trenton Road opened although not all the construction was completed. The school wouldn't be officially dedicated until April 15, 1938. Pupils were assigned to the new school from Upper and Lower Browns Run, Dubbs, Pike and old Poasttown. There were 200 students at that time.The schoolhouse has a history that is relatively peaceful. There is a story that a young girl, named Sarah, fell three floors down a stairwell and was killed by a serious head injury. There doesn't seem to be any evidence backing that story though. The school eventually closed in 2000 and the building is now owned and operated by Darrell and Brenda Whisman. Darrell had attended the elementary school in the 1960s. He soon figured out the school was haunted. Poasttown Elementary’s official motto has become "When you leave, you believe."

One reason that there might be hauntings here could be because the town has known tragedy. There were two train crashes about a mile away from the property, one in 1895 and the other in 1910. Interestingly, both happened on July 4. The 1910 crash was a head-on collision of a passenger train and a freight train that was the worst railroad crash in Butler County’s history. The crash killed 24 people and injured at least 35 and the area where the school would eventually be built was used as a triage area. There was also a great flood in 1913 and six people were killed. Whisman noticed the haunting activity almost immediately after he bought the building in 2004. He said, "We’ll hear a desk being drug across the floor above us. We’ll hear little kids’ footsteps. I’ve heard voices with my own ears when nobody is here but me and my wife. I just can’t explain it."

He had a friend doing construction work one day who let out a loud scream from the top floor. Darrel said, "He runs down to me. He can’t catch his breath and he’s saying, ‘There’s something up there.' I thought maybe a dog or possum got inside. But then he says, 'Dude, it’s a ghost.'" Dozens of paranormal investigators have done ghost hunts at the school. Paranormal investigator Mike Palmer founded the Paranormal Investigators of Northern Kentucky and they have investigated the school twice. Palmer said, "It’s very rare for our instruments to simultaneously go off and do so on command. This place is definitely active." One of his team members has become nauseous when inside the school. The team also captured an EVP of an older man saying, "Russ will eat it." This was after an investigator commented that she felt a critter run past her feet. 

Our listener Angela wrote us, "I am with Big Country Paranormal and we have seen full bodied apparitions, (7 foot tall) a door to the roof open and slam shut,  black floating masses, white mists, voices, strange glowing lights floating through the rooms, and even a gremlin-like creature! It was built on the ground once used to temporarily lay the dead from a fatal train accident. The janitor died in a fire and it is said  a child had a fatal fall near the stairs.  There is so much more to tell you and even an episode of Ghost Brothers was filmed there. I saw a full bodied apparition and a goblin like creature while on my first visit!"

All of these schools have been places for learning. Is it possible that some of the children that were once there as students have returned in the afterlife? Are schools attractive to other spirits? Are these school haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 412 - Haunted Anchorage

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Moment in Oddity - Mycenaean Bridge of Kazarma (Suggested by: Chelsea Flowers)

Between the Acropolis of Mycenae and the plain of Nafplio, the Mycenaean civilization built 17 bridges that earned them a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. The most well known is the Mycenaean Bridge of Kazarma, which dates to 1300 BC. This is the oldest preserved bridge in Europe. It is located in the village of Arkadiko in Greece and is one of the most important monuments of the civilization. The bridge features a single arch and was built from large raw limestone boulders and there is no binder. The construction method is known as Cyclopean Masonry. The bridge is completely stable and has lasted for hundreds of years due to the weight of the limestone boulders and their symmetrical placement towards the vertical axis of the bridge. The sophisticated layout of the bridge featuring curbs, along with the military road network, have led historians to believe these were made specifically for chariots. This world record breaking bridge is not only still functional, but it certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Suez Canal Opens

