HGB Ep. 598 - Brown Palace Hotel

Moment in Oddity - Diesel the Donkey (Suggested by: Chelsea Flowers)

There have been many instances in nature where one species of animal is orphaned and raised by another species. However, that type of situation can be a bit more rare when it comes to animals that live in a herd or flock. In the spring of 2024, a bow-hunter named Max Fennell was out in the wilderness when he came upon an unexpected sight that he captured on film. He spotted a herd of at least twelve Roosevelt elk on a hillside. That was not the least bit unusual for the area, however what was strange was that one of the members of the herd looked a bit different. This unique fellow was actually a donkey named Diesel. Five years prior to Fennell's discovery, the Drewry family had been out camping with their pet donkey near Clear Lake, California. Diesel had spooked and ran away. The distraught family searched for their friend, but despite seeing hoofprints and trail camera footage of their four legged family member, they were unable to locate him. The Drewry's were overjoyed at seeing Diesel thriving with his adoptive family despite missing having him at home. They decided to leave him be, to live his best life as an elk. We like to watch different species of animals living in peaceful coexistence, but a donkey living with a herd of elk, certainly is odd. 

This Month in History - Storming of the Bastille

In the month of July, on the 14th, in 1789, Parisian revolutionaries and mutinous troops stormed the Bastille. The Bastille was a royal fortress and prison in Paris, France. The populace were agitated over economic hardships and were frustrated with the monarchy. Fears that King Louis XVI was about to arrest France's newly constituted National Assembly led to the uprising. A mob approached the Bastille with demands for arms and ammunition. The guards resisted and the revolutionaries attacked, seizing the fortress which represented the monarchy's oppressive power. Approximately 100 of the revolutionaries lost their lives as well as governor Bernard-Rene de Launay and some of the guards. It was a fierce battle. The event was a culmination of many years of discontent by the people and is considered the starting point of the French Revolution. It began a decade of radical social and political change signalling the end of the old regime. Bastille Day is now a national holiday in France, commemorating the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. 

Brown Palace Hotel (Suggested twice by Tim Kemble, Vicki Luther and David Law)

The Brown Palace Hotel and Spa is an iconic landmark in Downtown Denver. The hotel has stood for over 130 years and was one of the first atrium-style hotels ever built and was fire-proof. She was affectionately nicknamed The Grand Dame of Denver and she has stood as a sentinel in the downtown area, watching over the history that has unfolded here. The Brown hosted celebrities, Molly Brown, several Presidents and even the Beatles. And rumors claim that she hosts spirits as well. Several of them. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Brown Palace Hotel.

Let's set the stage. This is an excerpt from a September 1956 House and Garden article by Lucius Beebe: "Above and beyond its celebrity as one of the great hotels of the nation, the Brown possesses an even greater asset than culinary citations and the presence on its register of the names of the mighty and affluent. This is its sense of continuity, of being inseparably joined to the past. The Brown is from the old times, the good times, when all the country was young and there were those still living who could remember the Long Hunters and the Mountain Men. Over the shoulders of the young men in Brooks suits and sport jackets at the Ship Tavern, there are shadowy figures in fringed buckskin and raccoon hats with scalp knives at their belts drinking amazing quantities of Taos Lightning and planning ghostly wagon trains that shall set out from Kansas over the Jornada del Muerto, the Route of Death, for Santa Fe. Only the true believers, heirs to the second sight of the Medicine Men, can see them. But they are there." I grew up in the suburbs of Denver and also lived in the heart of Capitol Hill for a few years, so I'm very familiar with the idea that while Denver is a very modern city, it still embraces its Old West history. 

Denver can thank gold for its beginning. A prospector named William Russell lead a bunch of miners north of the Santa Fe Trail into what was then Kansas Territory at the confluence of the Cherry Creek and South Platte Rivers. They found gold there in 1858 and created a permanent settlement they called Auraria. The Colorado Gold Rush was off and running and brought another man who had been a general in the Pennsylvania state militia named William Larimer, Jr. He built Denver City across the river from Auraria. The name Denver came from Kansas territorial Governor James Denver. The two towns would merge as Denver before the Civil War.  

What would become Capitol Hill was originally owned by Henry C. Brown. Brown was born in 1820 in Ohio and his early work was in carpentry in St. Louis. He made a small fortune in California working as a master builder and he opened a sawmill. In 1858, he decided to relocate back to St. Louis and then he heard very promising things about a city named Decatur that was located in Nebraska. Brown sunk most of his money into the town, which went bust, so he went back to Missouri to make money in carpentry again. When he had $2,500 in his pocket, he decided to head to California again, but by the time he and his wife arrived in Denver, she was done with traveling and demanded that they stop. Brown set up a carpentry shop , but eventually decided to real estate was where the real money was at he bought and homesteaded the land that would become Capitol Hill and it was known as Brown's Bluff. It was given that name because people thought of it as a wasteland. Brown had hopes of building neighborhoods and he platted out the land, but settlers soon abandoned the future Mile High City for Cheyenne. Brown continued to believe in his plan.

Brown was right. Denver would be chosen to build the state capitol and Brown's Bluff was the perfect hill for placement. Brown donated the land for the Capitol building and he gave money so that a library could be founded. Soon Denver would be a booming metropolis. There was a triangular block of land bordered by Broadway, 17th Street and Tremont Place, in what would become downtown Denver, that Brown owned and he sold it to some English investors who planned to build a hotel on the plot. People were flocking to the West and Denver was a great stop over point, so places for people to stay were desperately needed. They dug out the foundation and went bankrupt, abandoning the project and leaving behind a hole that was used as a swimming pool by kids. Brown foreclosed on the land and took it back, deciding to build his own hotel there and he did just that, calling it the Brown Palace Hotel. He didn't have an ego or anything. And as we said, the plot was triangular, so the hotel is indeed, triangular.

Henry Brown hired Civil War veteran architect Frank E. Edbrooke to design the hotel and Edbrooke decided on the Italian Renaissance and Romanesque Revival styles. That design took nearly two tons of paper for the drawings and every guest room would face the streets. The hotel was built with an iron and steel frame constructed by Whitehouse & Wirgler Stone Company. Construction began in 1888 and red granite from Colorado and sandstone from Arizona were chosen for the building's exterior. Artist James Whitehouse was commissioned to create twenty-six medallions depicting Colorado animals. These were carved into the stone between the seventh-floor windows. When finished, the hotel stood taller than most everything around it, offering great views, morning and afternoon sun depending on which side of the hotel you were on and the hotel really appeared like a giant ship with a massive prow.

Edbrooke designed an amazing interior as well. There was an atrium lobby with balconies rising eight floors and those balconies had cast iron railings with ornate grillwork panels. The atrium was topped with stained-glass windows. The wall of the lobby were paneled with onyx brought in from an onyx mine in Torreon, Mexico. The Grand Salon, which is known as the Onyx Room now, and the 8th floor ballroom were also paneled in the onyx. There was also an 8th floor dining room that could seat 250 guests and offered panoramic views of 300 miles of the Rocky Mountains. The room was two stories and the windows had stained glass fruit designs at the tops of the windows. The floor also had six private dining rooms and the kitchen was up there as well. Floors and partition walls were built of hollow blocks of porous terra cotta fire-proofing, making this one of the first fireproof structures in America. Each room had its own fireplace. There was steam heat, a huge engine room, a power plant within the hotel, and an ice machine that could make five tons of ice a day. An artesian well provided the hotel with its own water. The interior was furnished at a cost of $400,000, which included fine china and silver, Irish linen, sofas covered in silk, and furniture made from white mahogany, cherry and antique oak. The entire hotel cost $1.6 million to build.

The hotel opened on August 12, 1892 with 400 guest rooms that rented for between $3 and $5 a night under the co-management of William Bush and Maxey Tabor. Bush built and managed the Broadway theater across from the hotel and he had vast experience in managing hotels. Maxey was the son of Augusta and Horace Tabor and learned the hotel business from his dad. It was Tabor's expensive taste that led to the expensive furnishing of the Brown. The hotel also featured eighteen unique storefronts. The first guests to use the dining room were the Triennial Conclave of Knights Templar and they had a 7-course dinner with a wine list of 227 different items that included 28 different champagnes. Brown's wife died in February of 1893 and he moved out of the Sherman Street Mansion that they shared and took up residence at the Brown Palace. The crash of 1893 hit him hard and he wasn't able to pay his bills. This left the managers of the hotel thinking that they were actually going to have to evict him. Brown was saved from that when a fellow carpenter who hit it big in the Cripple Creek gold rush, W.S. Stratton, bought the Brown Palace and he let Brown stay there. In 1894, Brown set his sights on marrying a 22-year-old grocery clerk. He was 74. Surprisingly, the marriage didn't last and they were divorced by 1900. Brown went to San Diego, California and he died there in 1906. His body was brought back to Denver and laid in state in the Capitol. After his death, there was litigation with Brown's son over the deed and the Stratton estate officially bought the hotel in 1907.

Horace Bennett and Associates bought the hotel in 1922. One of those associates was Charles Boettcher and he and his brother Claude bought the hotel when the Depression forced Bennett to sell some of his holdings. Claude guided the hotel through the Depression and two World Wars. In 1937, two murals were added to the hotel lobby by artist Allen Tupper True named "Stage Coach" and "Airplane Travel." When prohibition ended, the Ship Tavern was added to the hotel. In 1959, the Denver Broncos were born in the lobby of the Brown Palace. Lamar Hunt was starting a new football league called the American Football League and Bob Howsam agreed to meet him at the hotel to finalize a plan for Howsam to own the Denver franchise. The AFL and NFL would eventually merge into the game of football we know today. Also in 1959 came an expansion to add more rooms and this was in the form of a 22-story annex across Tremont Place that offered 231 rooms. Eventually this annex became a Comfort Inn and today are a Holiday Inn Express. The Boettcher name was associated with the Brown Palace for fifty years and then it was sold to Associated Inns and Restaurants Company of America in 1980. Rank Hotels of North America took over management in 1983.

