HGB Ep. 604 - The Elms Hotel

Moment in Oddity - The Tombstone House

Here at History Goes Bump, we often talk about how much we love cemeteries and old unique homes and architecture. In Petersburg, Virginia, there is a unique blending of all of the above. It is known as the Tombstone House. From the street, it looks like any ordinary block home. The two-story structure was built in 1934 at a cost of only $45 for the 2,200 marble blocks that were used for constructing the home. We are sure that by now, you have guessed where the marble blocks were sourced from. These were the bottom half of marble headstones. In the siege of Petersburg, during the last nine months of the Civil War, many of the Union soldiers who died in the battle, were buried at Poplar Lawn Cemetery. After the original wooden markers were beginning to rot away, the government replaced them with upright marble headstones. As we know, maintenance of old cemeteries can fall by the wayside, and it was during the Great Depression that the Poplar Lawn Cemetery decided to cut the existing tombstones in half, laying the inscripted parts flat on each individual grave vs having them stand erect. Of course this saved on mowing and maintenance fees for the cemetery. The construction of this modest home is quoted in articles as being, "A wonderful example of waste not, want not. Or is it waste not, haunt-not?". Local lore suggests that paranormal activity is experienced here. Haunted or not, a house constructed of repurposed headstones, certainly is odd.

The Elms Hotel (Suggested by: Jared Spangler)

Thirty minutes north of Kansas City is Excelsior Springs, Missouri. This town was formed around natural springs that attracted Native American populations for centuries. Europeans eventually discovered them, settled here and marketed the waters for what they believed were their curative effects. The Elms Hotel was one of several lodgings offered in the city. The location burned down twice before this third version that stands today was built. There have been deaths here and that has led to hauntings. Join us for the history and hauntings of The Elms Hotel!

Excelsior Springs was shaped by water and not just any water, but water rich in Iron and Manganese. These waters were unique as compared to other mineral waters in the area. These waters were found in shallow places that had iron-bearing rocks along them and underneath them and this caused the water to take on a reddish hue. There was also a distinctive metallic taste to the water. Excelsior Springs had seven wells that contained this type of water. The Native Americans knew of these wells for hundreds of years and considered them healing. The Nebo Hill People were an early indigenous group near here. Europeans would arrive in 1682. Rene-Robert de LaSalle claimed for France all the land drained by the Mississippi River at that time. The United States would buy the territory in 1803 and that is when settlers would flock there. Anthony W. Wyman bought land near the Fishing River and apparently had no idea he was sitting on a spring of healing waters. That was until a black farmer named Travis Mellion came through the area in the summer of 1880 with his family. Stories vary on whether he was sick with scrofula or one of his children was. The main story shared claims it was a daughter named Opal, but census records reveal she wasn't born until later. Anyway, this scrofula was awful and a form of tuberculosis that afflicted the lymph nodes of the neck. It rarely is seen today, except in HIV/AIDS patients. These painful masses would grow on the neck. The narrative goes that Travis was told about these springs nearby that might be able to help and then either he or his child got in the water and bathed in it for weeks and the scrofula was cured.

Word reached a man named Frederick Kigler who had rheumatism and an old Civil War injury and he tried the water too and was also healed. Before long, word of these healings began to spread and people flocked to the region. A merchant-preacher named Rev. John Van Buren Flack in nearby Missouri City heard the rumors about these healing springs and he traveled to the springs and collected samples for analysis. The chemists who tested it reported that the water "justified expectations of curative results." Rev. Flack was a fan of Henry Longfellow, so he named the spring Excelsior and told Anthony Wyman that he should plat the land because people were going to want to move here and they needed a proper town. Flack and Wyman had the land surveyed and then they platted the entire 40 acres. One hundred houses were built within a year and the town of Excelsior Springs was founded.

Now our listeners are probably asking the same thing. This Wyman guy owned the land, so what in the world does Flack think he is doing? He just kinda moved himself right into ownership here. The two men formed an agreement on August 7, 1880 that read, "...on a part of said land is located the spring known as Excelsior, and to promote said enterprise, the said Wyman agrees that any and all of his land as owned and as needed shall be used in said enterprise, except his residence, mill site, and one square acre of land. Said Flack agrees to carefully collect and collate all evidence as to the merits of said spring, and to write and publish a pamphlet setting forth the same in full detail, and to mail the same to his numerous friends and acquaintances." So basically it seems that Wyman didn't want to run a business, he just wanted to keep run his farm and mill. He gave Flack an acre of land to build a hotel, residence and business house and left the promotion of everything to Flack and if he kept up his end of the bargain, he would receive 25% of "seen and unseen developments" and a percentage of town lot sales. So the good doctor was now tasked with being a marketer. And he did just that, running circulars in nearby towns, boasting of the curative effects of the waters in Excelsior. These boasts included curing people of dyspepsia, gravel, fever sores, sore eyes, scrofula, throat diseases, liver complaints and many other ailments. Flack eventually moved on to other endeavors, but he still would run ads for the springs.

Excelsior Springs got very popular at the end of the 1800s because the Progressive Era was in full swing and one of the reforms at that time involved a Clean Living Movement. This incorporated proper hygiene, exercising and a healthy diet. Bathing in natural springs was a part of the craze. Before hotels were built, people had to bring tents since there was nowhere to stay and they had to bring their own tin cups to draw water from a barrel sunk into the mud that captured water from the spring. In 1881, this spring was named Siloam and a wooden Oriental-style pagoda was added, so that made things a little nicer. 

Other springs were discovered nearby and they were named the Regent Spring, Lithia No. 1, the Soterian, Excelsior Springs Lithia Spring, Salt Sulphur Spring, Superior Spring, the Seltzer Salt Soda Spring, the Sulphur Salt Soda Spring, the Relief Spring and the list goes on. Well into the 1920s, more springs were discovered until there were over 30 and there were different chemical contents in several of them. Most were the ferro-manganese (so the iron) but there was also sodium bicarbonate, saline, calcium bicarbonate and sulphur. Each new well was tested and different curative effects were linked to each one. So Excelsior Springs really lived up to its name. The town built the Hall of Waters and bought nine of the springs. This facilitated the bottling and distributing of the mineral water. The Excelsior Springs Bottling Company took the water to the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 and both of their entries were awarded first prizes. 

Some of the successful businesses in Excelsior Springs incorporated modalities like massage into their services and there were a variety of bath types. And some of the most successful entrprenuers in the late 1800s and early 1900s were black. W.A. Doxey and his wife Alice had a popular bathhouse and they served a white clientele. 

The most successful black entrepreneur was Dt. Dee Amos Ellett. His parents had been slaves and he escaped captivity when he was 15-years-old. He fled from Virginia to Massachusetts where he became a body servant to Colonel Francis Washburn. When Washburn was killed in battle a man named Rev. Gray took him under his wing and made sure that he attended college. He became a teacher and then attended Howard University and earned his medical degree in 1885. Dr. Ellett arrived in Excelsior Springs in 1888 and set up a private practice, but was asked to head up the Elms Hotel’s bath facilities. He watched over that as he continued to run his own business and he eventually opened the first Star Bath House. An advertisement read, "The Star Bath House, D.A. Ellett, M.D., Prop. Gives all kinds of BATHS, Including mineral, plain, mud, vapor, Turkish, shower, douche, electric, magnetic. Chalybeate water (also known as ferrous or iron) used if desired. Magnetic treatment, oil rubs and massage. Everything first class."

The original Elms Hotel would be built here in 1888 by the Excelsior Springs Company. This was a three-story hotel with broad verandas that sat on a 50-acre site. Orchestras would entertain the guests on the verandas and they could sip their spring water as they gazed out at the lush forests around them. The hotel also had a large heated swimming pool, a four-lane bowling alley, a target range, and a billiards room. After only standing for ten years, the hotel caught fire and burned to the ground on May 8, 1898. The cause of the fire was thought to be a candle in the ballroom. Dancing by candlelight was probably not a good idea.

It was decided to rebuild, but it would take several years before construction would begin in 1908. The grand opening of this even bigger and better version of The Elms took place in July 1909. This hotel lasted even less time than the first. It burned down completely the following year in 1910 after a large party had been hosted in the Grand Ballroom. A boiler ignited and the roof was set ablaze. Thankfully, nobody was killed in either of these fires. So, they decided to try once again, but they got smart this time. They decided to make the place as fireproof as possible and so they built the hotel that stands today out of limestone and stucco. This is a really neat hotel because one wouldn't expect to see Tudor Revival architecture in Missouri. The architects were Jackson & McIlvain and they designed a five-story hotel with a full basement that resembles an H-shape with two, two-story semi-circular bays: one in the front and one in the back. Those bays have double-gable-on-hip roofs and the entire hotel has a gable-front roof. The entrance has a long porch with Tudor-arched spandrels between stone columns that are square and two oriel windows extend from the third to fourth story. The interior featured the same stone feel with tile floors and a brick front counter and a massive stone fireplace. There was a marble staircase leading to the grand ballroom with its own large stone fireplace. There are Tudor-inspired end spandrels in here. There was a dining room and restaurant and the really unique part of the hotel is found down in the basement - a large lap pool that is shaped in an oval with stone columns in the center creating a median, so it really is like a lap track. Construction was completed in 1912 and over 3,000 visited on opening day. 

The landscaping was amazing as well and was designed by landscape architect George E. Kessler. The 15-acre grounds feature curving graveled walkways with grass and large trees of all varieties dotting the landscape. A gazebo stands on the upper grounds. There is an outdoor swimming pool and hot tub added in 1956, a courtyard, tennis courts, picnic area and herb garden. Out buildings include a pump house and carriage house, which is today used for meeting space. The Fishing River runs nearby.