In the month of November, on the 17th, in 1869, the Suez Canal opens. The Ottoman governor of Egypt, Muhammad Sa'id Pasha, came to an agreement with then former French consul to Cairo, Ferdinand de Lesseps, in 1854 to build a canal 100 miles across the Isthmus of Suez. The construction began in 1859 under the Suez Canal Company. In the beginning, forced laborers had to dig out the canal by hand, but eventually European workers brought steam shovels and dredgers. The canal was completed four years behind schedule - and you complain because your kitchen remodel took an extra couple of months. When it was completed, the Suez Canal connected the Mediterranean and the Red Seas. The inaugural ceremony was attended by French Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III. The Suez Canal Company was formed and granted the right to operate the canal for 99 years after completion of the work. Later control of the canal would switch hands between Britain and Egypt and faced a shutdown during hostilities between Egypt and Israel. Peace talks in 1975 reopened the Suez Canal. Today, dozens of ships navigate the canal daily, carrying more than 300 million tons of goods a year. 

Haunted Anchorage  

Alaska is a land just ripe for hauntings. Darkness cloaks the land for much of the year and thick pine forests spread across the expanse. There are legends that have filtered down through the various cultures and time periods, passed around by the Inuit, the gold miners, the trappers, the explorers or the soccer moms. Anchorage grew from a tent city to a major American city. The city has experienced much history and this may be why several locations here are rumored to be haunted. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of Anchorage, Alaska!

The Alutiiq People were the first to live at the Cook Inlet. They arrived via large kayaks around 5,000 years ago. Several groups of Alutiiq followed them over the next 3,000 years. The Chugach Alutiiq were the last of that group and they left the area in 500 AD. The Dena'ina Athabaskans came through the mountain passes and they migrated throughout Alaska based on the seasons, usually wintering near trading junctions. The Ahtna tribe was also in the area. The first European to arrive was Captain James Cook. He was seeking the Northwest Passage and ended up in the inlet between two landmarks he would name Mount St. Augustine and Cape Douglas. He anchored his ship there and called it Anchor Point for that reason. This would eventually become Anchorage. Cook went on to map the Alaskan coastline. He named many of the areas and they still have those names today.  

Alaska would become an American territory in 1867 when U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward brokered a deal to purchase Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. Many people called this "Seward's Folly," but he was laughing later when gold was discovered in 1888. Alaska became an organized US territory in 1912. Surprisingly, the area surrounding Anchorage wasn't any good for mining because there are no significant metal minerals. So the city actually grew from a need for the railroad. This railroad construction began in 1914. The workers built a tent city as they worked on the railroad. A couple hundred families from northern states in the continental US were offered land and a chance to be part of an agricultural community in Anchorage. Many didn't make it for long and left, but some thrived and those farms still are around today.

One of the business men in Anchorage was Simeon Esia, who was known as Basdut or Chief Ezi. He was a respected Dena'ina Athabascan Indian elder who was born in 1870. He was one of the last recognized chiefs of upper Cook Inlet. Large ships in Anchorage needed to get their supplies across the water to the smaller communities of Cook Inlet, so Basdut started using a small boat to deliver those supplies. He became a rich man, but not because of that business. His son told the story that floods came to their area often and one time a store drifted on to Fire Island, bringing with it a safe that got buried under the sand. Basdut's wife was the daughter of a powerful medicine man and he told Basdut to go out onto the sand with a pole and prod where he told him. Basdut did that and found the safe filled with twenty-dollar gold pieces. He packed that gold home in several loads. He held a feast for his community after this called a potlatch. This is a true historical account, but there are many legends connected to the Inuit people of Anchorage.