Guests who came to the Grand Dame of Denver were Frontier and Alaska gangster Jefferson “Soapy” Smith, Louise Sneed Hill, Margaret “Molly” Brown, Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Peter Lorre, Jane Russell, Red Skelton and Charles Lindbergh. The first president to visit was Teddy Roosevelt in 1905. Incidentally, only three presidents that have served after Teddy have not visited the hotel. Every other President has been a guest. The Beatles were coming to Colorado to perform at Red Rocks Ampitheater, which is THE best placed to see a concert, period. Fight me. That's why so many groups have released live albums that were recorded at Red Rocks. Anyway, when the Beatles arrived at the Brown Palace on August 26, 1964, pandemonium ensued. There is fun story about a character who stayed here named Lord Ogilivie shared in Corinne Hunt's 1982 book "The Brown Palace Story." (Pg. 45)

Interesting guests would show up in the lobby during the National Western Stock Show every year: the champion bulls. Crow Holdings acquired the Brown in 2014 and today it is owned by Crescent Real Estate LLC and is managed by Marriott. Today, the Brown is officially known as The Brown Palace Hotel and Spa, Autograph Collection and features not only the spa, but afternoon tea, the Molly Brown Suite Experience, the Eisenhower Suite, a French restaurant, live jazz in the atrium lobby and honey bees that produce honey for spa products and fresh jars of honey. There are tours offered that include ghost tours and the hotel is rumored to be haunted by several spirits. 

Let's talk about one reason we might have a haunting going on here. Murder. The Brown Palace had a bar called the Marble Bar in 1911 and it was the scene of a double murder and as is the case with many murders, this was all over a woman and jealousy. First, we'll introduce our characters. There was Sylvester Von Phul who everybody called Tony. He was a big athletic guy measuring over six feet and weighing 220 pounds. His features were handsome and he easily caught the ladies' eyes with his deep set blue eyes and pompadour hair. Tony was 34-years-old in 1911. There was Frank Henwood who had only been in Denver a short time. He was a friend and business associate of a man named John Springer. Frank was an impeccable dresser and thin and had traveled the world. He was divorced with two daughters and 35-years-old in 1911. Isabel Patterson Springer was born in Kansas in 1886 and was a social butterfly who worked her way up to elite socialite. She was married to a traveling shoe salesman and divorced him in 1907. Only a few weeks after that divorce, Isabel married Colorado businessman John Springer, who was very powerful and very rich. He was forty-seven and she was twenty-seven, so she made the perfect trophy wife. And she fit the bill being both beautiful and vivacious. Isabel loved to throw parties, especially at the Brown Palace, and everybody was always eager for an invite.

Isabel was young and unsatisfied in her marriage to Springer who was often away on business, so she took up with both Tony Von Phul and Frank Henwood. She had met von Phul on a trip to St. Louis and after she left, she started writing him some very steamy letters. The two met up in Hot Springs, Arkansas where Isabel went to recover from a surgery and the two were seen doing the party circuit together. Isabel had met Frank at her husband's office and the three all started hanging out as friends. Things crossed the line at some point and Frank would visit Isabel at her and John's 12,000 acre ranch outside of Denver when John would be out of town. Isabel couldn't decide between the two men. At what point they found out about each other, we don't know but apparently von Phul started threatening Isabel that he would start sending her letters to him, to her husband one at a time, unless she dropped her husband and Frank for him. Isabel turned to Frank for help in getting back "some foolish little letters." Frank agreed. He wasn't about to let von Phul blackmail Isabel.

The Springers had a suite at the Brown Palace and Isabel and Frank met there. This was easy to do because frank also had a room at the Brown, Room 715. Isabel again asked for Frank to get moving on getting the letters back. He told her that he wanted her to write a note to von Phul telling him that things were over, but she refused. Frank persisted and a letter was indeed typed up. Isabel had summoned von Phul to come from St. Louis and when he arrived, he checked into the Brown Palace and was given Room 524. he asked later to be moved to Room 603 next to the Springer's suite. When he checked in, he was given the Dear John letter, which told him it was over and that Isabel was sending someone to have a final talk with him.

Henwood made an appointment with von Phul to meet that evening, May 23rd, 1911 at 5:30 in the afternoon. Before that meeting happened, Frank found out that von Phul and left to meet up with Isabel and her mother at a department store. Frank met up with him at the store and encouraged him not to make a scene and got him to get into a car with him to go back to the Brown and things got very heated in the car and Frank joined von Phul in his room at the Brown. Henwood insisted that Tony return the letters to Isabel and von Phul punched him in the face. Then von Phul hit Frank with a shoe tree and he pulled a revolver from his pocket and threatened to kill Frank. Frank left the room. Isabel later told Frank that von Phul  had punched her and that he had done it twice more in the past. She also said that von Phul said he was going to kill her husband John. So Frank Henwood got a gun. 

The next evening, May 24th, Frank and von Phul met up at the Marble Bar in the Brown Palace. Von Phul asked a friend to change places with him so he could be near Frank because he had already licked him twice and might want to do it again. Frank would claim that von Phul said to him about John Springer, "I'll go upstairs and drag the gray-headed expletive out and show him who is the master here." Frank got in his face, and von Phul knocked him down and then reached in his pocket. Frank thought he was grabbing a gun and he pulled his gun and fired at von Phul. He not only hit von Phul twice, but he shot two other men. The bartender was hit in the leg and an innocent bystander named George Copeland was fatally wounded. Tony died of his wounds the next day.  

Frank wasn't tried for the murder of von Phul, but rather the unintentional killing of Copeland. This was done so that Frank couldn't claim self-defense in killing von Phul which would have made Copeland's death just negligence. The prosecution really wanted Frank to be convicted, so they thought this was best and it worked. Henwood was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to death, but this was commuted to a life sentence by the state pardon board. Then in May 1922, Isabel's husband John made a personal appeal to the Colorado governor to pardon Henwood and he agreed to do it. So Henwood was released from prison the prison in Canon City as long as he promised to never return to Denver. John Springer divorced Isabel and said she could keep his last name, but he forbade her to ever return to Denver. She moved to the East Coast to try becoming a model, but got addicted to opium and overdosed in 1917 at the age of 31.

Employees and guests claim to hear a ghostly orchestra on occasion and the full-bodied apparition of a waiter in a period uniform has been seen near the service elevator. A ticket salesman in an old uniform is seen walking around in the lobby. The sounds of children playing and the crying of babies is heard when there are no children around. Lights turn themselves off and on. A spirit wearing what looks like train conductor clothes from another time has been seen near the entrance and if he is approached, he floats down to the ground floor and disappears. Incidentally, we have mentioned in other episodes that there are tunnels that run under ground in Denver and some of these tunnels are reputedly under the Brown palace.

Night watchmen claim to see Henry Brown's ghost in the wee hours of the morning pacing the hallways. The spirit is seen walking through the walls  of the Churchill Cigar Bar in the hotel. The main dining room was once known as the San Marco Room and there was always live music. One of the main musical groups that played here were the San Marco Strings. An employee was working one night when he heard muic coming from the dining room and he was confused because it was closed. When he looked inside, he saw a formally dressed string quartet playing. He went inside and approached the group and told them, "You're not supposed to be in here." One of the men calmly replied, "Oh, don't worry about us. We live here." The musicians then disappeared.

Room 401 houses the spirit of an unfriendly male. Women are often touched by something unseen when in the closet of this room. A former owner's wife was named Edna and she is blamed for lights turning off and on by themselves. She also may be the elderly female spirit that wears a long black dress and complains that the heat isn't working in her room and then vanishes when the maintenance guy comes to fix things. A bellhop from a time gone by likes to swipe newspapers from doorways. He is also seen walking through walls. Rooms were never rented by the hour, but a ghost of a lady of the evening has been seen. She may wander over from buildings across the street because there had once been a gambling hall and brothel over there that patrons of the Brown Palace could get to via a tunnel going under the street. 

Louise Crawford Hill lived in Room 904 for thirteen years from 1942 to 1955. Louise was born in North Carolina in 1862 and she arrived in Denver in 1893. She was determined to climb her way to the top of society and she accomplished this by marrying the very rich Crawford Hill whose father had been a smelter magnate. Louise created the first social register in Denver and called it "Who's Who in Denver Society." Louise wouldn't include Maggie Brown (Molly) on her list, so Maggie dubbed her "the snobbiest woman in Denver." Crawford died in 1922 and Louise continued to live in their mansion until 1942 when she sold it because she couldn't find any hired help to upkeep it because of World War II. She was mostly a recluse at the hotel and she died there in 1955. Jenna Robbins has given haunted tours of the haunted areas of the hotel for years. She told the Denver Post in 2016, "I was a I-don’t-believe-in-ghosts person, but all it took was an experience I can’t explain in any other way than ‘ghosts must exist’ to change my mind." The paper Westword reported in 2008 what that experience was, "Years later, when Mrs. Hill was but a distant memory, renovations were being done to the top two floors of the hotel — where she had lived — and a hotel historian [Robbins] was giving tours of the floors, telling interested participants about the people who used to reside there. When she got to the tales of Mrs. Hill, which involved heartbreak suffered over a lost love, the hotel’s main switchboard suddenly began receiving calls from Room 904 — which had been stripped of all furniture, lights, wallpaper, carpet and telephones during the renovation. Hotel operators could hear only static when they answered the calls. And when the historian removed Mrs. Hill’s saga from the tour, the phone calls from Room 904 ceased."

A Haunting in Colorado, founded by Alexis Rae, did an investigation at the hotel in 2021 and got "Let go" to come through on a Spirit Box. Alexis said that some activity that entailed an unseen spirit pulling the covers off of people, seemed to start when the hotel started offering ghost tours. She asked the spirits if this bothered them and very clearly through the box came the answer, "It does." Later, a male voice yelled "foot!" There was an "okay" and Alexis asked if they wanted to conversate for a little bit and there was a clear "yes" and then an "excuse me." Another spirit said "Leave me alone."  