The 1920s were a successful time for the hotel, but the Great Depression would prove to be hard on the hotel and in 1931, it filed for bankruptcy. Prohibition had become law during this time as well and part of the reason for The Elms' success was that it became a speakeasy and gangsters frequented the hotel. "Big City" Tom Pendergast was the crime boss of Kansas City, so he hung out at the hotel and several times Al Capone came to the hotel. Pretty Boy Floyd and Bugsy Moran liked to host bathtub gin parties here. The police tried raiding the place many times and one time, the Missouri Governor was there at a party and he told the police to go bust people really breaking the law. President Harry Truman's early political career had connections to Tom Pendergast as he was military buddies and good friends with Perndergast's nephew. The Pendergast organization helped Truman with elections to county-wide positions and eventually Senator. Truman became President when FDR died in 1945. When he sought to retain the Presidency on November 2, 1948, President Truman checked into The Elms Hotel secretly. He was given Room 300 and he ordered a ham and cheese sandwich. He told the Secret Service he was going to retire early and that they should wake him if anything important happened. Truman clearly figured that the polls and political talking heads were all right and that Thomas Dewey was going to win the election. The Secret Service woke him up at 4am and turned on the radio where it was being reported that President Truman was in the lead and was projected to win. The President went to Kansas City for victory pictures and returned to The Elms for a party and really put the place on the map.

The 1950s and 60s would find the hotel a hotspot for weddings and honeymoons and corporations like the location for conventions. But then business slowed down and this became more of a motor inn and Sheraton bought the property, finally closing it in 1970. The hotel sat vacant for eight years. One of the reasons for this decline was due to the falling interest in the spring water.

Dr. Samuel Ball came to Excelsior Springs in 1918, and opened a private practice, that grew into the Ball Clinic that opened in 1919. This clinic specialized in the treatment of arthritis and rheumatism and would eventually have seven buildings. Dr. Ball drilled his own wells to begin with, but eventually used the water supplied by the Hall of Waters. Like all the other businesses in the area, Ball made big claims about the water. He retired in 1953 and died in 1956, shortly before the medical community started getting more vocal about being skeptical of clinics like this. The downfall for the Ball Clinic, and basically much of Excelsior Springs, came through a scathing expose written in the Saturday Evening Post by Ralph Lee Smith in the August 24, 1963 issue entitled The Hucksters of Pain. Smith revealed that $250 million a year had been made through peddling dubious remedies. He visited the clinic and lied about having issues with pain. Before this trip, he had visited one of the nation's most eminent specialists on arthritis and he found nothing wrong with Smith. However, Smith was told by the Ball Clinic that he had fibrositis also known as lumbago. They told him that this was a forerunner of arthritis, which it is not. The Arthritis and Rheumatism Foundation didn't think highly of the Ball Clinic and they told Smith that the Clinic's "theories about the causes of arthritis were 'disproven by medical science many years ago'." Weird machines were also used like the Sonus Film-o-Sonic machine, which the FDA tested and found to contain nothing therapeutic and they took legal action, seizing the machines. It was only a matter of months before the Ball Clinic closed its doors for good on December 31, 1963.

By 1981, there was a new owner and the hotel was refurbished and this brought an all-new spa renovation and this is when the lap pool went in that has a jogging track around it, there are cool and hot tubs, a waterfall tub and environmental rooms with cool mists and hot tubs. Part of the hotel was sold as time-share condos. Things were great for a decade, but 1991 brought another bankruptcy. The city stepped in and slowly bought interest in the hotel until it owned it in 1994. There was another huge renovation at that time and then another one in 2011 and today it is known as The Elms Hotel & Spa and has been proclaimed a Grand Dame of Hospitality with 152 guest rooms. 11,000 square feet of meeting space, including the 3,900-square-foot Elms Ballroom, a 42-seat amphitheater, a stone carriage house, and a 20-person boardroom. Amenities include two restaurants, two lounges, a 10,000-square-foot spa, an indoor European swim track, an indoor banked jogging track, a fitness room, an outdoor pool, a challenge course, a walking trail, and a professional volleyball court. 

The hospitality seems to run to the unseen as well. Several spirits find the hotel a comfortable place to remain in the afterlife. The Elms embraces their ghost stories. They offer a paranormal package that includes a one hour tour. The lap pool hosts someone from Prohibition days that is usually seen in a fedora hat. Gangsters stored their liquor down in the coolness of the basement and ran card games down here, out of sight. No one knows for sure, but it is believed that this man was killed during one of the illegal parties. Or maybe it was a hit that committed at the hotel. 

One of the spirits is a woman seen wearing a 1920s style maid uniform that usually appears on the third floor. She is said to be a nice spirit and ensures that the cleaning staff does their work correctly. Another female spirit is not so nice. She pulls people's hair and throws things. The story goes that she lost a child and is searching the hotel for that child and so she is angry. Room 422 was said to have a murder-suicide happen in there and this has led to a TV turning itself on and off. People have been scratched in Room 347.  

Everyday Outdoor Family on TikTok shared an experience she and her husband had at the hotel when they decided to book an overnight stay to get away from the kids for a night. They decided to go on the ghost tour and when they told the tour guide their room number, the guide asked if they wanted to know the stories connected to their room and she said that "of course they did." The room is known for things to move around. So as they were returning to their room after the tour, she and her husband were like, "Oh, is anything going to be moved around?" Everything was fine. So they went down to the pool and nothing happened. They returned to their room and again were kidding each other about whether stuff would be moved around - nothing. They get into bed and she asks her husband to close the curtains. These are really heavy curtains, not something that could easy be blown open. She wakes up at 2am and notices that the curtains are wide open. She goes back to sleep and asks her husband the next morning if he opened the curtains. He looks at them and goes, "Nooo." They couldn't figure out any reason why the curtains would be opened. The air conditioner was across the room. A person commented under the video, "I actually got married at the Elms, and when we were staying there that night, my husband was sleeping and I woke up, and I felt like someone was sitting on the side of the bed…..twice!!!!!" Another person commented, "My husband and I just stayed and had similar experiences. Doors opened when we woke up that we had shut before bed. LOTS of voices."

Investigator Janet Reed told 41 Action News that their team saw four wet footprints going away from the pool and disappearing like someone had just jumped out of the pool and walked off. She said of the girl ghost that roams the third floor, "I had a friend that stayed here and they thought I've got to get out there and tell that mother to take care of that child. they open the door and look down the hallways and there was no one there."  

These two guys named Jacob and Lucas stayed at the hotel in 2024 and they took the ghost tour at the hotel. They remarked that it seemed strange when they got to the Lap Pool and the tour guide told them that people see a male spirit standing at the far end of the room sometimes. They had both thought they saw something out of the corner of their eyes before when they were filming the pool area and doing a little swimming and they both had turned their heads at the same time, which made them think that something had to be there since they simultaneously thought they saw something., hearing the story on the tour convinced them that they probably did see an apparition. We just wanted to point out that there was this great moment in this video where they are partaking of a charcuterie board and they called it an adult lunchable. 

Ghost Moms stayed at the hotel in July 2025 and they set up a music box motion detector in the bathroom, which went off for quite a while. They wrote, "A motion detector being triggered by something unseen in the middle of the night is never going to not be terrifying. We were staying on the third floor of the Elms Hotel where guests have seen an apparition of a woman looking for her child and a maid roaming the halls. Maybe she was just trying to tidy up our room for us."

A woman was interviewed by the Excelsior Citizen and she was staying at the Elms with her husband. He went out for a bit and she decided to take a bath. In the middle of that the door handle jiggled and she wondered if he had left his key and so couldn't get in. She got out of the bath and went to the door and no one was there. Later, when he returned, she asked if he had tried to get in earlier an he said, "no." They checked the door handles and realized that moving the outside door knob doesn't move the inside doorknob, so how the handle was jiggling on the inside, they didn't know.

Ghost Hunters investigated in 2013. They brought a device with them that could detect when the water in the pool was disturbed. They also had something called a Shadow Detector that went off because the laser beam path was disturbed. At the end of the visit, they were comfortable claiming that the hotel indeed seemed to be haunted. But is The Elms Hotel haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 588 - Beattie Mansion

Moment in Oddity - Odd Orchids

At History Goes Bump, we love nothing more than to be outside gardening. Any listeners that I am personal friends with have seen my posts of my various orchids in bloom. Recently I saw an article discussing two very unique looking orchids. The white egret orchid and the naked man orchid. The white egret orchid is found in China, Japan, Korea and Russia. Its delicate petals really do resemble a white egret in mid-flight. The blooms are said to represent purity and freedom with their ethereal fringed petals that sway in the wind. The plant grows naturally in grassy wetlands, upland bogs and seepage slopes. This exquisitely beautiful plant can be purchased online through many orchid growers. And of course, my other mention was the naked man orchid. Yes, that is indeed one of its common names. This species of orchid is also known as the Italian orchid and is native to the Mediterranean Basin. The flowers themselves grow atop a thick stem and are densely gathered, similar in appearance to a Lily of the Nile flowering stalk. In Italy, these orchids are believed to promote virility. The individual flowers do actually look like naked people. They are generally colored with variations of pink and purple, with pure white specimens being quite rare. The reason why the common name for this orchid is naked man and not naked woman is due to a certain, ahem, way that the flower's petals are arranged. These orchids are also available online and we encourage our listeners to look them both up, if nothing more than for a chuckle. Nature can produce some stunning varieties of flowers, but orchids that closely resemble feathered white egrets and another looking like a crowd of naked men, certainly are odd.