Inuit legends have been used both to entertain and to instruct. Inuit mythology embraces the belief that their are multiple worlds that are a part of our planet. Worlds exist inside the Earth - very similar to Hollow Earth Theories that still exist today. Worlds lie beneath the sea and in the sky. These indigineous people have shaman or what they call angakoks that are able to journey to these worlds in dreams and trances. Some of these places are a part of the afterlife as well. A prominent Inuit legend tells the story of the Sea Goddess Sedna, who is also known by the names Taleelayuk, Nuliayuk and Taluliyuk. This is a creation myth and Sedna becomes the ruler of the Inuit underworld known as Adlivun. How she comes to this position is interesting. She apparently was a giant and the daughter of the creator-god Anguta. Sedna is not a nice girl and has a pretty bad temper. She eventually attacks her parents and so Anguta takes her out in a kayak and throws her overboard. Sedna clings to the side of the kayak, so Anguta cuts her fingers off and she sinks down to the underworld. Her fingers turn into seals and walruses. Inuit hunters depend on Sedna's goodwill to give them success in hunting for food. They offer broken knives, bones and pieces of meat into the sea for her.

Qayaq is a legendary hero who is a wanderer using a kayak or dog sled to travel. He encounters bears, sea monsters, giants, spirits and cannibals along his way. Qayaq has supernatural powers that he uses to defeat these creatures. He has lived a long time and had many lives. The legend of Lumiuk tells the story of a young boy who was abused and lost his sight. He seeks refuge in the sea and is befriended by a loon. The loon tells him to hold onto his back and he pulls the boy through the water. The loon instructs Lumiak to keep his eyes open and when they emerge from the water, the boy can see.

There are many supernatural beings that are part of the Inuit myths as well. Scaly, human-like creatures that kidnap children and drag them into the sea are known as Oallupilluk. The Mahaha is a demon that terrorizes its victims by tickling them to death. The Inupasugjuk are giants who kidnap humans and Ijiraat are shapeshifters that can change into animals of the Arctic. Their giveaway is their red eyes. And the Taqriaqsuit are shadow people that are heard more often than they are seen. Along with the legends of the land are stories of hauntings. Here are some of the places that are reputedly haunted in Anchorage.

Oscar Anderson House

The first wood-frame house in Anchorage was built in 1915 at 420 M Street and it still stands today as a museum. This was built by Anchorage resident Oscar Anderson, the town's first butcher. Oscar had arrived from Sweden, stopping first in Seattle and making his way to Seward and finally to the settlement on Ship Creek. He was a pioneer here being the eighteenth person to arrive. In his account he wrote, "Everyone talked about the new settlement starting across Cook Inlet from Knik. I had to find a way to cross over, which was no easy matter, as there was a lot of ice on the Inlet and no one wanted to risk it. Finally, a 19-year-old youth who had a boat volunteered to row me across. It was no pleasure trip. At one point, the boy fell in the water. We pulled onto a large block of ice. I took out some dry clothes from my suitcase and we changed his clothes. After that, I had to finish rowing." He lived in it until 1974 when he died at the age of 91. 

The house has been restored to its 1915 appearance. Oscar's widow, Elizabeth, moved to Washington after selling the house and she was thrilled when she heard stories that people believed the house was haunted. Oscar had loved this home and she said he would never want to leave and the paranormal activity proved that. The first people to report activity were a young couple who moved into the house right after Oscar died. They heard disembodied footsteps coming from upstairs. Later, they couldn't open the door to his old room. Eventually they wedged it open enough to see that a chest had slid in front of the door, blocking it from opening. Adam wrote on TripAdvisor, "I went there years ago. It's a nice little house, some interest'n old stuff. When I was taken up stairs I shot a photo from one room into the other room. I did not see anyth'n when I was there but when I got my photo, there was an image of a man about the size of Oscar."

Snow City Cafe

Snow City Cafe is located on 4th Avenue and opened in 1998. This is a breakfast, lunch and brunch place. The Anchorage Ghost Tour kicks off from this spot. Rick Goodfellow, who founded the tour, says of this location, "The short story is that a very prominent woman of her day, in 1976, was killed by a car bomb. She was a travel agent, and in those days, there was no Snow City. Her office was where Snow City is today." This woman now haunts the location and according to Goodfellow, she is friendly. She likes to pull pranks during food prep and plays with turning off and on the water. 