The Brown Palace is a modern day reminder of the Old West. The hotel is both elegant and historic with a past rich enough to lend itself to ghost stories. Is the Brown Palace Hotel haunted? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 558 - Croke-Patterson Mansion

Moment in Oddity - Miramichi Moose

Most people know that if you encounter a wild moose, you definitely don't want to mess with it. They typically can be very dangerous animals. However, back in the early 1900's there was a man in New Brunswick, Canada who did not heed this common knowledge. As the story goes, John Connell saved a young moose from freezing in the snow. The man got the moose up out of the snow and brought the animal into his barn. Connell named the moose Tommy and he raised him alongside his horses. He taught the moose to accept a harness just as he did with his horses so that his rescued moose could pull a sleigh. Connell also saddle-trained the moose and he would ride Tommy into town from time to time. Connell is not the only person in history to tame a wild moose. A man named Sellick was known to trap and tame moose back in the mid 1800's. He would then use the beasts as draft animals. It is said by some that moose are better than horses because they could wade through snow better and easily travel 50 miles in a day without tiring. In 1904, John Connell was contacted by the Newfoundland government. The government wanted to begin a population of moose on the island. It is said that Connell went out and captured six or seven moose and sent them by train to Howley, Newfoundland. Moose are very majestic animals, but training one to be ridden, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Panama Canal Treaty

In the month of October, on the 1st, in 1979, the Panama Canal Treaty transferred jurisdiction over the Canal Zone to Panama. The United States had tried to negotiate a treaty with Colombia back in 1903. This agreement would give the U.S. rights to the land surrounding where the Panama Canal was to be built. Colombia would not ratify the treaty, but at the time, Panama was in the process of seceding from the country of Colombia. President Theodore Roosevelt supported the Panamanian quest for independence. Roosevelt's support proved to be beneficial as the Panamanian government signed the treaty and the Panama Canal opened in 1914. Over the years, control over the canal spurred tensions between the United States and Panama. In 1964, a riot erupted between U.S. citizens and Panamanians over flying the Panamanian flag in the Canal Zone. It was soon recognized that there needed to be further negotiations regarding the Canal. 1967 brought both governments three treaties that were agreed upon, however a shift in Panamanian government, including a coup, delayed any immediate completions of the proposed treaties. Between 1973 and 1976 communications began again with concentrations on U.S. perpetual use of the waterway instead of perpetual control of the Panama Canal. This led to the eventual Torrijos-Carter Treaties that President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos signed on September 7, 1977. The first treaty stated that the U.S. would continue using its military to defend the canal, thus allowing perpetual use by the United States. The second treaty stated that the Panama Canal Zone would cease to exist on October 1st, 1979, with the Canal itself being turned over to the Panamanians on December 31st, 1999.

Croke-Patterson Mansion

The Patterson Inn has been known for most of its life as the Croke-Patterson Mansion. This grand Victorian mansion is located in Capitol Hill in Denver, Colorado. This was a private home for many years and then had other uses before becoming the boutique hotel it is today. This is a location where Diane had her second ever paranormal experience. The basement is incredibly creepy and there are many ghost stories about this location. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Croke-Patterson Mansion.

There are many legends connected to the Croke-Patterson Mansion. Tracking down a real history can be difficult. On top of that, we all know that people spreading rumors and legends can give them a life spiritually, forming tulpas. We'll try to do our best, but also we'll share some of the legends because they are important when it comes to the house. The Croke-Patterson Mansion sits at 420 East 11th Avenue in Denver. Capitol Hill is the neighborhood that surrounds the state's capitol. Diane lived here for a couple of years, a couple blocks down from the capitol in Poet's Row. This area had been where Denver's rich families built their audacious mansions. The Silver Crash of 1893 caused a slump in the local economy and building shifted to apartments and boarding houses for transient middle-class families. Before all of this though, the area was homesteaded by Henry C. Brown. He owned 160 acres and it was dubbed Brown's Bluff because it was a dry, dusty bit of land. No one thought it would become prime real estate. He eventually donated a portion of the land for the state capitol to be built upon. Plans for the capitol stalled eventually and Brown claimed the land back, upon which the state sued him and got the land back.

It was here in Capitol Hill that Thomas Bernard Croke decided to build his massive mansion. Croke was the son of Irish immigrants and was born in Wisconsin in 1856. He moved to Denver in 1874 with some siblings and he got a job at the Daniels & Fisher store in downtown. Croke did an excellent job and was quickly promoted to management and before long, Daniels and Fisher partnered with Croke so he could open his own store. This store specialized in carpet and he made enough to build a mansion at the corner of East 11th Avenue and Pennsylvania Street. Croke hired contractor J.M. Cochran and architect Isaac Hodgson, Jr. to design what would become one of the three finest examples of the Chateauesque style in Denver. This is the only one still around. The design was meant to mimic the Chateau d'Azay-le-Rideau (ah-zeh luh ree-doe) castle in France. Many people believe the home follows after the Richardsonian Romanesque that was popular at the time though. The mansion stands three-stories and has a basement. 

The outside was made from Manitou sandstone and featured turrets, dormers, bay windows, arched doorways and spires. Initially, that sandstone would have been beautifully carved, but sandstone doesn't hold up and the years were not kind to the facade. The stable was connected to the house and was a mini replica of the main house. The main floor featured a large hallway with a library, parlor and dining room were on either side of the hallway. The second floor had five bedrooms and the third floor had servant bedrooms and a playroom for children. The basement had the ballroom and a laundry and storage rooms. In all, the house spread over 14,000 square feet.

Croke's wife, Margaret Dunphy Croke, had died before Croke moved into the mansion with their two young children, probably in 1887. He also moved his parents in, but his mother died shortly after they moved in. After six months in the house, Croke decided to move everybody out. He built this grand house and only lived in it for six months. Croke wanted to move back to his ranch north of Denver. He approached a man named Thomas Patterson and made a deal to trade the mansion to him for 1,440 acres of ranchland. The real reason Croke left his mansion was probably because of the silver crash and he was unable to pay his mortgage anymore.

Thomas Patterson was an Irishman who moved to America with his family when he was ten. They lived in New York and then Indiana and Patterson joined the 11th Indiana Infantry during the Civil War. After the war, he went to law school  and he became a successful lawyer, politician who served in Congress from 1877-1879 and journalist who purchased the Rocky Mountain News in 1890. While studying, he met Katharine Grafton at school and the couple married in 1863. They would have five children with three of them living to adulthood - Mary, Margaret and James - and moved to Colorado in 1872. The couple became prominent residents of Denver and Katharine was known for her philanthropy and she was an influential suffragist serving as president of the Colorado Equal Suffrage Association. Things weren't rosy for the Patterson's early on. Their two-year-old son Tom died and Katharine felt that her husband didn't offer her enough comfort. On top of that, their son James ran away from home and got into trouble with the law. Katharine felt it would be best if she moved herself and their three living children to Europe and she did so for four years from 1884 to 1888. Thomas felt that the Croke Mansion would be a wonderful showplace for his family and so he  moved into it in 1892. The Pattersons would live in the mansion for the next thirty years. Only Margaret would live past her twenties. James died in 1892 at the age of 26 and Mary died in 1894 at the age of 27. Katharine died in 1902. Thomas died in July of 1916.

Margaret Patterson had gone to school and studied to become a medical missionary. She never followed that path. Margaret had cared for her siblings before they passed and after that, she met Richard Crawford Campbell who was a distant cousin. He was an influential newspaper editor. The couple married and Richard became the business manager for the Rocky Mountain News under his father-in-law Thomas. After the paper was sold, Campbell turned to real estate and founded the Campbell Investment Company. Margaret and Richard had three children and they lived with her parents in the mansion and then continued on at the mansion after their deaths until 1924 when they bought another home that was more modern. Margaret died in June of 1929 and Richard died shortly thereafter in February 1930.

The Campbells had a daughter who was also named Margaret and she sold the mansion to the Louise Realty Company. This was leased to the Joe Mann School of Orchestra. By 1927 KFVR radio station was housed in the mansion and then in 1930, it was converted into seven apartments. The house changed hands several times for decades and it fell into disrepair, particularly the outside. Several mansions around it had been demolished to make way for apartment buildings and so a grassroots effort started to save the rest of the old mansions in Capitol Hill. Realtor Mary Rae had fallen in love with the Croke-Patterson Mansion and she bought it and continued to run it as apartments. She and her husband worked to get the house on the National Register of Historic Places and they succeeded in 1973.

Dr. Douglas and Melodee Ikeler bought the mansion in 1998 for $600,000 and they lived in it for 10 years. Dr. Ikeler was a very successful veterinarian and he wanted a grand home to reflect his wealth. The architecture of the mansion was perfect for him and he said of it, "I was able to live in a large place shaped like a castle with fancy and elegant interior and exterior." The couple eventually divorced, the house went into foreclosure in 2007 and sat in limbo for a while with different plans for it. One of them involved a religious organization using it as a homeless facility, which thankfully didn't happen because they were going to gut everything inside. Architect Brian Higgins bought the mansion in 2011 for $565,000 and he began renovating it into a bed and breakfast. He was also a director and produced a documentary on the renovations he named "The Castle Project." The film was released in 2013 and the remodeled Patterson Inn opened that same year. Chris Chiari became owner of the mansion in 2018 and he runs it as a boutique hotel, still named the Patterson Inn. Our listener Dolly, who has joined us on several investigations, stayed overnight at the mansion. The mansion has nine uniquely themed rooms for rent. The 12 Spirits Tavern serves up drinks in the basement.