This Month in History - Battle of Hamburger Hill

In the month of May, on the 11th, in 1969, the Battle of "Hamburger Hill" began during the Vietnam War. U.S. troops were attempting to seize Dong Ap Bia Mountain. This battle endured multiple attempts to scale the mountain over a ten day period and led to many bloody hand-to-hand combats with the North Vietnamese. The mountain was called Hill 937 by US forces and was part of Operation Apache Snow with the objective of driving the North Vietnamese forces from the A Sau (Ah Shaw) Valley. The battle was especially brutal with major losses on both sides. The U.S. suffered 72 killed and over 372 wounded while the North Vietnamese were said to have had an estimated 630 soldiers killed. The U.S. captured Hill 937 but later abandoned it on June 5th. The North Vietnamese re-occupied Hamburger Hill a month later. This battle and abandonment of the target, brought about questions regarding the purpose and costs of the battle. The outrage over what appeared to be a senseless loss of American lives was aggravated by photographs published in Life magazine of U.S. soldiers killed during the battle. It fueled anti-war sentiments regarding criticism of the high casualty rate and perceived lack of strategic clarity during the Vietnam War. Despite the criticism, many soldiers and military leaders disagreed and Army General Melvin Zais stated, “Those people are acting like this was a catastrophe for the U.S. troops. This was a tremendous, gallant victory.”

Beattie Mansion (Suggested by: Sarah Crom)

The Beattie Mansion in St. Joseph, Missouri has stood for more than 170 years. This began as a home for the Beatties and later became a home for unwed women and orphans and then an assisted living facility that occasionally served the addicted and people with mental health issues. The current owner wanted to open a boutique hotel, but he had trouble keeping help. Something was scaring them all off. Once he started having his own unexplained experiences, he knew he needed to open up the house to investigators. There has been no shortage of activity for these investigators. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Beattie Mansion! 

St. Joseph, Missouri is where Jesse James supposedly died. The city was founded on the Missouri River by Joseph Robidoux (Robe ee do) and the city is named for him and the biblical St. Joseph. This was a frontier town that leaned toward the wild side and thus became a launch point for people heading for the Wild West. Thus the nickname "Gateway to the West" was given to it. Not only did the railroad end here until western routes were built, but the Pony Express also ended here. St. Joseph was officially incorporated in 1843. In 1854, Armstrong and Eliza Beattie built their mansion in St. Joseph on Main Street. It would be called the "House on the Hill." Armstrong Beattie was born in 1811 in Virginia. When he was ten, his family moved to Howard County, Missouri. His father died shortly thereafter and he found work as a hat maker in Columbia, Missouri. Eliza Snoddy came into his life in 1841 and the couple married. They would have no children, but would eventually took under their wing several nieces and nephews. The Beatties moved to Hunstville, Missouri and Armstrong worked as a merchant for ten years. In 1852, the Beatties arrived in St. Joseph and Armstrong set his sights on the banking industry. The only banking offered in the town was out of the back of John Corby's general store. And all that really consisted of was a metal safe. So Armstrong was going to become St. Joseph's first full-time banker. He opened his bank in a storeroom under the City Hotel and ran the following advertisement in the St. Joseph Gazette on January 28, 1853: "A. BEATTIE, Banker and Dealer in Exchange, St. Joseph, Missouri, 'Buys and sells exchanges on all the Eastern, Western, and Southern cities and sells on San Francisco, California in sums to suit. Collections made on all the principal cities of the Union and proceeds to promptly remitted for at current rates of exchange. Land warrants bought and sold. Office on Jule Street in the City Hotel Building.'" The banking business flourished and Beattie was able to build his own bank building on Second Street. In 1872, he moved to the west side of Third Street into a building which had been the United States Express Company. So the old Pony Express building that is today the St. Joseph Historical Society. In 1854, the Beatties built their mansion. The house was two-stories with a flat roof and built from red brick. There was a veranda on both levels in the front. The interior was typical with bedrooms on the second floor and the first floor having a parlor, dining room and other community spaces. The basement had the kitchen and a dumb waiter was used to bring up food.

Eliza had a sister named Margaret Snoddy who married a man named Robert Wilson in 1826. The couple would have two sons, John and James, and a daughter named Mary Ann. Margaret died in 1837 at the age of 29. Little Mary Ann was taken to Armstrong and Eliza and they raised her as their own. In 1855, she married a man named Rufus L. McDonald and they had seven children. Mary Ann's brother James came to St. Joseph when he reached adulthood and Armstrong brought him into partnership in the bank. On his side of the family, Armstrong had a nephew named Thomas Weakley and he brought him into the bank too. Not only did he work with banking, but Armstrong got involved in politics and he served on the City Council from 1855 to 1856 and then he was voted in as mayor six times: 1857, 1858, 1860, 1866, 1876 and 1878. Armstrong was thought of very highly and the newspaper said of him in 1878, "No man has exercised a greater influence upon the character of business stability, integrity and progress of our city than Mr. Beattie. We are all greatly indebted to him. He has made his way in the world by unswerving integrity, energy, industry, and business capacity. No man is more widely or favorably known among the bankers of the West." 

Not long after that, Armstrong would contract cholera. It was the third time in his life that he was stricken with the illness and this final time would kill him. He died on July 26,1878 and was buried in Mount Mora Cemetery. His funeral was attended by many city and county officials and business leaders. The Globe wrote of Armstrong after his death in 1878, "Ex-Mayor Beattie, of St. Joseph, died this morning, after a short illness.  Mr. Beattie was one of the oldest as well as one of the most generally respected citizens of our sister city, and perhaps did as much as any other man to give St. Joseph her present commercial importance.  He was at the head of the oldest and most substantial bank in the city, and it can be said of him that he has been of great use to his fellow men, his community, and to himself." Now the story told about Armstrong and his will is that he left only the house to Eliza, but no money to upkeep the house or her in general and that he gave his money to nieces and nephews. This story seems to be told to lend credence to Eliza haunting the place because it was all she owned. We found his will that was dated August 30, 1875 and presented to court July 29, 1878. And the beginning of it reads, "I, Armstrong Beattie of sound and disposing mind do make and ordain this my last will and testament hereby revoking all other wills heretofore made. 1st I desire and request my executor to pay all my just debts. 2nd I give bequeath and devise to my wife Eliza J. Beattie my household and kitchen furniture, and one half of all my estate personal real and mixed, absolutely, of which I may die possessed and seized. 3rd In the event that my said wife shall depart this life before I do, I give bequeath and devise to the brother, nephews and nieces and sister of my said wife to wit" and it goes on to name them all and then continues with divisions of the rest of the estate. So it sounds to us like Eliza got the house and half of everything else after debts were paid.

Eliza didn't have the house for long as she died two years after Armstrong. The family sold the mansion to the Ladies Union Benevolent Association (LUBA) and they refurbished it and opened the "Home for the Friendless." This was a place for all of the discards of the city from the homeless to prostitutes to widows to orphans. The first month it was open, eighteen people moved in. St. Joseph apparently was full of brothels, eighty of them, so several of those residents were sex workers who had children out of wedlock. The mansion became a refuge for them. A death occurred in the house in 1892. This was four-year-old Mabel Iden. A big change came for the house in 1895. The house was converted into the Memorial Home for the Aged and another wing was added to the house. It ran as a home for the elderly for 100 years and then residents were moved to a more modern facility. The Beattie Mansion was then used as a group home for the mentally ill and substance abuse addicts. That shut down and the house sat empty for awhile and then in 2005, the mansion was bought by Michael Burkart who had dreams of renovating it into a bed and breakfast.

Renovations didn't go according to plan because of all the supernatural activity that took place in the house, so it is in pretty rough shape. Tools would go missing or get moved. Construction crews kept getting run off because of the level of weird stuff and (owner) finally gave up on trying to make the place a bed and breakfast. The mansion hosts every kind of haunting activity. There are two pianos in the house that get played by ghosts. Child ghosts like to run up and down the stairs and even swing on the chandeliers and this has been caught on SLS cameras. There are disembodied footsteps, dragging sounds and slamming doors. There are creepers here and that is what they call them. These are entities that move along the ceilings and up and down the corners of rooms. Shadow figures and full-body apparitions are seen. Most importantly, this place has a haunted potty chair. Yep, you heard that right. This is a wooden chair that has a square cut out of it and was apparently used as a portable toilet. The manager and main guide is psychic Mary Ann Podrasky. Podrasky has said, "We have footsteps, whistling, my name is called, we’ve heard piano music played. I’ve heard singing right in this area, which I attribute to Eliza. My husband’s been locked in the basement before. I thought it was hilarious."

It is believed that at least a hundred people have passed in the mansion over the years. The main spirits thought to be here include Armstrong and Eliza Beattie. Eliza seems to hang out mostly on the second floor and is a constant presence. A child spirit named Mabel Iden also hangs out in a bedroom on the second floor. The kitchen hosts quite a bit of strange stuff. The most haunted area is, of course, the basement. There is an unhappy spirit in the basement who people call either Charles or Walt. He likes to taunt visitors and has been heard laughing and walking the hallways. Some people think he is just a grumpy former caretaker who is seen looking dirty because he was usually taking care of the boiler.

The paranormal group Afterlife Sessions investigated in 2018. The group were in the kitchen doing a Spirit Box session. They asked if the spirits had good memories of the kitchen and "I did not" was the answer. They asked if the butler was there and "almost done" was the response. They got a whiff of perfume while doing the session. In the basement, they tried an experiment with a teddy bear on one end of a hallway that had a Mel Meter just a little bit in front of it, then an area with sprinkled baby powder and then another device that could light up. They did get that device to light up, but no ghost seemed to run through the series they had set up. They were trying to get the children down there to walk though the powder to get to the bear. One of the investigator's last names was Biddle and that came through the Spirit Box. They brought the teddy bear upstairs and placed it in a seat with the light-up device in front of it and asked if the spirit would touch the bear. The Spirit Box said "no" and then "I ain't dead," but then the light did go on.