Briana Goldman was a Front of House Supervisor at Snow City and she had an experience with the female ghost. She said, "There's so much daylight at that time of the year, but I came in about 20 minutes early that day. I was just like, yes, it's beautiful, I can get some things done early. And then I hear someone laughing. I heard a cabinet close in the back, by the bathroom. And I was just like, 'Is someone here?'" There was no other employee at the restaurant and she was really creeped out.

The Hotel Captain Cook

Kelly took the Ghost Tours of Anchorage tour and they stopped at the Hotel Captain Cook. The hotel was built in 1964 by Alaskan governor Walter J. Hickel. An earthquake had leveled much of Anchorage and Hickel saw this as an opportunity. The hotel originally had only one tower, but a second and third tower were added in the 1970s. The hotel has 546 rooms and is a member of Historic Hotels of America. This is usually the second stop on the ghost tour and Goodfellow believes that there is a spirit at this hotel that is very territorial and that territory encompasses...the ladies' restroom, of course. As Goodfellow tells it, "The operations manager told me why there's one stall that's always locked: It's because there was a suicide in there shortly after that tower, Tower 2, was opened. She gets into bad moods sometimes. Over the course of Ghost Tours, I've seen her go from very quiescent for months, until she's very active night after night after night." People have even passed out in the restroom, near the stall.

The story goes that a woman was really upset about something and took a gun with her into the posh and elegantly decorated restroom. Out of the several black stalls in here she chose the last stall on the left - how fitting! This stall is now permanently latched because it is reputed to be quite haunted. The female spirit usually appears as a woman in white. Not only has her apparition been seen in that bathroom and particularly in that stall, but there is a great sense of unease in that stall. Some women have become violently ill when in the restroom and others have fainted. The stall walls have been shaken violently and women have been touched, sometimes feeling as though something is grabbing their ankles. After a few too many of these more violent experiences, management decided to make the stall off-limits and that is why it is latched.

Historic Anchorage Hotel 

This hotel was built in 1916 at the corner of 3rd Avenue and E Street, so it is over 100 years old. This was a posh place with meals served on fine china with beautiful linens and real silver utensils. By 1936, the hotel needed to expand to accommodate all the tourists traveling to the city of Anchorage. The Anchorage Hotel Annex was built at that time across the alleyway on 3rd Avenue. To connect the two buildings, a sky bridge was constructed. Celebrities and dignitaries stayed here including Wiley Post, mountain man Bob Marshall, artist Sydney Lawrence who actually lived at the hotel and had his studio in the lobby and Will Rogers. The boom time dissipated over time and the original structure was sold and razed. The Annex building still operated as a hotel, but over time it fell into disrepair and changed names frequently. New life was breathed into it in 1989 when it fell under new ownership. Extensive renovations were done and it was reopened as The Historic Anchorage Hotel.

The hotel embraces its reputation of being haunted. Ghost stories have been told about the hotel for years. Pictures are said to come off the walls and fly across rooms. The curtains seem to move on their own. One of the ghosts here is believed to be Anchorage’s first Chief of Police, Jack Sturgus. Just outside the hotel, he was found shot in the back by his own gun. This happened on February 20, 1921. He never got justice and perhaps that is why he remains. There are other spirits here and the hotel even keeps a log to track guests' experiences.

Our Lady in White is seen here and she is, of course, in a wedding dress. The story here is that she was set to wed in the 1920s, but he jilted her the day of the wedding. Apparently, he struck it rich in the gold fields and took off. She hanged herself in her wedding dress and is now said to walk the hallways. The front desk has often gotten complaints about children running around in the hallways making a bunch of noise. Every time the staff has gone to find the kids, they find none. They usually find that no one has registered with any children with them. Another child ghost has been reported hiding in a closet in 2011. The guest claimed they opened the closet door and the child smiled at them and then disappeared. The children could be connected to an outbreak of influenza in 1938 that killed a large group of children. They died in a building that had been nearby. Some people think they might have played at the hotel and that's why they returned here. 