That name for the pub is because there are claims that there are 12 spirits here. Ghost stories have been told about the mansion for decades. There are many reasons for hauntings. The incredibly haunted Cheeseman Park is nearby. Denver was once called the "Little Venice" because of all the ditches crisscrossing through the city to bring water to the neighborhoods and Capitol Hill was full of these ditches and since water can be a conduit for paranormal activity, it is thought the ditches helped this. And then there are the legends. One legend that is told is that a baby died in the house and the mother was so upset about the death that she buried the baby in the basement within a wall. For a number of years, that hole was there. I have a story about it. And the hole was there when our listener Dolly visited. We'll share a picture on Instagram. This legend never shares what the baby died from or who the mother of the child had been. There also is no proof of any of this story. But psychics and mediums have for decades claimed something about a baby and this basement.

Another legend is told about these guard dogs. In the 1970s, there was remodeling going on and the workers would come in to find that their work had been undone overnight. There were a lot of homeless people near the mansion, so they figured some of them were breaking in at night. They put up a fence and hired a security guard. The same issue kept happening so it was decided to bring some guard dogs in to watch the house at night. Three dogs were brought in and on their first night, one of the dogs went through a plate glass window on the third floor and it passed on the driveway. On the second night, a second dog went through the same window and the third dog was found shaking and drooling in a corner. There is no plate glass window on the third floor, so if dogs did go out a window, it was a tiny window in the turret room.

The mansion has always been a creepy place to me. This is the location where I had my second ever paranormal experience. (Diane tells story about visiting the mansion and going down to the basement where there is a hole she stuck her head in and felt the presence of something and what felt like something touching her head.)

Thomas Patterson is one of the spirits here and he shows up in the downstairs pub, which had been his smoking lounge. Katherine Patterson is thought to haunt the Biltmore room. She likes to turn the lights on and off during the night. An Irish caretaker is said to haunt the carriage house.

When Mary Rae owned the mansion, she received several complaints from renters who stayed on the fourth floor. The tenants complained of hearing sounds on the fourth floor that sounded like a loud party and sometimes they heard a screaming baby. The area where the sounds emanated from was a small storage area. Mary was perplexed as to where the sounds could've come from. Trenton Parker who converted the mansion to an office building said, "My mom used to live there in the 1970’s when the mansion was six apartments and she lived on the third floor for about six months, and heard a woman screaming and a baby crying in the tower and would hear parties going on in her apartment and when she opened the door nothing would be going on. Her and the roommate that she lived with could not live there anymore because the ghosts were very active and they could not get any rest living there."

Melodee Ikeler was pregnant with triplets when she and her husband lived in the mansion. She had a great deal of trouble getting out of bed near the end of her pregnancy. She was home alone and needed to get out of bed and couldn't do it. She said, "I was rolling trying to get out of bed and looked to the side of the bed and saw a woman standing next to the bed, offering her hand to help me out. I took her hand and got out of the bed. Then, she just vanished through the wall next to the bed." Melodee decided to get the house blessed, so she had a priest come in and he walked into the front parlor to start his blessing and all of a sudden all the plaster peeled off around the fireplace and a dark vortex of wind came out of the fireplace. The priest ran out of the mansion. Melodee claimed that the drawers in her husband's desk would open and close on their own even though it was locked.

Rocky Mountain Paranormal wrote about an incident that Diane heard about on the radio the morning after it happened, "In 2004, the 850 KOA ZOO BOO Tour radio show featured the mansion. We were the featured paranormal research group. At the end of the nights broadcast, all of the people who were staying for the 5:00 a.m. broadcast were told to 'find a place to sleep in the mansion.' Casey Lamb a radio station employee, decided he was going to sleep in the basement where the medical offices had been located. When he got to the room he saw a person in the corner of the room by the fireplace, then he realized that he could only see the head and he knew that there was not supposed to be anyone left in the building. He ran upstairs to get us to search for someone who had either been left behind or had broken into the mansion. Several people went to the basement and searched, but nobody was found. The next morning, one of Melodee Ikelers children said that that was where they always 'saw a man standing in the corner.'" Now the way Diane remembers it, it was the morning after they stayed overnight and Casey was the last one out of the house, but he didn't know that and he told everybody that there was still a guy down in the basement sleeping in the corner. Someone took a picture of this figure and it sure looked like someone under a blanket with just their head showing.

Nobody could do any kind of investigating after that because Dr. Ikeler started asking for $5,000 a night for rental. So this was going on long before the Conjuring House. As we said, Melodee divorced the doctor in 2007 and the house went into foreclosure. Someone visited in January of 2010 and said of the experience that the home felt very peaceful, but "I will say, however, there was a very dark and penetrating feeling in the cellars – the game room and the family room was fine. However, the cellar areas were very unsettling and again, I was EXTREMELY anxious to get back upstairs. I truly don’t know if I could live in that home." Brian  Higgins noticed that the mansion was haunted while they were doing renovations. He and his work crew reported seeing apparitions of children, they felt cold spots and they heard strange sounds and voices.

Ann Alexander Leggett and her daughter Jordan wrote the book "A Haunted History of Denver's Croke-Patterson Mansion" in 2011. Here is an excerpt from the book. (pg. 25) 

Ann wrote, "When they had offices there, they couldn't keep tenants because typewriters would type in the middle of the night by themselves, babies crying on the third floor, party noises coming from a back closet, and so those kinds of things persist. When we first started the research I had just googled "Croke-Patterson" and I got this lady's blog and she said she used to have an office there in the late 80s. She said all kinds of strange things happened there. So I got her email and said, you know, "Would you be willing to talk to me about it?" And she didn't answer me and didn't answer me. Finally, she came back and said "Why?" So I explained who I was and that I was writing a history of the house and about the hauntings as well. She said, "Well, okay, I just want my stories to be taken seriously because they were very intense to me." So I sent her this list of questions and she answered a couple of them and it's a little bit vague, and then I don't hear from her again and so I emailed her back and time goes by and she sends an email back that says "Good luck with the book." She just couldn't go back there. She just couldn't deal with it anymore." 

Jordan and Ann were interviewed by Westword and they shared this with the paper. Jordan said, "A few people have had a lot of trouble walking up the stairs to the third floor. You get two thirds of the way up the stairs and all of the oxygen is gone. On the tape you can hear Mom and the psychic gasping. Months later, I found a death certificate totally by accident. Death certificates are not easy to come by, and I was at the clerk and recorder because at a certain point in the 1960s anything beyond that is either in the basement of the City and County building or in the library, so I was going to find out where exactly the book I was looking for was. And he pulls up on the microfiche, he's like "Oh yeah here's back to 1960 or something" and he's like, "What is this?" and it says "Death Cert." So he pulls it up and there's a random death certificate stored with the tax records on this house and it's for the house when Dr. Sudan owned it. Dr. Sudan his wife it turns out committed suicide in the house. It wasn't publicized, there's no obituary, there's really nothing about it, and then he got remarried five years later and so this death certificate is a copy of the one issued the day of, so it looks like he had to prove that she was dead or something so he could get remarried. So I found this death certificate and it says how she died and all this stuff we didn't know. The woman who committed suicide, she mixed rat poison and water, which creates cyanogas which is similar to Zyklon B, which is the gas they used in the Holocaust to gas people. Within one to three minutes, all the oxygen is gone." Ann said, "Krista felt [the gasping] was the woman who died form the cyanogas suicide and basically suffocated and couldn't breathe. She felt that woman stands at the top of the stairs. And how bizarre that Krista and I didn't know that."

The Patterson Inn appears to be a gorgeous upscale boutique hotel, but could the historic ambiance be hiding something sinister? Are there spirits from the past hanging around in the afterlife? Is the Croke-Patterson Mansion haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 499 - Peabody-Whitehead Mansion

Moment in Oddity - Oscar the Cat (Suggested by: Chelsea Flowers)

Many Nursing homes and hospitals employ the service of therapy animals. They can vary by species but most commonly dogs and cats are the animals that supply the need. There was a cat at a nursing home in Providence, RI by the name of Oscar who became quite famous. This fine fluffy feline was said to be rather skittish when he first came to call the nursing and rehabilitation center home, back in 2005. Initially, Oscar wasn't terribly social and preferred spending his time in a supply closet or under various patients' beds. Gradually however, the staff starting noticing a change with Oscar. When a patient was nearing the end of their life, Oscar would crawl up in bed with them and stay there comforting the person as their end drew near. At first when his behavior was noticed the connection wasn't clear but gradually his predictability proved itself once Oscar hit between 20 or 30 deaths in a row. Some people at the home called Oscar an Angel of death while others just simply referred to him as an angel. Now, the way in which Oscar was able to 'predict' who would be passing next is not concretely determined. It could be that prior to passing that the body emits a particular smell that Oscar was able to clue in to. It's also possible that the cat could see the spirits of those coming to check on their friend or loved one. Sadly, in February 2022, the sweet floof went the way of his charges. However we are positive that the staff at the nursing and rehabilitation center miss him daily. Therapy animals do so much good helping those who are struggling in one way or another, but being able to predict a person's passing, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - The Discovery of Penicillin

In the month of August, on the 6th, in 1881, Alexander Fleming was born. He is most well known for discovering a broadly effective antibiotic. As a young man Alexander was encouraged by his physician brother to study medicine as his career path. Alexander did just that, graduating from university in 1906 with distinction. From there Fleming joined the research department at his alma mater where he became a research assistant bacteriologist. He worked under Sir Almroth Wright who was a pioneer in the area of vaccine therapy and immunology. During his medical service in WWI, Alexander witnessed many soldiers dying of sepsis caused by infected wounds. He watched as the common antiseptics of the time often made the soldiers injuries worse. In an article he had published in a medical journal he explained that the topical antiseptics were not able to reach the deeper penetrating anaerobic bacteria which were causing the demise of so many soldiers. After the war, Fleming continued his research into bacteria and antibacterial substances. Many presentations and studies of Alexander's findings were relatively ignored. However, on September 28, 1928, he revolutionized the world of medicine. He had been studying staphylococci and discovered a fungus growing on some of the plates. The staphylococci that was nearest the fungus were destroyed whereas the staph that was further away on the petri dishes were intact. The mold that had destroyed the staphylococci was Penicillium. Alexander continued to study the molds affect on Gram-positive bacterias that caused illnesses like pneumonia, meningitis and diphtheria as well as the affects on gonorrhea which is a Gram-negative bacteria. Fleming shared his discovery with the Medical Research Club on February 13th, 1929. The presentation received little response. However, in 1940, two biochemists in Oxford began studying penicillin further. Through their studies and clinical trial successes, they began the development of methods for mass production and mass distribution in 1945. The discovery of penicillin and its development marked the beginning of modern antibiotics.  