Marcia Davis and the Midwest Ghost Hunters investigated in 2019. They used the Portal for a Spirit Box session. Earlier in the evening, Marcia had found a quarter on the basement floor and she put it in her pocket. They got "coin" to come though the Portal and then when they asked if the spirit needed money, "I do" came through. And then WHOA!!!, the Portal said, "Marcia pinched it." When they asked why the spirit needed money, they got "broke." The next morning, Marcia got caught up on the basement door knob and had opened it, without realizing she had done that and the investigators thought the door had opened on its own. So they start doing a Portal session after that and asked if the spirit opened the door and the Portal answered "Marcia." They captured a whistle on one their cameras. On another camera they got this weird light anomaly that we found to be pretty interesting in the way it moved. It seemed to go along the hall and then disappeared into the floor just as the investigators come into the space. They caught an EVP saying, "Get inspired."

Michaela Miller-Stout wrote for Medium in 2021 about a visit she made to the house, "Two of my friends volunteered to join me at the Beattie Mansion for photos. Almost immediately upon setting foot in the house with Podrasky, events began to take place. There was no shortage of disembodied voices and breathing, doors opening and closing, feelings of being touched, camera malfunctions, footsteps and seeing figures watching curiously from down the hall. After the short hour and a half we spent in the mansion, we could safely say this was one of the most active places any of us had ever been to. After our visit, even Podrasky admitted, 'They showed off for you three.'" They captured an EVP saying "go" twice. (EVP says go) 

Jason of Cemetery Road on YouTube investigated in September of 2022 and he got a cold chill near a stairway in the newer section that has a lot of activity near it. He also thought he heard someone coming down the stairs and he asked if anyone was there and there was nothing. This was as he was doing an initial walk through of the house. During the investigation that night, they caught an audible "hi" on the camera and they heard it at the time as well. There were the sounds of hard shoes on a hard floor. Jason had his son with him and they decided to do a dowsing rod session in Room 19. Someone indicated they were in the room and said that they passed away in the room and that they were a man. The spirit said they took their own life. It also indicated that both the Beatties were in the house. When Jason asked if it was okay for them to be there, there was no response. Then he asked if they wanted them to leave and it said "yes" so they left the room. But what if it meant the house in general? They did dowsing rods in another room and were speaking to an elderly person who liked having them there. This was a really tame investigation.

Amy from Amy's Crypt investigated the mansion in 2022. One of the main things that happened is that they placed a Para4ce Music Box on the bed in the room where Mabel hangs out. Amy asked Mabel to get the music box to go off and it went off for an extended period of time. Her boyfriend Jarrad was down in the basement by himself with the Ghost Tube App and he asked, "How do you feel about me being in this room right now and it responded "insulted." Later it said "there was a moron" and Jarrad wondered if it was calling him a moron. A cat ball on the bed went off a little later. They had a relatively quiet investigation.

Sue Poshusta of Short Bus Paranormal Investigators told KCTV5 about an experience she had in the house in 2024. She had a music box across the room from her and she invited the children to come in and play. The music box started playing like crazy. She asked them to stop playing the music box and suddenly, the right side of her body turned to ice. So it was as if the children came running over to her.

We get the feeling that the hauntings at the mansion are more subtle. And we've heard that the spirits embrace a more calm investigating technique. But just because ghosts are a little more shy and quiet about being around, doesn't mean they aren't haunting a place. Is the Beattie Mansion haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 465 - Lehmann House Bed & Breakfast

Moment in Oddity - Dumpster Diving

Dumpster diving is a term most of us are familiar with. Sometimes the words are describing the act of pulling a cast-off item from the trash to rework it into something creative, be it artwork or repurposing. In the case of a husband in New Hampshire, it was with a sentimental and monetary purpose that he went dumpster diving into 20 tons of garbage. Thankfully, the man was aided at his local garbage transfer station by their team and an excavator. Luckily, there was an identifying item that assisted the men in finding the correct garbage bag out of those 20 tons of trash. The identifying item was a celery stalk. There had been celery in the trash bag the man had disposed of and one bag was seen with a stalk protruding from it. The poor husband sifted through the bag and stated that the ring was not there. However, an employee said, "No, there's a couple little pieces left". The employee then pulled a napkin out of the bottom of the bag and lo-and-behold, within that crumpled, cloaking capsule, lay the ring that the husband had placed on his bride's finger, years before. Without a doubt, unexpected treasures can be found by dumpster diving, but old celery leading a person to a treasure such as a lost wedding ring, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Glenn Miller's Death

In‌ December, on the 15th, in 1944, Major Alton Glenn Miller was declared dead after having gone MIA during a military flight over the English Channel. The trombone playing composer, conductor and American big band founder is most famously recognized for music synonymous with the "Big Band Era" of the 1930s and 40s. Glenn Miller and His Orchestra was an American band he formed with other musicians in 1938. His music has come to be known as the soundtrack of the World War II era as well as the 'Swing Dance' generation. Miller began professionally recording music in New York City in the 1920s. Over the years his music writing skills evolved, as did the members of his orchestra. After signing with Bluebird Records, Miller's band struck enormous success playing the Glen Island Casino on the north shore of Long Island Sound in New Rochelle, New York. Glenn Miller's chart topping success in such a short period of time has rarely been matched. Cue "In The Mood"...

Lehmann House Bed & Breakfast

The Lehmann House Bed and Breakfast is located at No. 10 Benton Place in St. Louis, Missouri. This is in the historic Lafayette Square neighborhood. The home has been the residence for a couple of prominent families in St. Louis and then fell into a bit of disrepair as it served as a rental property. In the 1990s it was restored and turned into a bed and breakfast and continues to be that today. This not only hosts tourists to the city, but also a couple of ghosts and they embrace their haunted reputation. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of the Lehmann House Bed and breakfast.

Lafayette Square is St. Louis' oldest historic district. The Gateway Arch is within walking distance and downtown St. Louis is just three blocks north. There are a number of Victorian homes here and a walk through this neighborhood stuns the architectural and historical senses. The first thing that catches the eye are the colors of hue. They are abundantly rich in greens, purples and blues. Better Homes and Gardens named this neighborhood as one of the nation’s 12 prettiest painted places in 2012. And then there is the architecture, which features mainly Second Empire styling with arched doorways and windows and mansard roofs and ornate cornices. There are also homes designed with Germanic influence and Italianate style. Lafayette Park is the anchor to this urban oasis and was dedicated in 1851, making it the oldest urban park west of the Mississippi. Initially it was part of St. Louis Commons and was set aside as Lafayette Square, later changing to its current name. The name Lafayette is in honor of the Marquis de La Fayette. The commons was a place for livestock grazing and criminals. Thieves used the cover to rob travelers. Turning this into a park and selling off lots around it, not only drove out the crime, but made this an affluent area. Homes started going up in the early 1850s and continued through the 1880s. The Daily Democrat wrote on June 27, 1870, "In looking about the city and noting its improvements, we have been struck with the great progress attained in the vicinity of Lafayette Park. Within two years some of the finest residences in the city have been erected and the work is still going on. The beauty of the grounds, the elevation above the city, the character of the buildings, the beautiful shade trees, wide streets, and accessibility to the city by two lines of horse cars, the restrictions (by Statute) upon the erection of objectionable buildings or the carrying on of objectionable business, all combined should make this quarter the most desirable in the city for residence." And then came the tornado of 1896.

This came to be known as the Great Cyclone of 1896. The twister made its way across Shaw's Gardens and then headed up toward Compton Heights and then to Jefferson Avenue, which borders the Lafayette Park neighborhood. This neighborhood was hit harder than anywhere else in St. Louis with nearly every house losing its roof. Some houses lost their second floors and walls were blown out. The neighborhood was on a hill, so it had no protection. The tornado almost seemed to come to a stop right in the middle of the area and then moved on to the Scullin Power Plant. It destroyed the South Side Racetrack and ravaged the streetcar line. Then the twister hit the park measuring three quarters of a mile wide and splintered trees. By the time the storm had passed, most homes were damaged beyond repair. The home of cotton magnate Jerome Hill had huge gaps in the walls, no roof and all the windows were blown out. The Alexander Selkirk home was gone, the Soderer Home was nearly gone and the carriage house was destroyed and had piled on top of the horse and driver and the John Endres home was unlivable. The John Bene home had fallen on Mrs. Bene and the couples two sons. Efforts were made quickly to save them as a fire started in the rubble, but Mrs. Bene wouldn't allow herself to be pulled to safety until her children were saved. One child burned to death, but the other was saved with bad burns. Mrs. Bene was then saved with burns and bruises.

Some homes were rebuilt while others were repaired. The Great Depression and World War II relocation affected the neighborhood after the destruction of the tornado and many of the once grand homes became apartment buildings. The neighborhood deteriorated until the 1950s, becoming a haven for crime. Then people started to buy the old homes and renovate them through to the 1970s and the Gilded Age was reborn in the neighborhood. It was during the renovations of the 1970s that ghost stories started to be told about homes in the neighborhood. The Soderer House had lost its coachman, William Taylor. He had been hiding in the cellar with the family, but the cries of Bess the Horse brought him out of his safety net. He ran to the barn for her even though Mr. Soderer told him to stay. The roof collapsed as Taylor attempted to pull the animal out of the barn. Apartments were built on the foundation of the stable and people who moved into the building started complaining about eerie sounds from within the walls. The noises usually came when there were thunderstorms. People would hear a horse crying and horse hooves beating on the ground. Hopefully, this is just residual energy. 