One time hotel manager, Terri Russi, was working the front desk when she witnessed a shadowy figure in a white dress reflecting in a mirror that was in front of her. She spun around to see what had just walked behind her and there was nothing but a picture behind her. But she knew she saw a figure pass behind her. She also had a shared experience with a guest that was reported in The Anchorage Daily News in 2004, "Later on in the week, a boyfriend of an employee passed the time with a self-guided tutorial on how to tie a tie. He was seated in a chair next to the narrow lobby fireplace, with Russi, again, behind the front desk. As he practiced, a framed picture of notable Alaskan artist Sydney Laurence spontaneously catapulted itself from the mantel across the room, shattering a glass coffee table on impact. Russi was stunned. Assuming it was an earthquake, she looked around to see what else was shaking. The chandelier was still. The room was quiet. The man turned to her, his untied tie hanging from his neck, and casually suggested, 'Maybe it's your ghost.'" Another male ghost likes to latch onto certain guests and then follows them around throughout their stay.

Anchorage has a long history, much of which is filled with legend. It's not surprising that the city has places connected to ghost stories. Are these places in Anchorage haunted? That is for you to decide!

Ep. 258 - Haunted Skagway

 
Moment in Oddity - Appenino Sculpture

The Appenine Colossus is found near a pond at Villa di Pratolino in Florence, Italy and seems to be emerging from the mountainous rockwork. The Villa di Pratolino was a Renaissance villa built by the Grand Duke of Tuscany for his Venetian mistress, Bianca Capello. The villa was mostly demolished in 1820 and what is left is part of Villa Demidoff. The sculpture, known as Appenino, is like a half-man, half-mountain squatting over a snake from which water flows, with his head bent as though he is looking down at the snake. His left hand rests upon it. Appenino was created by Flemish sculptor Giambologna in 1579-80. He created works in the Mannerist style, which exaggerates balance and proportion. While the work is amazing in and of itself, what really makes it wondrously unique is that it has several hidden caves inside. These caves are decorated with frescoes and a small marble statue of “Venerina” is inside one of the caves. One of the really bizarre features was reputedly a space in his head that had a fireplace which, when lit, would blow smoke out of his nostrils, and that, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Pop-up Toaster Invented

In the month of May, on the 29th, in 1919, the pop-up toaster received its patent. Humans have been eating bread for over 6,000 years and for most of that time, bread has been toasted to preserve it and to make it tastier. Before the electric toaster was invented, people used fire to toast bread. Charles P. Strite was a master mechanic in a plant in Stillwater, Minnesota and he was becoming increasingly frustrated with the burnt toast that was served in the company cafeteria. The cafeteria staffing was not adequate enough to keep a continuous eye on the toast. So Strite decided to invent a toaster that did not need supervision. He incorporated springs and a variable timer into his design and this created the first pop-up toaster. He figured that the device would only be sold to the restaurant trade, but as we all know, nearly every home has a pop-up toaster today.

Haunted Skagway

Skagway, Alaska is a popular destination for cruise ships hosting Alaskan cruises and it was one of the settings for Jack London's "Call of the Wild." And Skagway does have a wild history due to its location during the Klondike Gold Rush. The Red Onion Saloon not only provided a place for prospectors to get a drink, it also was a high class brothel. Today, the saloon is a restaurant and bar that serves up more than just food and drinks, it serves up some haunting experiences. The Golden North Hotel dates back to the gold rush as well and plays host to two apparitions. There are buildings for fraternal organizations and government and a couple of houses that also play host to spirits. Join me as I share the history and hauntings of Skagway, Alaska!