Peabody-Whitehead Mansion

Denver was considered the Queen City of the Plains during the Victorian era and by 1867, it was designated the territorial capital. Colorado would gain statehood in 1876 and a capitol would be built on Capitol Hill starting in 1886. Capitol Hill would become a thriving neighborhood, particularly for the wealthy, and it would be here that Denver's Millionaire's Row would be established. The Peabody-Whitehead Mansion is one of the homes that has survived from that opulent era. There are many ghost stories that have been told about this property through the years. Join us as we share the history and hauntings of the Peabody-Whitehead Mansion!

The Colorado Silver Boom began in 1879 and lasted longer than the Colorado Gold Rush of 1859. The Silver Boom brought unprecedented growth to Denver. The wealthy families in the area started looking for a place to build their homes that would take them out of the pollution of lower downtown. That higher ground was Capitol Hill and in this neighborhood was Grant Street, which was once home to the city's Millionaire's Row. Very few of the mansions built during that time still exist as many were demolished in the early 20th century. And as is the case with so many of these historic mansions, many were turned into apartments and office buildings. And that is the case with the Peabody-Whitehead Mansion. It eventually became home to a variety of businesses. But it started off as the home for Dr. William R. Whitehead. 

William Whitehead was born in 1831 in Suffolk, Virginia. He decided to pursue medicine and went to school at both the University of Virginia and the University of Pennsylvania. He went to Europe for post-graduate work in Paris and Vienna and it was while he was in Vienna that he volunteered during the Crimean War to be a surgeon for the Russian Army. The Crimean War was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and a coalition formed by Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire and Sardinia-Piedmont. At its base, the war was religious with a disagreement between Christians in Palestine, Catholics in France and the Russian Orthodox Church. This was one of the first wars to incorporate technological advances like photographs, telegraphs, the railroad and explosive shells. It was during this war that Florence Nightengale came on the scene. The war humiliated Russia with defeat in one of the bloodiest wars of modern history. Medical treatment would change during this time and Whitehead was decorated by Tsar Alexander II for his services. Emperor Louis Napoleon also praised him.

When Dr. Whitehead got back to the states, the country was in a turmoil that would erupt into the Civil War. Whitehead was on the side of the Confederacy and he served directly under General Robert E. Lee. He was the doctor to treat Stonewall Jackson's accidental injury at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863. He put the General in an ambulance, but unfortunately, Jackson would succumb to his injuries. Whitehead went to New York after the war and worked as a clinical surgeon at New York University. Both his wife and infant son became ill and the Whitehead family moved to Denver for the cleaner air in the early 1870s. The doctor became a leading physician in Denver.

Whitehead hired architect Frank Edbrooke to design his Queen Anne style home on Millionaire's Row in 1889. Edbrooke had also designed the Tabor Opera House and the Brown Palace Hotel. The mansion was unique in that it was built from Colorado Red Rock and had massive masonry walls and chimneys with the steeply pitched roof of an English country house and a large front porch. Dr. Whitehead asked for Edbrooke to include a grandiose ballroom because he liked to throw lavish parties. He would become ill and die on October 13, 1902. The other man that the house was named for didn't actually live in it for very long. This was Republican businessmen James H. Peabody who ran for Governor of Colorado in 1902 and he won. There was no Governor's mansion at that time, so Peabody rented the Whitehead mansion from 1903 to 1904. Peabody's tenure as Governor was tumultuous. He had been born in Vermont in 1852 and he went to business school there. His family relocated to Pueblo, Colorado and he followed when he graduated to help run the family business. Peabody moved to Canon City in 1875 and he established himself as very successful in business, banking and local politics.

One of the major issues during his Governorship were mining strikes and there were many violent clashes. Peabody took the side of the mine owners and he called the National Guard in to squash the strikes. More than 100 people died. Most of the unions were destroyed by the fall of 1904. The next election for Governor would be fraught with issues. The Democrat beat Peabody, but fraud was found so thousands of votes were annulled. The Democrats found irregular votes for Peabody as well. So an unusual compromise was worked out. The Democrat Alva Adams was given the governorship and Peabody was allowed to pick the next two justices to the Colorado Supreme Court. Further investigations proved that both parties had basically cheated, so the legislature declared Adams' governorship a fraud and he was taken out of office and replaced by Peabody who was forced to immediately resign and Republican Lieutenant Governor Jesse McDonald was sworn in as governor. So on that 16th day of March in 1904, Colorado had three governors. Peabody moved out of the mansion and it became apartments. 

By the 1950s, the mansion was being used as a place for businesses ranging from restaurants to bars and nightclubs. Strings of them came through and only lasted a few years each: The Carriage Inn, The Bombay Club, Senor Peabody's, Albies, Bentley's and so on. This lasted until the 1990s when the house was bought by Richard R. Arber Associates which was an engineering firm that renovated the mansion as their offices. In 1993, the mansion was listed as a Denver landmark by Ordinance 534 of the Denver city council. Through the 2000s, other businesses have used the house. Diane stood outside this location on a ghost tour in 2016 and at that time it was home to a law office.

There are claims of at least a dozen ghosts in the mansion. Ghostly experiences started almost immediately after Dr. Whitehead moved into the house. People thought that some of the soldiers who were his battlefield patients that passed had spirits that followed him. Other ghosts may be from Peabody's time in the house in the form of dead union miners seeking revenge. One business in the mansion had been MEGA 1031 and they reported many haunted events during their tenure. They reported on their website, "Inexplicably, books have mysteriously fallen from shelves in empty rooms and paperwork has strangely re-arranged itself. We’ve even heard an occasional faint baby’s cry, however; none of us have actually spotted any cloudy spirits lurking in our offices."

This was not the only business to have issues. The various restaurants all reported that trays would mysteriously tip over with dishes and glasses crashing to the floor. Guests and staff would all watch as utensils and pots and pans would fly around the kitchen and dining areas. The servant bells that had been installed when the home was built would go off on their own at random times. They also heard baby cries coming from behind the second-story bar. One of the more bizarre stories involved a chandelier that would flicker all the time. One of the managers finally decided to call in an electrician to fix the issue. Both men were completely shocked when the electrician found that the chandelier wasn't hooked up to any electrical wiring! A ghost was blamed for a bottle of beer that was poured down the shirt of a cook who had disparaged homosexuals. One bar that occupied the location decided to embrace the hauntings and called itself Spirits on Grant Street opened on Halloween in 1983. That business was forced to close within the year because the activity became too much.

Seances were conducted in the house in the late 1970s. Psychics who have visited the location report that a woman named Eloise would greet partygoers at the top of the staircase back during the Whitehead era. She was supposed to get married in the mansion, but was stood up, so she ended up hanging herself in the house. There is no proof for this in any newspaper reports. Eloise was blamed when one evening staff were mocking the fact that she haunted the house and a table leapt up from the floor about eight inches. Supposedly another woman hanged herself in the basement from a pipe. She had been working as a waitress at one of the restaurants. The first floor women's bathroom is said to be haunted by a man whose cherry pipe tobacco is smelled in there. A legend claims that construction workers abducted a girl in the 1970s and took her into the house where they raped and murdered her and buried her in the basement. Again, there is no proof for this in any official records, but investigations have turned up interesting things that might support the story. 

Ghost Adventures visited the house during Season 7 in 2012 and their tour guide and historian at the house was Phil Goodstein. He has written many books about the ghosts around Denver and he claims this is one of the most haunted places in Denver. The guys also talked to Dr. Tom Noel, whom my mother worked with for years helping him research his books. He didn't know of any stories about the woman being raped or killed at the house. A documentary producer named Tim Schultz edited a documentary that he was working on at the house. He told Zak about his experiences. Tim witnessed a guy get pushed up against the wall by something he couldn't see. He described it like his arms were pinned up and they tried to push him and move him and they couldn't move him. This same guy's mother was in the house at the time and she was a psychic. She was overcome by a spirit and had to be helped from the house. She described it like she had been drained. 

A woman named Nicole was on a tour and the guide was leading them through the alley and her fingers started to tingle. When the group got to the front of the house, she had a panic attack. She joined the guys for part of their investigation and they started with an EVP session in the basement. They all claimed to feel a very heavy and dark energy that was making them dizzy. They captured the following words on the Spirit Box: "Pete", "yourself", "no", "watch it", "she was raped", "it was_", "it is violent here", When asked if there was a body buried here the box said, "street." Some people think the murdered girl was buried in the alley rather than the basement. The words "found it", "he's scared" also came through. And UFC Fighter Brendan Schaub had been a guest investigator with them and the box said, "Brendan!" Brendan later claimed to feel something grab his ankle. A ball of light was captured on camera flying straight down into Zak's head and on the infrared camera they captured an anomaly. The Denver police were called to do some investigating at the house to see if they could find any evidence of a crime.

The basement really seems to be the most haunted area of the house and most definitely has the most negative energy occurring. Many people claim that there are demons down there, but it really could just be negative energy either from real crimes that happened or just the stories told about such things. Diane's mom's good friend, historian Kevin Pharris, took Diane on a ghost tour in Denver several years ago and he told the group a story about an experience he had at the house while giving a tour around Halloween one year. He shares the same story in his book "The Haunted Heart of Denver" on p. 27.