In the 1970s, the Blair-Hughes Mansion was condemned but a hardy soul named Timothy Conley bought the house and set about restoring it. This had been a boarding house for nearly 70 years and was full of trash. This was originally owned by President Lincoln's Postmaster General Montgomery Blair. He had a special ceiling designed for the drawing room and it took Conley a year to restore the ceiling to its former pale blue and stark white bas relief with gold leaf embellishments. Hidden away in the walls were original 16-foot pocket doors. There was also gorgeous walnut woodwork beneath piles of paint and a parquet pegged floor beneath layers of linoleum. The restoration took two years and during that time, Conley seemed to awaken a ghost. This spirit was experienced by people who lived in the boarding house. They heard strange noises and felt cold spots and heard disembodied footsteps on the third floor. No one could live on the floor for more than one day. Likewise, Conley would heard loud bangs coming from the third floor. Every time he would check to see if someone broke in, he would find no one on that floor. On another occasion, he found a piece of furniture that took four men to move, sitting in the middle of a room on the third floor.

So that was the history of this neighborhood, but now we want to focus on one particular house. Edward S. Rowse and his wife Ann Eliza had the Lehmann House built in 1892 by the Peabody & Stearns architectural firm. Initially the house was to cost $25,000 to complete, but just as is the case today, the house went way over budget costing $50,000. That would be two million in today's dollars. The mansion was 10,000 square feet and was designed in the Romanesque Revival architectural style. Rowse was a financier and served on the city council in St. Louis. He also served on the board at Washington University. He had a prolonged illness believed to be stomach cancer and that eventually took his life and he died in his bedroom in the house. Rowse had barely been in the house for a year. He was buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery. Eliza had died before him and was already buried there.

The next owner of the house was Frederick William Lehmann and this is who the house is named for. He was a prominent lawyer and politician who served as the 13th Solicitor General of the United States under President William Howard Taft from 1910 to 1912. Lehmann was a great orator and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. once said of Lehmann that he was so persuasive "I don't dare decide against Lehmann. You feel as though you're ruling against God." In 1912, Lehmann returned to St. Louis where he had moved in 1890 and set up a law practice with his sons. He was involved in some important cases. One established the right of the Associated Press to news as intellectual property. He also represented the Coca Cola Company and preserved their right to continue to use Coca in their name after they were sued for fraud since actual cocaine had been removed from the cola. Lehmann opposed prohibition and pushed to have investment banks separated from commercial banks as investments are risky while commercial banking is supposed to protect money. And he was very important to St. Louis as he drafted the charter for the city in 1909 under which the city continues to run. He was a bibliophile and collected rare books and author Henry James visited him at the Lehmann House. Lehmann died in 1931 at the age of 78 and he was buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery.

Marie and Michael Davies bought the house in 1992. Marie owned the home twice in her lifetime. The first time, she purchased it with a college friend who was experienced in house renovation. They owned the property for two years. They sold it and made triple their investment. But something about the house was ingrained in Marie. She couldn't stop thinking about the house. In the eight years that followed, she got married, had kids and opened up a bed and breakfast in Lafayette Square. That house was too small for the growing family and Marie knew that the Lehmann House was being rented out.They asked the landlord if he would sell and he agreed. They turned the rental home into the Lehmann House Bed and Breakfast.

The bed and breakfast has seven rooms today: The Presidents' Room, Nora's Room, Frederick's Room, The John Stark Room, The World's Fair Room, The Judge Sears Room and The Maid's Room. Nora's Room is named for Lehmann's wife and was the master bedroom featuring maple floors and cherry woodwork. This has a private bath with the original marble sink. The John Stark Room is named for one of the Lehmann sons and features Douglas fir woodwork and maple floors. Lehmann had been on the Board of Directors for the 1904 World's Fair and that is the inspiration behind that room's name. The Lehmann's had two live-in maids and that is the inspiration behind that room and is located in what had been the servant's quarters of the house.

Neat story about the Maids Room: "It was early in the renovations of Lehmann house, the spring of 1993. We were scrambling to open by July 1st. We had determined that the two rooms easiest to open would be the Presidents' Room and the Maids' Room. We ran into a problem in the Maids’ Room.- We could tell that the floor was less than sound under the questionable carpet. We decided to rip up the carpet--grungy at best-- and explore the floor issue. What we found were several rotten boards that caved when stepped on. We ripped them up, went off to buy new, nicer carpeting, some floor boards, returning ready to fix the floor--July 1st was looming. As we began, we heard a faint meow. As illogical as it seemed it was coming from the hole in the floor. A minute later, a louder meow escaped the hole in the floor. Nervously, I reached in as far as I could grasp and found a cat! Clutching her (luckily she had a very slim body), as gently as I could, I pulled her all the way out. As I looked down, sunlight glinted on something I hadn't noticed before. I wiped away the floor grunge to discover a butter knife, what turned out to be a sterling silver butter knife! Guests who have stayed will recognize it as the butter knife on the table each morning. After a bit of research, I discovered the pattern to be made by Gorham, and offered initially in 1901, when the Lehmanns lived here. We surmised that perhaps at least one of their servants had hidden a valuable "souvenir", forgotten, to be found by me 90 years later! Alas, when completely refinishing the floor in full three years ago, I personally shoveled out all of the debris, but there was no more silver to be found." 

The Bed and Breakfast has made a top ten list of most haunted places in Missouri. First owner Edward Rowse is definitely thought to be here. A woman's voice has been caught in EVPs. Shadow figures have been seen throughout the house. There are three rooms that have the most activity: Presidents' Room, Judge Sears Room and Nora's Room. One couple who stayed in Nora's Room wrote, "We heard that Nora's Room was the most active room, so reserved it. We sat in the dark to see what would happen. We were not disappointed! After about 30 minutes, three orbs shot across the room, one after the other. We slept with the bathroom light on after that!" A woman named Barb who stayed in 2022 said, "The first night we stayed, I felt like someone was sitting in the chair by the window, staring at me. Then a rush of emotion across me and I started crying. What an experience!"

Marie has experienced a lot of unexplained things in the time that she has owned the house. During the first ownership, Marie had a neighbor named Cindy who wanted to come over and see the floors that had just been newly refinished. Marie invited her to come over and have some wine. She writes, "Just as we began chatting, we both heard the same noise above us, both looking up as we did. Then Cindy asked, 'What was that?' After a moment's thought, I said, 'It sounded like a wagon being rolled across the floor.' Cindy said, 'I thought we were alone, I thought all of the workers went home.' Marie replied, 'We are. They did. And by the way, the floor above us is carpeted.' Cindy jumps up, announcing, 'I have to go home!' Marie replied, 'No you don't! Here grab a poker and let's go investigate.' Reluctantly, she accompanied me up to the room that's now named Nora's Room. We slowly opened the door, flipping on the lights and saw nothing. The three windows were still closed. Nothing in the room was disturbed. No one was there. I reluctantly let her leave and slept with the lights on that night."

Many of those early experiences for Marie were audio. Another experience was explained as, "On another evening, in the house alone, while on the second floor, I heard what I thought was someone in the house. I ran into the turret bedroom, the only room I could lock from the inside. I went to the windows hoping to get someone’s attention from the outside. After awhile, a police car came onto the street, but no amount of effort on my part got their attention. After maybe an hour, I was more bored than scared and went to investigate, poker in hand. Again—nothing! All of the exterior doors were locked from the inside, windows all tightly closed, no one there."

When Marie and Michael made the home theirs, they spent fourteen months renovating and on many occasions, Marie was there alone. She would take her two dogs with her and one of them was always resistant to going into certain rooms. One time, she dragged this dog into the library as he dug his heels in. When she finally released his lead, he bolted from the room. Later, Marie learned that an owner had died in the library in 1980. The parlor is pretty active as well. Marie shared an experience about this room when she doing renovations, "The only light in the parlor at that time was a wall sconce, all the way in the back, on the left, inside the turret. Straight away I noticed when going into that room a presence in the middle of the room, as if there were people sitting on either side of a coffee table. Only the room was completely empty—we hadn’t moved in yet. The presence was so strong, I couldn’t bring myself to walk through the room to get to the light switch, but rather walked cat-like around the edges of the room, quickly, batting at the light switch and bolting from the room."

On another occasion, the house needed some plumbing work before the grand opening. Marie writes, "Then one Saturday, I was over at the house to meet the plumber, Bud. He had to make a phone call so I took the moment to pop in the restroom. As I was washing up, I heard the very distinct sound of a man wearing hard soled shoes walking down the 2nd floor hallway. I ran out to alert Bud there was someone in the house but he had heard it too. We raced upstairs to check it out, but there was nothing, no one, no where. That’s when I conceded that we indeed had a ghost and began referring to him as the first owner, Edward."

The two most profound experiences for Marie came on two different nights. One night she was awakened from her slumber and saw a man standing at the end of her bed. She had seen a couple of pictures of Edward Rowse and she recognized this man as the spirit of Rowse. A few nights later she was awakened from her sleep again and this time there wasn't just a male figure at the end of her bed, but also a female figure. She recognized the woman as Ann Eliza. 

The Lafayette Park neighborhood is a beautiful historic neighborhood that has seen some tragedy that has spawned some spirits. The Lehmann House seems to be home to a couple of spirits as well. Is the Lehmann House Bed and Breakfast haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 438 - Glore Psychiatric Musem

Moment in Oddity - The Wheel Bug (Suggested by Jannae McCabe)

There's an insect known as the wheel bug. It's found in Florida but is also known to be found from Rhode Island to California and further south into Mexico and Guatemala. This insect is part of the assassin bug family and measures 1 to 1 1/4 inches long. This insect is a dark, robust creature with long legs and antennae, a stout beak, large eyes on a slim head, and a prominent thoracic, semicircular crest that resembles a cogwheel. As steampunk fans, this insect caught our eye with its cogwheel feature immediately! These are largely considered beneficial insects as they prey upon many garden pests that harm crops and blooms, although they have also been known to prey upon bees and ladybugs and sometimes are cannibalistic. Interestingly, some brave souls have been known to keep these specimens as pets, however be forewarned, a bite from these little buggars has been compared to being more painful than a bee or wasp sting. But those who enjoy this insect state that once adapted, they are very unlikely to bite if handled gently. Although these insects can give many gardeners the creepy crawlies, the only insect species in the United States that sports a cogwheel as part of it's exoskeleton, certainly makes it odd.