The word Skagway is the nickname of Kanagoo. Kanagoo was the mythical woman who transformed herself into stone at Skagway Bay. She is the cause of the strong winds on the bay. The people who lived here originally were the Tlingit People and they named a mountain now known today as Face Mountain a name that translates to Kanagoo's image. And it does look as though the profile of someone is looking up from the top of the mountain. The Tlingit were hunters and fishermen. The tribe still exists today, but much of their heritage was lost when Russian missionaries brought Russian orthodoxy to the area. The indigenous people lost their faith in their own medicine men and ways when small pox devastated them.

Very few white men came into the rugged area. A former steamboat captain named William "Billy" Moore conducted surveys over the Coast mountains because he believed he would find gold through there. Similar passes in South America and British Columbia had revealed that they had gold, so his belief was backed up by facts. He claimed an area of land measuring 160 acres with his son Ben in 1887 and this was near the mouth of the Skagway River. After staking their claim, they built a sawmill, wharf and log cabin. Billy just knew that prospectors were going to be flocking to the area and he was going to be prepared. Billy only had to wait about ten years before the Klondike Gold Rush started. In 1896, gold was found in the Klondike region of Canada's Yukon Territory. Soon, Skagway was flooding with prospectors. This would be the entryway into a 500-mile journey to the gold fields in Canada. This would seem like a dream for Billy as the population swelled to 30,000. But his lot was jumped and his land was stolen.

The official resident count was marked at 10,000 and this made Skagway the largest city in Alaska.  Skagway grew into a modern city with fine hotels, electric lights, water works, a telephone system, street grading, a city hall, jail and residential districts. The city's government stepped in to regulate gambling and saloons. One of those saloons still stands today: The Red Onion Saloon. The Red Onion opened for business in 1898 when the Klondike Gold Rush was at its height. The building was constructed from planks cut by Billy Moore. As was the case with so many drinking establishments of this time, the main form of entertainment hosted at the saloon was the bordello. And this was not just any bordello. The Red Onion was the most exclusive bordello in town. Alcohol was served on the first floor, with the brothel being on the second floor. The business only ran for two years as the gold rush waned and prospectors moved on to other areas.

After the Red Onion shut down, it served a number of other purposes. During World War II the building was used as a U.S. Army barracks to board soldiers. It later served as a union hall, laundry, bakery, television station and gift shop. The building was bought by Jan Wrentmore in 1980 and she turned it into a restaurant and bar that hosts a museum dedicated to the prostitution past. There is more than just a bordello museum hosted here though. The saloon is reputedly haunted and has such a reputation that many paranormal investigators have come to visit and investigate and the location was featured on the TV show "Alaska Haunting" in October of 2015. There is more than one ghost haunting the building.

Investigators have reported picking up EVP. Guests and employees have felt cold spots and seen apparitions. Glasses have moved around on the bar. Disembodied footsteps are heard up on the second floor. When people go to see who is wandering around up there they find nobody. Several times though they would "find" something else and that would be the scent of perfume. One time, the police were called because the disturbance upstairs was so loud. The police showed up and as they approached the stairs, they claimed they saw what was a shadow figure running down the hall and into a room that had belonged to the former madame. They found no one in the room. A musician who played in the saloon once lived on the second floor and one night he awoke to see a shimmering light in his room and he felt a very strange sensation. One of the local town leaders was upstairs once and claimed to feel a strong presence that felt hostile.

One of the most well known spirits in the Red Onion Saloon is that of a former prostitute named Lydia. Lydia likes to water the plants apparently. When the owner goes around to water the plants, she sometimes finds the soil to be wet. There are no plants in the madam's room and yet an apparition has been seen walking around as if it is watering plants. No one knows why Lydia is here because there is no record of a Lydia dying in the bordello. But she is hostile towards men, so maybe something did happen to her.

One employee said, "I have worked here 13 years and can tell you that there is SOMETHING here. We’ve had employees see her, have witnessed things flying off the back bar, have customers see her… All sorts of events. It’s definitely more ‘active’ in Spring and when the building is quiet. Or at least, we notice it then."