The house isn't as grand as some of the other historic mansions of Capitol Hill, but it certainly does have a big reputation when it comes to ghost stories. Is the Peabody-Whitehead Mansion haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 360 - Cripple Creek

Moment in Oddity - Cricket Fighting (Suggested by: Scott Booker)

We've all heard of cockfighting, bullfighting, dog fights and other such animal cruelty for sport. But there is a form of animal...or well...bug fighting in which animals don't get hurt. Cricket fighting! This started more than 1,000 years ago under the Tang Dynasty, but soon moved down to the commoners, which caused the Chinese Communist government to ban cricket fighting in the 1960s. But young people have been bringing it back. Only male crickets are fought against each other. These crickets have pedigrees and a specialized diet incorporating red beans, goat liver, shrimp and uh, maggots. The night before a fight, female crickets are dropped into the clay pots that hold the crickets to invigorate their spirit. The crickets fight according to weight classes. A cricket loses when it stops chirping or runs away or is thrown from the fighting container. Some crickets are so prized that they become famous and have elaborate funerals when they pass and are buried in carved coffins. The sport is so popular that in 2010, $63 million in American dollars was spent on crickets. The sport of cricket fighting, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Haiti Wins Independence

In the month of November, on the 18th, in 1803, Haiti won its Independence. The Haitian Revolution had started in 1791 as an attempt to break free from French rule. As is the case for all revolutions, there were many reasons that this rebellion erupted. Steep tariffs caused planters to look to independence as did the fact that they had no representation in France - sound familiar? At the same time, the slave population was planning another uprising, so they were the first to strike with a fight against the planters. The French tried to squelch things, but they lost traction and the British came to help. The slaves were able to push back against both. The final major battle of the war was The Battle of Vertières. The French had been so decimated that they had only 2,000 men to face 27,000 Haitians. The French army had 1200 casualties from that conflict and they decided they were done and left the island. Historians say that the man who led the fight and became the first Emperor of Haiti, Dessalines, had accomplished something not even Spartacus could and that was a successful slave uprising. One of the things that helped the Haitians with their victory were mosquitos. They helped spread yellow fever to the French troops and about 20,000 died. Haiti would get its name at this time and emerged as the first black republic in the world.

Cripple Creek (Suggested by: Jon Venezia)

This episode has it all! Cripple Creek is a spooky old mining town with a ton of history and many haunts, leading it to be thought of as the most haunted Colorado mining town. We have haunted hospitals, hotels, jail, schools, brothels, saloons and even Nikola Tesla. Diane grew up visiting this mountain town long before it became a haven for gambling. Cripple Creek is on the south side of Pikes Peak and was once considered the "Greatest Gold Camp on Earth." Many people would find their fortune here, but some would find tragedy and death. There was a murder nearly every day. Violence, mining accidents and natural disasters plagued the town. And that may be why spirits plague the town now. Join us as we share the history and hauntings of Cripple Creek.

Cripple Creek got its start in 1891 when gold was discovered by a cowboy named Bob Womack. This was in an area where the Ute tribe had lived called Poverty Gulch. Eventually homesteaders moved in with their livestock, but when gold was found, this peaceful area went crazy. Two men named Horace Bennett and Julius Myers bought land in the area and platted a town they called Fremont. This would eventually be called Cripple Creek, which got its name from a frightened calf that jumped over a fence, landed in a gully and broke its leg. So Womack found gold and got an investor interested and soon people were moving to Cripple Creek. The hotels were filled up quickly and they even started setting up chairs and renting them for the night for one dollar. Lots that used to cost $50 soon were selling for $5,000. By 1892, the population had risen to 5,000. 

The town was built from wood which would prove to be a bad idea when fire broke out in April of 1896. This fire started at the Central Dance Hall when a bartender and his girlfriend got in a fight and knocked over a coal stove. The fire burned down the south side of Bennett Avenue and took out three parlor houses or brothels, the opera house, a big chunk of the business district and the Topic Hotel. Another fire broke out later that week and burned up many residences. It was decided to rebuild everything in brick. The early 1900s would bring mine disputes and some ended in death, one in which 13 miners were killed in an explosion. One of the largest gold mines in the country, the Portland, was here and it mined out $62 million in gold. By the time the mines had been run out, more than 22,400,000 ounces of gold was extracted from more than 500 mines in the Cripple Creek and Victor region. Interestingly, the former Cresson Mine was reopened in 1995 and produces annually over 250,000 ounces of gold and is the largest mining operation in the continental United States. Before this, Cripple Creek had really dwindled, but 1991 brought legalized gambling and reinvigorated the town. Many of the original buildings still stand today. Let's look at some of these locations that are reputedly haunted.

The Colorado Trading and Transfer Building is today part of the Cripple Creek District Museum. You'll start getting a feel here that these old buildings have either transformed to casinos or museums. This is one of the oldest buildings in Cripple Creek because it survived the fires even though it was built from wood. The museum features mining artifacts, mineral displays, western firearms, maps of the mines and rare photos. Originally, this building was erected by Albert Carlton and his brother Leslie in 1893. They used this to run their business of moving freight that included gold and they also sold coal and wood. The brothers eventually sold the building to the Midland Terminal Railroad in 1899. Blevins Davis, Richard Wayne Johnson and Margaret Giddings founded the museum in 1953 and it not only includes this building, but also an assay office, a one-room home owned by French Blanche LeCroix -a lady of the evening, a miner's cabin and the Midland Terminal Depot.

There have been a few experiences in this location. A man standing in the gift shop watched a book fly off a shelf all on its own. Linda Wommack wrote, "Haunted Cripple Creek and Teller County" and she shared an experience she had at the museum, "My mother and I were taking a quick tour of the museum grounds after having spent several hours doing research in an upstairs room in the depot building of the museum. While we were inside the [building], I walked toward a bookshelf that held extremely old books. Just as I knelt to read the volume titles, I instantly became chilled. I looked around for some sort of explanation." She experienced it again several years later while there with a friend and this person felt the same icy chill. Many people have claimed to experience this same phenomenon. Another weird thing is that strange stains and markings on the wall will bleed through anytime the walls are painted. No one knows what these spots are from. Could be something natural. Diane once lived in an old apartment that seemed to bleed brown stuff from the top of a couple of walls.

The Midland Terminal Depot is today also part of the Cripple Creek District Museum. This train depot operated from 1895 to 1949 and received an average of ten passenger trains daily. The rail line was started in 1895 after several mine owners decided they needed to bring down the cost of shipping their ore to smelters. Harry Collbran was the general manager of the Colorado Midland Railroad depot at Hayden Divide and he was the one to go out and seek financial backing for the rail line and he found it with millionaire Harlan Lillibridge who gave him $100,000. That money ran out before the line was finished and Collbran brought on another man named W.G. Gillett and they got more funding. They also decided that their initial idea of building this as a narrow-gauge was not a good idea and they ripped up the line and replaced it with the standard-gauge. They were able to expand as well when the Carlton brothers offered up land next to their building and the depot was built there. It has three floors with the top floor being used for offices, the second floor was for passengers with separate rooms for men and women and children and the bottom floor was for loading and unloading freight. Passengers paid $2 for a round-trip ticket. Some trains offered Pullman service. 

Employees and visitors both have reported strange things. Much of the activity centers around the spirit of a young girl wearing a white dress who has been seen playing on the third floor. Her voice has also been captured on EVP by paranormal investigators. People also claim to catch the scent of cigar smoke in the air. One of the teams who has investigated here is Mountain Peak Paranormal Investigations and one time they heard a music box on the mantel started playing on its own. They set up a recorder to capture the sound and also took a picture. Later, they reported the experience to staff who were perplexed. They said that the museum did have a music box, but that it was not in that room. When the investigators played their recording, the staff claimed that the song playing was not the song the music box played. Everyone went to the room and there was no music box in there and even weirder, when the film was developed, there was no music box in any picture. 

Carr Manor is a boutique hotel and bed and breakfast that had once been the town's high school. At the height of its mining success, Cripple Creek and the surrounding mining district had 17 schools. The former Cripple Creek High School is one of only two original schools still standing. Construction was finished on the first phase of the school in 1896 and the second was completed in 1905 in the Romanesque style. The parking lot had once been a pool that was added in the 1940s. The school closed in 1977. Ted Heiliger and his family bought the school in 1982 and converted it into a hotel that opened in 1983. They ran it for twenty years and then sold it to Gary and Wini Ledford. They restored the hotel and expanded it, so that it now has fourteen rooms and suites, a Grand Ballroom and a conference center. There was a Carr Avenue, two Carr families that had lived in town and governor of Colorado was Ralph Carr whom had graduated from the school, so they named the hotel Carr Manor. The lobby is glorious with a wood burning stove, exposed brick, antiques and statuary of children. There are not many paranormal experiences described in regards to this place, but guests claim to see weird orb anomalies and strange lights particularly on the second floor landing and they feel as though they are being watched and like there is a presence that they cannot see.

Gold Mining Stock Exchange Building was built in 1896 from red sandstone following the fires. The exchange ran from 1896 until December 1909, when the Cripple Creek Stock Exchange was combined with the Colorado Springs Stock Exchange and moved down to Colorado Springs. The vacant building was bought by the Elks who had been meeting on a top floor of another building in town. They remain in the building to this day. When this was first opened it was considered one of the most elegant lodges around with oriental rugs, call buttons for staff, velvet draperies, polished hardwood floors, electric lights and lamps and hot and cold running water. There was also a bar, a banquet hall, a room for cards and billiards, a cigar and brandy room and a reading room. The Newport Saloon that had once been on the first floor was the scene of the murder of Sam Strong in 1901.

The former Newport Saloon is the scene of most of the paranormal activity in the building. Objects fly around the room and orbs have been witnessed. Objects are seen and then disappear. The lodge has hosted ghost tours and people on these tours have claimed to see shadowy figures in doorways. People claim a man has been seen walking through walls and a female spirit is heard laughing in the lounge. 