This Month in History - Edison Patented the Electrographic Vote Recorder

In the the month of June, on the 1st, in 1869, Thomas Edison patented the Electrographic Vote Recorder. This invention was registered with patent #90,646 and was meant to be a voting machine for Congress. Legislative bodies would be able to record their votes accurately and instantaneously with this invention. Unfortunately, his creation stirred little interest and was never manufactured. This was the FIRST of Edison's 1,093 US patents. Some of Edison's most famous patents are the light bulb, phonograph, motion picture camera, and storage battery. He meticulously recorded his work in 4,000 notebooks to protect his intellectual property, but also with hopes to influence generations of inventors. Despite the lackluster interest in his vote recorder, Thomas Edison went on to be one of the most inspiring inventors of all time.

Glore Psychiatric Museum

The term asylum means refuge and that is what lunatic asylums were meant to be, places of safety for those experiencing various forms of mental illness. But as we have found, very few asylums did more than house the mentally ill and use them as guinea pigs for various forms of torture. That is why so many of them have spiritual residue. The Glore Psychiatric Museum in St. Joseph, Missouri is a location that documents both in words and visual recreations, what life in an asylum was like for many people. Objects from many former asylums have become part of the collection and possibly have brought along attachments. Join us as we discuss the history of the former asylum that was here, the history of asylum treatments and the hauntings involved!

The rise of asylums began in Europe in the 17th century. Treatment of the mentally ill before this time was horrendous. The Age of Reason should have brought a time of better care for those suffering from mental illness, but that anything but the case. Rather than being places of refuge and care, asylums became like human zoos, places to store those not fit for society and observe their odd behavior. Bethlehem Royal Hospital was the earliest official mental asylum, opening their doors in 1247 in London. In later years, the asylum opened up their doors and charged for public viewings. Why take a stroll through the park when you can walk through the local asylum and tease the patients? Bethlehem Royal Hospital charged two pennies each for this kind of access. The doors leading into these areas were nicknamed the Penny Gates. And while it is horrifying to think people were walking through these places unsupervised, imagine what happened when the public had no access and asylums could do what they wanted unfettered with no public oversight.

Francis Fauquier was the Royal Governor of Virginia in 1758 and in 1766, he called on the House of Burgesses to establish a public hospital for confining and treating people “deprived of their reason…a poor unhappy set of people who are deprived of their senses and wander about the countryside, terrifying the rest of their fellow creatures.” The House of Burgesses agreed that a place needed to be built. The first public hospital for the mentally ill in America opened in October 1773 in Williamsburg, Virginia. And asylums continued to open throughout the United States. The Missouri General Assembly approved $200,000 for the creation of a second asylum in the state in 1872. They chose the city of Saint Joseph as the site for the State Lunatic Asylum No. 2, which opened on November 9, 1874. The original plan was a Kirkbride building, that would house 275 patients in 32 dormitories in 76 individual rooms, but the hospital actually started with 25 patients. Thomas Kirkbride had designed these plans for asylums to provide healing through architecture with lots of light. The wings were staggered to allow sunlight into all areas.

The first superintendent was Dr. George C. Catlett who had been a medical purveyor for the Confederate Army and oversaw the treatment of soldiers for several years. He wrote of the hospital that they were “taking it from mere name, bare walls, untenanted and unfurnished halls into a systematically arranged operating institution prepared to take its position in the benign firmament with its sister associates, and to be consecrated for all time to the noble work of reviving hope in the human heart and dispelling the portentous clouds that envelope and penetrate the intellects of minds diseased.”

Two years after opening, the asylum had 293 patients. This was on the route out west and families occasionally dropped off "problem" family members along the way. A new wing was added at this time and this was for more violent patients. This brought 120 more beds, which were eventually increased to 250 beds. A fire damaged much of the original Kirkbride building in 1879, but no one was killed thanks to the efforts of the staff. A new hospital building was constructed near the burned shell of the former asylum and the new asylum was opened in 1880. This new building could house more patients and had a bowling alley, billiards room and gym. And like many of the other asylums in the country, this one was completely self-sufficient with its own livestock and crops on a farm, a slaughterhouse, poultry house and greenhouse. They only needed to purchase sugar and salt. 

Dr. Charles Woodson became the new superintendent in 1890 and he brought some reforms with him. He asked to have a separate hospital building to be built for patients with contagious diseases. A Typhoid outbreak in 1893 was kept at a minimum because of this action. Woodson also was behind the building of a power plant on the property and getting a proper sewage system. He also installed pipes with small holes around the porch and when the weather was warm, staff would run water through them to produce artificial rain, which helped to calm the patients. This was a type of hydrotherapy. In 1899, the name was changed to the St. Joseph State Hospital. This took away the terms lunatic and asylum. Dr. Woodson would move on in 1907 and Dr. W.F. Kuhn came on board and he brought with him an exercise regiment. All patients were required to walk a mile every day. He also started staffing the men's wards with women, which was considered controversial at the time, but proved to be brilliant because the male patients were better behaved and more well-groomed with the women around. Kuhn also implemented a non-restraint policy.

The farm expanded under Dr. Kuhn's watch and patients started making things like furniture that could be sold to help raise money for the operations of the hospital. As the decades passed, the asylum became more crowded. Getting enough staff was always hard and became even harder during the World Wars when staff joined the military. The Red Cross Gray Ladies were brought in to help with the under staffing, but there were never enough beds or staff. After World War II, there were 2,485 patients in a mental hospital that was meant to serve far fewer people and the staff turnover was very high. This led to a series of experimental treatments being tried on patients, including lobotomies. Dr. Walter Freeman arrived at the St. Joseph Mental Hospital on July 8, 1949. That day, Freeman performed 10 lobotomies in three hours and the local paper reported that this gave patients hope that they could return back to their homes and their lives. As we know, lobotomies were not a good thing. Dr. Willis McCann came to the hospital in the 1950s and this era would end the labor work for patients. Most would be left to wander the halls or stare at TVs all day long. Tranquilizing drugs would be used to keep patients even. Climate control would come to the hospital.

Towards the end of the 1950s, a Dr. George Glore came to the hospital. He eventually became the director and in 1967, he started a little museum a ward of the St. Joseph State Hospital. This became the Glore Psychiatric Museum and was an extensive collection of implements used in the care of psychological disorders dating all the way back to the 16th century and carrying up to the 19th century. Glore spent most of his 41-year career with the Missouri Department of Mental Health gathering his collection. He retired in the 1990s. Most patients had been released by the early 1990s. In 1993, the Renz Correctional Farm was damaged in a flood and the 150 inmates were brought here temporarily. But the move proved to be permanent. In 1994, Missouri approved a bond to allow the asylum to be converted into a jail and today it houses around 600 inmates mostly serving time for drug charges called the Western Reception Diagnostic and Correctional Center. The Glore Psychiatric Museum was moved into another building on the property. The rest of the patients were moved to a new facility in 1997 that is across the street from the original campus and was named Northwest Missouri Psychiatric Rehabilitation.

The Psychiatric Museum documents the times when patients were kept busy with menial tasks like sewing, cooking and farming. But they also got to hold dances, play croquet and board games and exercise on gymnastic equipment. The museum displays many artifacts from the mental hospital that include uniforms, medical equipment, artwork and photographs. One exhibit tells the story of a man who spent 72 years as a patient in the hospital. There is another exhibit featuring thousands of empty cigarette packs in a cage. Apparently, a nurse had told a patient that empty cigarette packs could be redeemed for a new wheelchair, so he saved them even though the nurse had been lying. The staff did eventually get him a new wheelchair for his efforts, which came to 100,000 packs. Another exhibit has an old TV stuffed full of 525 written notes. A patient thought he could communicate with the people on TV through these notes. A more disturbing display is a stomach contents one. A patient was suffering from pica and liked to swallow nails and other objects. This patient ended up swallowing 1,400 metal objects, including nails, screws, pins, bottle caps, bolts and buttons. She died on the operating table when the items were being removed. Someone arranged the objects into what looks like an ancient sculpture of a bursting sun. Visitors can even buy a postcard featuring this uh "sculpture."

Things were not as bad here at the State Hospital No. 2 as they were in other asylums. The museum reveals how patients who weren't docile were treated throughout the years. Those that were harder to maintain were locked away from the public and restrained and basically tortured in a variety of ways. Chains, Strait jackets, cages and Utica cribs were used. Utica cribs were popular in asylums during the latter half of the 19th century. The Utica Crib was invented in 1845 by Dr. M.H. Aubanel, who worked at the Marseilles Lunatic Asylum, and was introduced at the New York State Lunatic Asylum at Utica in 1846 by the first Medical Superintendent there, Dr. Amariah Brigham. This device was archaic at best and torture at worst. Different institutions designed different cribs, but they all basically were coffin-sized, enclosed boxes with wood slats or metal screening that latched closed. The term crib was used because they resembled cribs, but in a much narrower design. A patient could only lie flat inside. Superintendents that approved the use of the contraptions defended them by pointing out that all varieties of restraints were used on patients and this was just another form. They also pointed out that violent patients would become calm and stop acting out after hours of confinement in the crib. As the years progressed, there was enough of an outcry that the lids were removed from many of the cribs. 