Another business that opened in Skagway was The Golden North Hotel. The Golden North Hotel was built at the height of the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898. It is three-stories, painted white and has a gold painted cupola. The hotel closed in 2002 to guests. The building is currently occupied by Frontier Excursions & Adventures. In its heyday, around 1,000 prospectors would pass through the doors every week. One of those prospectors was named Klondike Ike and he arrived in Skagway with his fiancé Mary. The couple rented Room 23 at the hotel. Ike left Mary there to make his fortune in the gold fields. Mary died while Ike was away. Some say she had been ill with pneumonia, others say she grew depressed waiting for Ike and starved herself and still others say she died of a broken heart. She was found wearing the wedding dress she had bought for her future nuptials.

Mary's spirit is believed to still be in the building to this day. She has been nicknamed "Scary Mary" by those that have experienced her. Guests who stay in Room 23 have occasionally woken up because they were feeling as though they were being choked. Their lungs feel tight, almost as though they were sick with pneumonia. Other guests have reported seeing the apparition of a woman roaming the halls or watching out a window. The owner and one of the maids were together when they saw Mary standing by the window in Room 23. Blasts of cold air are felt as though something very cold has walked by and mysterious noises have been heard. Mary also seems to have made an appearance in a photograph when a singer from Juneau had his girlfriend take his picture while standing in the then empty third floor Hall. After the picture was developed, they saw that a woman was standing next to him who was clearly not there when the picture was taken.

There may be another ghost here as well that reputedly haunts Room 14. A mysterious light has been seen by both guests and staff in that room. It has a sparkle quality to it and others claim that it is a twinkling orb. No one knows exactly why it would be in this room, but it moves around and seems to be non-threatening. Some hotel guests have felt really sick when staying in Room 14. It gets so bad that some have nearly passed out. They claim to see a grayish light manifest at the same time that they are feeling ill. As it fades away, they start to feel better. Some ghost hunters claimed that they found a dark ring around the tub the morning following their overnight stay. It was as though someone had taken a bath during the night, but none of them had. And they were sure that the tub was clean when they checked in.

The Eagles fraternity first met in Skagway in 1899. They moved into the Eagles Hall in 1916. The hall was formed by bringing together two old hotels that were built in the 1890s. The Mondamin Hotel was moved here in 1916 and the Pacific Hotel was added to the rear in 1920. The building is two stories and painted maroon with white trim. During the summers, the hall hosts a popular show called Days of '98 Show. This is Alaska's longest running theater production and dates back to 1927. The show was originally started as a fundraiser for the hockey club and is a variety show. The second floor seems to be host to several friendly ghosts. They manifest as cold spots and people have seen apparitions throughout the second floor.

The Mulvihill House was built in 1904 for W.H. Case who was a partner in the well-known photographic firm of Case and Draper. The house is named for a man who lived in it from 1914 to 1949, White Pass and Yukon Railroad dispatcher Mul Mulvihill. The house is Victorian in style. He died in 1949, but his spirit is still in the house. He reputedly taps out messages on a phantom telegraph, opens and closes doors and walks throughout the home stomping around in what sounds like heavy work boots. Today, the Mulvihill House is a private residence. Not sure if the current owners have experienced the haunting activity.

The City Municipal Building was built in 1899. This was the first territorial court in Alaska, but today it serves as Skagway’s city hall and department of tourism. There is a museum on the second floor. There are reports of strange noises coming from this floor and the source has never been discovered.

The White House is a building on the edge of town that is fire damaged and abandoned. It was originally built to be a private home, but during World War II it became a hospital. Later, the house was used as a small hotel, then a day-care center and then a home for families once again.People who have stayed or lived in the house have reported supernatural activity. A commercial fisherman was staying there with his family and he and his wife awoke one night to see a the apparition of a woman standing at the foot of their bed. They also experienced their toddler daughter chatting away with someone they could not see in the kitchen. They occasionally saw this apparition in the kitchen and she matched the description of a woman who used to run the day-care center.