Johnny Nolon's Saloon & Gambling Emporium is the oldest bar in Cripple Creek. The place is named for Johnny Nolon who had relocated here from St. Louis, Missouri. He opened his first saloon in 1890 and like many of these buildings, it burned in the fire. Nolon partnered with Jacob Becker and they rebuilt a two-story building on the same spot. Johnny's saloon and gambling place was on one side of the first floor. The Cripple Creek Bank was in the other half. Nolon had an office on the second floor as well. In 1903, Nolon moved to Nevada and Becker took over operations. Not much is known about the history from that point until gambling came to town. When that happened, Nolon's reopened.

The main spirits in this location seem to belong to children. They run up and down the halls. A little boy has been seen holding a red balloon...really, like It? Little girl spirits are seen wearing Victorian dresses and standing near the stairway. Another little girl was seen in white buckle shoes and a blue dress. An employee asked if she was lost and she responded that she was waiting for her father. The employee held out her hand and offered to go looking with the girl and she just faded away.

Mousie wrote on the Legends of America website in 2011, "I just started working at Johnny Nolon’s in the restaurant. One night when I was closing up I saw a little girl with a blue dress and white buckled up shoes just standing by my supervisor’s office holding a stuffed animal of some kind. I believe it was a bunny or something like that, it was really old and cheap looking. I asked her what she was doing over here since it was apart from the main floor where guests would normally be. She said she was looking for her daddy. I thought maybe the supervisor was her dad, I didn’t know. I put my hand out and asked to her come with me and I’d help her find him. She just looked at me and said she couldn’t leave or she would get into trouble. At that time, my supervisor was walking up behind me so I turned around and asked if this was his daughter. He looked at me and laughed. I didn’t get what he was laughing at until I turned back to the girl, that wasn’t there anymore! My supervisor asked if I was ok. I started rambling confusingly about what had just happened and he asked me if I wanted to hear a story. He then told me about a man that had owned the building back in the early days. He had lost his wife to some disease and was very protective of his daughter. He would go to work every day and leave his daughter home alone. He had told the girl that it very dangerous to go outside without her father and that the only way she would be safe was to stay inside and play with her toys until he came home. Well, she did that every day of her life. Then, one day there was a couple that lived in the same building that got into a huge argument and somehow a lamp got knocked over. The lamp broke and started a fire. The whole building went up in flames. The little girl never made it out because she was told the only way she would ever be safe was to stay inside until her father came home. To this day she has never left. That was the one and only time I had ever seen her while working there."

The Turf Club was a place started by William Bonbright and was set up as a club for the wealthy businessmen of Cripple Creek. The first floor had rooms for meetings and billiards, while the second floor had smaller meeting rooms and rooms for rent. The building was completed in 1896 and was done in the Italianate architectural style. This had a rounded edge design and was the first in town to use brown brick to accent the center window, which would be duplicated in other buildings. In 1897, the club was bought by John Harnan who had just become "new money." He ran the club successfully until 1909. And then we don't know much else about the history other than it mostly sat vacant until legalized gambling and then the building got a refurb and is today Buffalo Billy's Casino.

We don't know of any deaths at the Turf Club, but one thing seems to be pretty certain to people who have had weird things happen to them in this building. The ghost of a little girl haunts the place. They call her Lilly because an employee claimed to have a conversation with her and told this woman that Lilly was her name. She appears about the age of six-years-old, carries a rag doll and is very friendly. An employee who saw her asked if she was lost and she said, "No, I’m not lost, I live here." Clearly, this was not a home so he went to get a security guard and when they returned, Lilly had disappeared. People will leave balloons for Lilly and if it is purple, they will see it float around the casino. If the balloon is blue, she will pop it. She has a favorite color apparently. Lilly has been seen peering from an upstairs window. She occasionally leaves her handiwork on the walls with pens and crayons. The drawings sometimes reappear after being washed off the walls. A tourist sitting at a slot machine lost track of her daughter, as one does when gambling, and she later found her perched on the staircase appearing as though she were talking to someone. She asked her daughter what she was doing and she said she was playing with Lilly. She was alone on the stairs.

The Imperial Hotel is today the Christmas Casino and Inn at Bronco Billy's. This is the oldest hotel in the city. The three-story building was constructed from red brick and completed in 1896. A widow named E. F. Collins leased the building and opened the Collins Hotel. She ran that until 1906 and then a Mrs. M.E. Shoot bought the hotel and the building next it, remodeled, connected the buildings and opened the New Collins Hotel. This place boasted innovations like steam heat, electric lights and porcelain bathrooms. It was a grand hotel, but not very successful and she went into foreclosure. The owner of the note moved to Cripple Creek with his wife and they ran the hotel for nearly forty years. These were the Longs and George Long received a stipend from the British Crown, so he had some money to burn and he poured it into the hotel turning it into a Victorian Hotel he called the Imperial Hotel. After thirty years of running the hotel, George fell down the basement stairs to his death, His wife continued running the hotel for four years, but she finally gave up in 1944 and padlocked the doors.

Perhaps she was uncomfortable with the rumors that her husband haunted the place. People claimed to see a male spirit in the windows. People suspected that George had actually been killed by his daughter Alice, but it was never proven. Could that be why he roams the stairs and basement? Alice is said to haunt the place because she was often locked away in her room because she had mental challenges. Wayne and Dorothy Mackin bought the building in 1946, refurbished and reopened the hotel. The hotel hosted a melodrama group out of Idaho Springs, dubbed the Imperial Players, who performed in the hotel's Gold Bar Theater. They've performed for over fifty years.They also opened a restaurant and bar called Red Rooster Room. This area had been Alice's room and staff claimed to hear weird noises, especially scratching.

Once gambling was legalized, limited-stakes tables were added and the name was changed to Imperial Casino Hotel. George likes to play with the slot machines and flirt with women. A chambermaid claimed that her bottom was pinched by someone she could not see. Security guards hear the sound of the machines paying out when the place is closed. No malfunctions are ever discovered. The Gold Bar Theater is said to be haunted by former performers too.

The Palace Hotel started as the Palace Drug Store, but it was renovated into a hotel in 1892. This burned in the fires and Sam Altman who owned it rebuilt with brick. He decided to go with lavish and it was more successful than its first run. We've read a couple of things about the hotel. One seems to indicate that the hotel was on the upper two floors while the bottom level had a pharmacy and soda fountain. This was owned by Dr. William Chambers and his wife Kitty. Another version that I read said that the doctor and his wife took ownership of the hotel after the turn of the century. We're not sure which is true, but the key to remember is that Chambers had a wife named Kitty. She left Cripple Creek in 1903 and sold her interest in the pharmacy to the doctor. The doctor himself left in 1910. Shortly thereafter, the hotel burned to the ground. Other stories on the Internet claim that Kitty died in the hotel in 1908. Mary Hedges took over ownership of the hotel until 1918. We're not sure what happened after that, but in 1976, Robert and Martha Lays bought the hotel and they eventually passed it on to their sons. When gambling was legalized, the hotel became a casino that eventually went bankrupt in 2001. It reopened under the Century Casino Corporation, but this also bankrupted in 2003. There have been efforts to renovate, but as far as we know it is still vacant.

There were stories that Kitty haunted Room 3, but since she didn't die here, that probably is not true. Ms. Hedges lived in that room, but she also didn't die here. Whomever it is, she is a hospitable host who would turn down beds and light candles in rooms. At least while the hotel was open. The Lays reported table candles relighting themselves when the hotel closed for the night. There are other spirits here too. People claim there is a blind piano player, a short fat man and a tall woman. Some people claimed to be pushed when on the stairs. Strange anomalies appear in photographs and crashing sounds are heard when no one is in the area where the noises come from. The History Channel featured this location and a paranormal group captured EVPs.

Mousie wrote in 2011 on the Legends of America website, "My first experience happened at the Palace Hotel. The women’s restroom is where I saw my first ghost. I would always get a weird feeling when I went in there and never went in alone. On one occasion while my sister and I were in there, I was washing my hands when I saw in the mirror behind me, a woman sitting in the old antique full back chair that sat in the corner of the restroom. She had on an old-style black and green full-length dress and had her hair done up on top of her head. I knew instantly that this was Miss Kitty that I had heard about from stories. I was standing there frozen when I heard my sister calling my name and realized the woman was gone."

Probably one of the coolest looking buildings in Cripple Creek is the Teller County Jail, which still has bars on the windows. It was built in a "T" shape out of brick  and rises two stories. Today, this is the Outlaws and Lawmen Jail Museum. This jail had a long run, opening in 1901 and closing in 1991. The reason for it finally closing is that the requirements for a modern jail were not met here including no exercise yard. The receiving area and office was built from wood and serves as a gift shop today. Both men and women were housed here and there was a female jailer to oversee the women. She had a room on the second floor. The women's cells were on this level too. The cell system was set up in the middle of the building with upper and lower steel 14 cell units stacked on top of each other. This was state-of-the-art at the time. The building was very secure with jail breaks a rarity. Each cell held four to six men, a bed and a heater. Prisoners were issued a standard uniform that was white and black striped. The jail once held a member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch and a man named J. Grant Crumley, who blew off half of Sam Strong's head, who was a wealthy mine owner.

There were two deaths in the jail. One was a prisoner who fell over the railing of the catwalk at the top of the steel stairway on the second level. No one knows if it was an accident, a suicide or a murder. This person's spirit may still be here at the jail. Heavy breathing is heard in the spot where this prisoner fell. All different types were thrown into this from criminals, people who needed to sleep off a drunk and the criminally insane waiting to be moved to another facility. This is where the second death comes in. A woman named Olga Knutson was placed in a cell in a straightjacket. She screamed all night, but at some point she went quiet and when the matron checked on her in the morning, she was dead. There are spirits of former jailers who seem to think they are still on duty. They present themselves through disembodied footsteps and dark shadowy masses. These, of course, could be former prisoners too. These figures are most often seen in the last two cells of the first floor cell block. For some reason, the spirit of a little girl has been seen in the jail. People think this could be because she died while one of her parents was in the jail and she is looking for that parent. 