Dr. William A. Hammond fought to remove all mechanical restraints from asylums. He wrote of the Utica crib, “It is a bed like a child’s crib, with slatted sides, eighteen inches deep, six feet long and three feet wide. It has a slatted lid which shuts with a spring lock. A lunatic put in it can barely turn over. There is not as much space between the patient’s head and the lid as if he were in a coffin. He is kept in the crib at the will of an attendant, the key being in the possession of the latter and not of a physician. Patients have sometimes died in these cribs. DR. MYCERT, who is an authority, says the crib is a most barbarous and unscientific instrument because there is already a tendency to a determination of blood to the brain in excited forms of insanity which is increased by the horizontal position in the crib and the struggles of the patient. The crib was introduced by the superintendent of the Utica asylum. The padded room could always be substituted for the crib.”

This was a difficult topic. Some patients needed some kind of restraint to protect them, especially at night. The crib was thought to be better than bed restraints. Perhaps it would not have been as objectionable if it were bigger, but there were doctors who thought that would make patients more able to get hurt. For some patients, the Utica crib might have been helpful for them, but as is the case with any kind of treatment or device, the possibility of abuse can be real trouble. Ten minutes in a Utica bed might be fine, but hours? Many patients were left for hours and even days like this. The Utica crib was far from being the worst implement used on patients in asylums however. 

There was the "Bath of Surprise", which was a large bathtub or tank with a platform in the middle that the patient would lie down upon. This platform could easily be submerged in the water, which was ice cold. The "Giant Patient Treadmill" was like a human-sized hamster wheel made of wood. Patients were said to be able to walk their worries away, but again, this was abused for patients who were not able to remain still. The wheel was used to exhaust them with exercise. There was the "Fever Cabinet" that was lined with rows of high wattage light bulbs, so the patient's body temperature could be raised and kill viruses like syphilis. The "Lunatic Box" was a more extreme form of the Utica bed. This was an upright, coffin-like box in which patients were confined. The "Tranquilizer Chair" was the worst form of confinement. This looked similar to an old electric chair with patients having the hands and feet locked into restraints and then a hood was put over their head. This chair had a built in portable toilet, which seems to indicate that a patient would be left in this chair for hours most probably naked. Benjamin Rush, the "Father of American Psychiatry," designed this chair. And then there were the rectal dilators...

There was a morgue on site at the St. Joseph Mental Hospital and many patients were buried on the grounds. The first burial took place on December 12, 1874 and the last burial was in October 1949. The cemetery probably has 2,000 burials, but only several hundred headstones. Did some of the patients decide to stay on in the afterlife. Are there attachments to some of the artifacts within the museum? No one knows for sure the answers, but many people have experienced strange things in the museum. The building itself had once been the surgery building, so people did die here and lobotomies were given here. Dr. Glore himself claimed to experience strange things in his museum. The apparition of a man has been seen near the elevators and he usually breaks into a run and screams. Museum employees, volunteers, and visitors all claim to here disembodied screaming throughout the building. Bursts of cold air have been felt.

The disembodied laughing of children is heard as well as the sound of crying and whimpering. The soft voice of a woman has been heard asking for help. The spirit of an elderly man is seen walking the hallways and a well-dressed male apparition is seen on the third floor. Sensitive visitors claim to feel intense feelings of despair. The basement is said to be the most haunted part of the building. We've heard that the freezers in the morgue are still kept cold. Which gives it an added creep factor. A male apparition down here asks visitors what they are doing. The sound of a gurney is heard down here as well. The motion detector in the basement goes nuts at random times when no one is supposed to be in the basement. EVP has caught a man screaming "Get out!"

Troy Taylor of American Hauntings visited the museum with a small group of people one night and he walked away from the group to visit a Civil War medical display. He heard disembodied footsteps coming down the hallway. It sounded like they were coming from someone wearing hard-soled shoes. Troy glanced behind him and saw that the corridor was completely empty. The footsteps continued to come towards him and then walked past him and continued into the darkness down the hallway. Three women in the group passed a room with the door closed and they heard voices inside. They assumed some other members of the group were investigating in there, so they kept going, but one of the women went back just to verify that someone was in the room and when she opened the door, she found no one in the room. Troy recounts the experiences of a woman named Becky Ray in his book Cabinet of Curiosities 3. She had heard knocks on the third floor. She said, "While it may have been coincidence, the knocking corresponded with not only our requests for knocks, but how many knocks. We tracked the source of the sound down to a door that was locked. At this point, we all took turns listening at the door and several of us heard what sounded like a child's voice coming from the other side." A staff member unlocked the door and the office behind was completely empty.

Glore Psychiatric Museum has been named one of the "Top 50 Most Unique Museums" in the country and quite possibly it could also be one of the most haunted. Is the Glore Psychiatric Hospital haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 436 - Belvoir Winery

Moment in Oddity - The Armageddon Highway

Inside the Angeles National Forest, in the San Gabriel Mountains above the city of Azusa in California, one will find the Shoemaker Canyon Road. Sounds like an inocuous road until you hear its nickname: The Armageddon Road. This is a road that was never finished. Construction began during the early part of the Cold War in the 1950s and was meant to give the citizens of Los Angeles an escape route if there was ever a nuclear attack. What has been left behind are two abandoned long tunnels that measure less than 4.5 miles long. The project was left undone when funds just ran out. People can still drive the first 1.8 miles of Armageddon Highway and then walk or mountain-bike the remaining graded-dirt section that ends at the pair of tunnels. The tunnels are very dark so be careful if you visit. An incomplete highway built through a mountain that was meant to escape a nuclear Armageddon, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Battle of the Coral Sea

In the month of May, on the 3rd, in 1942, the Battle of the Coral Sea begins. The four-day battle between American and Japanese forces was the first air-naval battle in history. Allied forces had intercepted a message that revealed that the Japanese were planning to invade Port Moresby in southeast New Guinea. This would give Japan control of the Coral Sea. The Japanese were surprised by an attack of American planes from aircraft carriers when they entered the area. Both sides would suffer losses with the Japanese losing 70 warplanes and America lost 66, but the victory went to the Allies because the Japanese were left without enough planes to carry out the invasion on Port Morseby. This strategic victory would also help the Allies in the future Battle of Midway. That battle would end Japan's advance and lead to the final surrender of Japan. The greatest lost for the Allied side was the USS Lexington. Two hundred sixteen crewman died when the aircraft carrier was destroyed. We covered the USS Lexington in Ep. 114.

Belvoir Winery (Suggested by: Seth Ackerley)

There are three historic buildings that still stand on the property that is now home to the Belvoir Winery in Liberty, Missouri. The buildings were originally built as the Odd Fellows Home and served as an orphanage, a nursing home, a hospital and now the winery. Claims of unexplained activity started in the 1950s and the paranormal activity has only ramped up over the years. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of the Belvoir Winery!

Liberty, Missouri is the second oldest incorporated town west of the Mississippi and the name was inspired by one of the unalienable rights in the US Constitution. Settlers started arriving in the early 1800s and the town was officially incorporated in 1829. Liberty was considered the jumping off point for people wanting to head into the frontier. Westward expansion would launch from here and Liberty Landing became an important dock. Fun fact: Steamboats fired a cannon before they arrived at the dock to give the town a head's up. Joseph Smith was in jail here during the winter of 1839 after the Mormon War.

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows, IOOF, is one of the oldest and largest fraternal orders in America. They are also a secret society and have there own set of rituals. The group was formed in the United States in 1819, but originally got started in Europe in the 18th century. They commit themselves to elevating the character of the person and embracing diversity. The command of IOOF is to "visit the sick, relieve the distressed, bury the dead and educate the orphan" and they dedicated themselves to helping those less fortunate. They built various homes around the country for orphans, widows and the elderly and one of these places was Liberty, Missouri. The IOOF got started in 1835 and by the end of the century they had built their Odd Fellows Home on a plot of 240 acres. The process got started in 1883 with the first petition to establish a state Odd Fellows Home. Bids would be taken starting in 1894 to locate a site and Liberty was selected on the 4th ballot. It probably helped that Liberty offered $17,000 in money and the Liberty School Board offered free tuition to Liberty High School for children who would be living at the orphanage. 

The IOOF were basically going to upgrade the almshouse, which had been popular in the country previous to this time. These buildings would be more modern and have heating and plumbing. The first structure built here didn't last long. The pipes had frozen one winter and in an attempt to unthaw the pipes, the entire building was burned down. The order put out a call to architects who could design fireproof buildings. One of these architects was William B. Ittner who specialized in the Jacobethan Revival architectural style. This is a unique style that mixes Renaissance Revival with Elizabethan and features high chimneys, cusped Tudor arches, steep roof gables  and terra-cotta brickwork. For those of you who have watched Downton Abbey, Highclere Castle is an example of this style. Something else that Ittner specialized in was designing schools. His firm had designed hundreds of schools in 25 states. He designed the main Administration Building. J.H. Felt & Co. of Kansas City designed the School Building in 1904 in the same style as Ittner's building. That was eventually torn down in the early 1950s. Architect E.C. Eckle built the Old Folks Pavilion in 1907. The Old Hospital was designed by Samuel M. Hitt of Kansas City and built in 1923. Both of these buildings also had similar styling to the Jacobethan Revival style.

So there were four buildings on the property by the 1920s: the main building -which served as the orphanage - an old folks home, a hospital and the school building. A bunker would be added that served as a storm shelter and was one of the favorite places for the kids to play. There was also a farm on the property and a cemetery. The farm produced really well and as an example, in 1901 it produced 838 bushels of oats, 2,000 bushels of corn, 500 bushels of Irish potatoes, 3 tons of hay, 7,863 gallons of milk, 1,714 Ibs. of butter, and 325 dozen eggs. Most of the food was kept on site for feeding the residents. For the order, these types of homes provided a type of health and life insurance. There was a promise of care for yourself and your loved ones. The Old Hospital was built in 1923 on the north side of the property. Unbelievably, at that time, this was the only hospital in Liberty. And even more unbelievably, this only choice for a hospital was pretty much outdated from the moment it opened with narrow doors and hallways. Equipment and patient beds couldn't be moved through them.