There's no hauntings going on at this location that I know of, but it is one of the most unique buildings in the city and that is the Arctic Brotherhood Hall. It is said that this is the most photographed building in Alaska. The building was constructed in 1899 as headquarters for arctic brotherhood Camp Skagway No. 1. The facade is made up of more than 8,800 pieces of driftwood collected from local tidal flats. Sticks have been shaped into a mosaic of letters, a gold pan and square patterns. The Trail of '98 Museum is inside and features Native artifacts and relics of the gold rush, including gambling paraphernalia from the old Board of Trade Saloon.

*Rabbit Hole: Soapy Smith

I first heard of Soapy Smith in Colorado. Doing research for this episode, I read that Soapy had ended up in Skagway and it is here that he died and was buried in the City Cemetery. He was quite the character and I thought you would enjoy hearing about this infamous con man. Soapy had been born into a rich plantation family in 1860, but as was the case for so many southern families, the Civil War changed their fortunes. His family relocated to Texas and it was here that he began his career as a bunko artist. He gathered together some other rogues to help him out with his scams. They used the typical shell games, three card Monte and other little cons. Soon Soapy was known as the “King of the Frontier Con Men.”  He moved on to bigger games and created his “Prize Package Soap Sell.” Soapy would set up a suitcase on a stand on a busy street corner. Inside the suitcase were piles of ordinary soap wrapped in plain paper. he made a big production of wrapping the soap in money from one dollar up to a hundred, then he would rewrap the bar in plain paper. He would then sell the soap $1-5 per bar. A shill in the crowd would buy a bar, unwrap it and find the hundred dollar bill. Of course the crowds of people would quickly buy some bars. Most would find only a bar of soap that cost Soapy 5 cents. He did this for two decades and it earned him his "Soapy" nickname.

In Denver, he added stock exchange swindles to his repettoire. Soapy had such a large group of men running his cons that he claimed to be the boss of Denver’s underworld crime empire. He opened the Tivoli Saloon and Gambling Hall in Denver. *Fun Fact: Bat Masterson worked as a dealer at the Tivoli for a time.* Sopay joined forces with Old Man Taylor in Leadville and the two operated a successful shell game upon the many unsuspecting miners. People in Denver were trying to shut down gambling and so Soapy took his operation to Creede, Colorado, another mining town in the mountains. He opened a club were he displayed a petrified man for the price of 10¢. He called the “petrified man,” “McGinty” and this was also a hoax, as it was actually nothing more than cement over skeletal remains. The oddity brought in lots of customers though. The club ran crooked card games and swindled many gamblers.

Soapy returned to Denver and eventually became a wanted man and so he moved further west until the Yukon Gold Rush grabbed his attention in 1897. He made his way to Skagway. He soon claimed to be the boss of Skagway. He opened a saloon called Jeff Smith’s Parlor and ran his cons out of there. Soon the people of Skagway were tired of Soapy and his ways. a vigilante group tried to force Soapy and his gang out but he claimed to have a bigger force of 300 men and the vigilante group backed down. The group would return in 1898 and they held a meeting to discuss what to do with Soapy. He showed up with a Winchester rifle over his shoulder. he argued with a guard at the door and a gunfight erupted. When the smoke cleared both Soapy and the guard lay dead. Soapy’s last words were reportedly: “My God, don’t shoot!” Soapy Smith was buried just outside the city cemetery. His grave and his saloon, which has since been moved from its original location, can still be seen in Skagway.

The city of Skagway looks much like it did over 100 years ago with wooden boardwalks and buildings dating back to the late 1800s. Several of these buildings seem to be housing an energy left over from the past. Is Skagway one of the most haunted cities in Alaska? Are these buildings haunted? That is for you to decide!