A docent at the museum claimed that she was getting ready to lock up for the day when she saw a man's face looking through a window at her. She opened the door to talk to him, but he had disappeared. She described the man to a co-worker and he said it matched a former night jailer. Employees also tell a story about a main security door that is between the gift shop and the jail, which has flown open all on its own a few times. A spirit identifying herself as Rosie has been encountered in the female jailer's room and she claims to still be watching over her prisoners. Michelle Rozell was a paranormal investigator and director of the museum and she told the Ghost Adventures crew that they think a spirit named Joe hangs out in solitary confinement and that he had been a child molester. He threw two of her team members against the wall. Her team also heard an audible voice say something like "Get me out" that was also caught on a recorder. The GA crew picked up a figure on the SLS camera that they asked to wave and it did. That was it for their evidence there, so Zak said they could not conclude that the jail is haunted.

The Old Homestead Parlor is on Myers Avenue, which was Cripple Creek's red light district. Pearl DeVere was the madam who ran this brothel. She was thirty-one and ran her place as a high class establishment with ladies who wore fine clothing. Pearl paid them very well. She was described as a fun woman with a kind heart who regularly rode sidesaddle down the street on her horse or sometimes she was on her single-seated phaeton driven by a team of black horses. The fires of 1896 burned down her first parlor and she rebuilt in brick. Today, this is the only parlor that still remains. It had been decorated with expensive European furnishings, velvet drapes, lace curtains, crystal gaslights, electric chandeliers, hand-painted French wallpaper and hardwood tables. There was running water in two bathrooms. Clients needed references to even get inside the door. Pearl would not enjoy her success for long. She hosted a grand party on June 4, 1897 and was so amped before going to bed that she needed a little help to sleep so she took some morphine. It was too much and one of her girls found her unresponsive and breathing very shallowly and called the doctor. He tried to help her, but it was too late. She was declared dead the following morning. 

Pearl's family was ashamed to find out about her profession and they would not bury her, so Johnny Nolon held an auction to raise money for the funeral. She was buried with a bunch of pomp and circumstance with the fire department band leading the procession. Her former brothel is now a museum, only one of three in the country. Many of the fixtures and wallpaper are original. Pearl still seems to be at the place she built and people claim she is heard crying. The chandeliers sway when no wind is blowing in the house. Objects move and sometimes even disappear for days.

Hotel St. Nicholas was the St. Nicholas Hospital, which opened in 1898 under the Sisters of Mercy. This not only served as a hospital, but the nuns lived there and a small school ran out of it. A ward for the mentally ill was added later. The hospital closed in the mid-1970s and sat vacant for several years. Then some business owners tried opening up businesses inside, but nothing seemed to stick. Then Noel and Denise Perran and Susan Adelbush bought the property and refurbished it into an inn they named it for the former hospital. There are fifteen guest rooms and great views of Cripple Creek as it sits atop a hill. There is a bar and restaurant called Boiler Room Tavern, which serves Mexican food and drinks while live music plays.

The hotel is said to be haunted by the former nuns and the children who used to be here and, of course, some of the patients. A spirit nicknamed "Stinky" is seen lurking near a back staircase and he got his nickname because he gives off a raw sewage smell. The lower part of a miner's body is seen as a ghost too. A little boy spirit named "Petey" likes to steal cigarettes and move objects in the tavern.

Fairley Brothers & Lampman Building is today the Colorado Grande Casino and Hotel and its one of the locations investigated by Ghost Adventures. The building once housed the town's mortuary, so it is no wonder that people claim there is paranormal stuff going on inside. There is also a restaurant inside called Maggie's Restaurant. The Fairley Brothers were C.W. and D.B. and they opened a furniture store at 300 East Bennett Avenue in 1894. The Lampman part of this name came in after the fire that burned part of the city. The Fairley Brothers were nearly ruined, so they asked Oscar Lampman to partner with them. Lampman was an undertaker and the three men built a three-story brick building that covered the block. The brothers reopened their furniture store, Lampman had his mortuary and several other businesses moved in like a millinery, a lawyer and a drug store. The Elks opened a lodge on the third floor. In the 1960s, the first floor was remodeled and turned into an ice cream parlor called Sarsaparilla Saloon. 

The owners of the ice cream parlor were the first ones to claim that there were ghosts in the building. They would hear footsteps at night coming from the upper floors. This could be residual as a ballroom was eventually built on the third floor. The Spanish Flu swept through Cripple Creek in 1918 and bodies were stacked up inside and out of the mortuary. Possibly some spirits go back to this moment in history. There are some other people who had been at the mortuary that could be haunting the place. Pearl DeVere, who was the madam at the Old Homestead Parlor, lied in state for a couple of days before her funeral because she had been so beloved. There was also a rich mine owner named Sam Strong who had half of his head blown off while he sat at a saloon drinking who was brought to the mortuary. The owners of the ice cream parlor decided to have a seance to find out who was haunting their building. They saw a group of men sitting in a corner in dark suits. They also saw the apparition of a woman who claimed to be named Maggie. 

Maggie usually appears on the top two floors of the casino. She appears to be twenty-five years old, wearing high heeled shoes and a dress from the turn-of-the-century. She leaves the scent of rose perfume in her wake. Maggie has an Irish accent and is heard singing with a soprano voice. She often dances as well and it's possible the disembodied footsteps are from her high-heeled boots. One of the owners of the ice cream parlor saw Maggie wearing clothes that she described as something a Gibson Girl would wear. She stood on a stairway above her and there was a strong scent of roses. An artist named Charles Frizzell rented the third floor and he said, "After a long day in the studio, I would climb the wide staircase to the third floor. The double doors would almost always be open, even though I had locked them every morning. So my friend Jerry Hollings and I would lock the doors each morning and then fasten a wire coat hanger around the door knobs. Still, the doors would be wide open when we arrived back on the third floor." The security cameras at the casino have caught what looks like ghostly images and security guards claim to have seen the apparition of Maggie, sometimes even accompanied by a male spirit after hours. The restaurant is named in honor of Maggie.

The Tesla Brownstone is a legit haunted house in the city. We call it by that name because we don't know what else to call it and Nikola Tesla once lived there. The home is located at 315 Carr Street. The house was built in 1898 by an accountant from New York looking to work for some of the rich mine owners. It is pretty obvious that this was a home designed by a New Yorker because this two-story brownstone would fit right in in Greenwich Village. Eventually, the mines started to dry up and the accountant rented out the home to none other than Nikola Tesla who it is said worked on some of his experiments in the home. He was a century ahead of his time and his research still fuels scientific projects today. Tesla had a lab in nearby Colorado Springs. While Tesla was in Colorado Springs, he experimented with the production of man-made lightning bolts and conducting electricity using the Earth itself. In 1907, the home seems to have been operated as a bordello. It changed ownership several times and then was purchased in 1968 by historian Leland Feitz. He fixed up the place and lived in it as his home. In 1978, he met author and famed astrologist Linda Goodman whom he invited to move to Cripple Creek and live in the house. She visited and loved the solitude the mountains brought versus her busy New York life. She bought what she called her "crooked little house on a crooked little street," which had been Feitz's brownstone. Goodman lived there until her death in 1996. The house was bought by Rick and Janice Wood and they turned it into a bed and breakfast, connecting it to the boardinghouse that was next door with a walkway. They sold it to Jason and Sofia Balas in 2013 and the home was sold again in 2017 and we believe it is a private residence now.  

There are some whom claim this place is haunted and others who have experienced nothing here. When Linda Goodman lived in the house, she claimed to have several odd things happen. Like big things! Music would lithe through the air in every room when no radios or other music players were going and it was an older variety of music. She also heard disembodied voices and she saw apparitions in Victorian clothing. Some claim she was an eccentric woman who practiced a weird cosmic religion and this is why she had these experiences. But friends who visited also claimed to hear voices and even the cries of a baby. People on the street would see lights flickering in the windows. There are people who believe that Goodman herself haunts her former home. Objects move on their own, cold spots are felt and a child's ghost is seen in the early morning hours. 

On the website Legends of America, Mike Warden wrote in 2006, "This encounter occurred during the summer of 1973 in Cripple Creek, Colorado. My father had fallen in love with the town, and consequently moved all six of us kids, lock, stock, and barrel to the high country of Colorado. We found a back door that was almost too easy to move and sauntered in. This house was a two-story Victorian, turn-of-the-century brick, with some of the original antique furniture still inside. We began to roam around the house, laughing, and making jokes. When I opened the door to the cellar...that’s when we heard it. I want to point out that all of this was occurring in broad daylight, with the sun shining bright, in the middle of the afternoon. It wasn’t midnight or the typical 3:00 a.m. 'ghost hunt.' At first, we heard the sounds of silverware clinking on plates, then a cacophony of voices, combined with music from a bygone era. I should also mention that there was no electricity being provided to this residence at the time. The sounds began to swell and before long, the entire house was filled with the din of what we later thought to be a party or a ball of some kind. The three of us then proceeded to set a land speed record for exiting a home during a crisis.

Months later, this very same house was purchased by a wealthy writer, whose name I can’t mention. Afterward, several parties were held there. One night, during a particularly raucous evening, a young woman ran from this house screaming. Once her friends caught up with her and asked her what had happened, she told her friends that the 'figure' of a miner had materialized by the fireplace. Others later reported seeing a 'distinguished' looking Victorian-era gentleman at the top of the stairs. Years later, when I was researching the eccentric inventor Nicola Tesla, I came upon an article that described how the unconventional electrical genius had conducted a number of experiments in Cripple Creek. The same writer who had purchased and was living in the house at the time confirmed it was, in fact, Tesla’s residence at one time, where he had conducted experiments. Despite his prolific inventiveness and eccentric lifestyle, Tesla was known to maintain a rather high social profile. His experiments in physics also upheld the belief and possibility of life after death. Could it be Nicola Tesla, himself, that remains in this house?"

Cripple Creek is clearly full of a rich history that could lend itself to many haunts. Are these locations haunted? That is for you to decide!

Show Notes:

Haunted Cripple Creek and Teller County by Linda Wommack, published by Haunted America, 2018