The property started out as kid heavy, but as the years progressed there were more adults and by 1951, there were no more children. But when the kids were there, they would often perform plays and give recitals for their elderly neighbors. The nursing home was built in 1955. As part of the complete care at the Odd Fellows Complex, burial was provided, along with a headstone. Most of the elderly had no other arrangements, so they were buried at the cemetery on the property. Any current IOOF members could be buried in this cemetery as well. They didn't have to live on the property for that. In total, 10,000 people died on the property, but only 600 people are buried here. Just outside the cemetery gate sits a memorial dedicated to Liberty IOOF members who were killed in World War II.

Jesse Leimkuehler's family bought the property, which only has 36 acres now, in the late 1990s. They started with refurbishing the main building and making the first floor their winery. Today, the Belvoir Winery is an inn and a preeminent wedding venue. They are open seven days a week for wine tastings and tours. They host lots of special events, including paranormal investigations and there is enough unexplained stuff going on here to attract Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures and Kindred Spirits to investigate the property on their shows. The inn opened in 2017 with eight rooms and one large bridal suite. In the following two years, sixteen rooms were vacated in the middle of the night due to unexplained activity. Jesse has been here for more than 25 years and in that time he has heard voices, had doors open and close by themselves and seen three apparitions. One of those was a young boy wearing clothes dating to decades ago. He told KMBC, "I looked down at my arm and it had, like, big goose bumps. When they say, like, your hair stands on end, I mean, it's like a comb. It stands directly on end."

Many guests and staff have experienced stuff on the property. A guest named Danny was in the bunker with a group and a woman suggested that they sing "Ring Around the Rosie" and see if they got any interaction. Right after the first line was sung, the group distinctly heard a child's voice sing, "A pocket full of posies." The sound even echoed. A man in black has been seen looking out of the windows of the nursing home building. The inn keeps a log where guests can enter their experiences. Ruthie W. wrote in August of 2018, "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine!" So we put this song on my phone last night, turned off the lights and began to record. Little white orbs danced around the room. They really loved that song. Thanksfully we recorded it so we can share it with friends. This place is magical and we really love coming here. The wine and appetizers are wonderful too!"

Ghost Hunters visited in 2013 and Jesse told the crew that he himself had experienced the sound of children playing on the third floor. He also brought his daughter with him one day and while he was in the ballroom, she wandered down the hall and he heard her say, "Mommy, mommy" and then he heard a female voice say, "Well, hello little one." Jesse went into the hallway to see who his daughter was talking to and there was no one else in the building. A photographer named Brian told Jason that he had left his camera bag in a room on the first floor, which he locked, before he went up to the third floor to look around. When he came back down, he found the door ajar and the stuff in his camera bag had been rearranged as if someone had been going through it. He was the only one in the building at the time. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. 

A woman told the crew that she had a chilling experience in the nursing home. She felt something pressing down on her and she suddenly couldn't move her arms. She could feel them, just wasn't able to move them. She felt that it was something dark and negative. Piano music is heard in the ballroom when no one is in there playing. Amy and Adam were with the Ghost Hunters in 2013 and they heard music playing. Adam sat at the piano and played a few keys and then they heard the piano again, but coming from somewhere else. They did find another piano. Two other people on the team asked the spirits if the upcoming demolition that was coming for the nursing home would result in the dark energies in that building moving to the other buildings. The REM Pod indicated at two different times that this would be the case.

Ghost Adventures visited the winery in 2015. The guys had interference with their equipment and heard disembodied singing of children and a growl. The Ovilus said, "NICK", "SEND", "NICK", "PAULA", "OUT" and "FUNERAL." They also heard knocking and saw a misty apparition. The Spirit Box said, "You take it", "How ya doin", "I murder", "I'm back" and "Several." Zak felt something grab his wrist at one point. Billy conducted an EVP session by himself for two hours and supposedly slipped into a catatonic state while doing that.

Kindred Spirits visited in 2019. At this point, the Nursing Home was still standing and the activity in here had increased, especially in the Morgue. The energy on the whole property seemed to be getting meaner. Women were getting their hair pulled and people were being pushed and pinched. Jesse said that he was in the Old Folks Home with another person and they both saw something down one of the hallways. It looked like somebody had reached out from a room and put their arm around the door frame. And then the spirit peeked out. This was Room 37. They set up cameras in the Nursing Home and totally caught a creepy shadow figure, so they rushed over there to see what was going on. The batteries in their recorder were immediately drained and so they replaced them and Amy took the recorder down to where the shadow figure had been and she left the recorder. They heard an audible voice behind them as they started an EVP session. They also saw a figure climbing along the ceiling in the way a human would not move. Very chilling!

Chip Coffey and John E.L. Tenney joined Adam and Amy. As they all investigated together in the Old Folks Home, Amy was touched on the back. An EVP led them to check out Room 19. They had found out through their research that there was a violent man who had committed suicide in the Old Folks Home and they believed they were speaking with this apparition. They had several names and an EVP verified that this was Fred. And another EVP verified the last name as Lietze. But nothing about this spirit was negative, so they believed that something else was causing the negative experiences guests were having. The group then went to the Nursing Home and the negative activity started manifesting. There was an audible child's voice. Amy and Adam had heard the same voice the night before and they believed it was trying to lead them out of the Nursing Home. Chip felt the entity was low level demonic and after the kids and they captured that weird ceiling crawling thing on the SLS camera.  Amy and Adam got Jesse and his family and employees to help banish this negative thing with positive energy. 

For people who don't know, a skeleton was very much a part of the ODD Fellows rituals. The first one was a member named George and he donated his skeleton to the lodge. Now every skeleton inside an ODD Fellow building is named George. The George that was at Belvoir Winery is still there in a case.

The Belvoir Winery is a beautiful property. This was home for a variety of people through the years. Have the spirits of some of those previous residents decided to stay here? Is Belvoir Winery haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 401 - Haunted Hannibal

Moment in Oddity - Sophia McLachlan Grave (suggested by: Tim McCrimmon)

Sophia McLachlan was a young girl who died in 1879. A plaque erected near her grave in Nova Scotia tells the sad story and odd circumstances around her death, "Sophia aged 14 apprenticed to a Mrs. Trask, dress maker, carrying on a business at what is now the site of 242 Lincoln Street, was accused by her employer of the theft of a princely sum of $10.00. Pleading her innocence Sophia became ill, often observed lying on her sister's grave near here. Sophia's grief was added to by her mother's acceptance of Mrs. Trask's story. Sophia's condition worsened, confining her to her room at what is now the site of 169 Pelham Street. At the insisting of a friend, a doctor was called, but he could not prevent her death. Amid much speculation by members of the community, a coroner's jury was summoned to hold an inquiry into Sophia's death. The unanimous decision for the cause of her death was by 'paralysis of the heart brought on by extreme agitation and peculiar circumstances.' The passing of Sophia was not forgotten and sometime afterwards, Mrs. Trask's son admitted to the theft. Mrs. Trask and her son moved from Lunenburg and no record of their place of residing exists. Sophia's family maintained their residence in Lunenburg where Sophia's father plyed his trade as a shipwright. Those who knew Sophia remembered her as a pretty girl who will not be forgotten." A young teenage girl dying from what was basically ruled a broken heart, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - "Battle of the Sexes" Tennis Match Held

In the month of September, on the 20th, in 1973, the "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match was held and Billie Jean Kong won. The match was held between Billie Jean King, who was the top women's tennis player at the time, and Bobby Riggs, who was a former No. 1 ranked men's tennis player.  King was 29 at the time and Riggs was 55. Riggs was a self-proclaimed male chauvinist and that women couldn't compete against men and that even at his age, he could beat any female player. King took him up on that challenge and the event became a huge media event with over 50 million people viewing worldwide and 30,000 spectators watching in-person at the Houston Astrodome. Riggs road onto the court in a rickshaw pulled by female models and King was carried on a gold litter carried by men dressed as ancient slaves. Howard Cosell reported the match in which King won in straight sets 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. King continued her push for women's rights, which included fair pay and in 1973, the U.S. Open was the first major tennis event to pay both genders the same amount of prize money.

Haunted Hannibal (Suggested by: Christina Orf)

Hannibal, Missouri is known as "America's Hometown" and author Mark Twain helped to put it on the map as this was his boyhood home. This was a quintessential river town with many men traveling here to make their fortune and they did. Many stately homes that were built during its heyday are still around today, some of them are beds and breakfasts that you can book for a stay. And many of these have ghost stories to go with them. Join us as we share the history and haunts of Hannibal, Missouri!

Hannibal was founded using two land grants issued after the mighty earthquake of 1811 destroyed the small town of New Madrid in Missouri and caused the Mississippi River to change course and flow backward for a time. The town was surveyed in 1819 and Moses D. Bates cleared the land and started constructing buildings. Hannibal got its name around 1800 when Spanish surveyor Don Antonio Soulard drew a map of the area. The town had a slow start with only a couple of dozen people arriving to settle in its first decade. By 1860 it was thriving though, particularly with the arrival of the railroads. Lumber would become the top product coming through Hannibal. Logs would be floated down from Minnesota and Wisconsin and sawmills at Hannibal would mill the lumber and then float it south on the river or ship it by rail to the west. Lumber barons would build their mansions in the town.

But what really makes Hannibal a famous place is Mark Twain. He grew up here and based his book "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" on his childhood growing up in the small town. He writes about many of the superstitions and spiritual beliefs of both the white citizens and those of color, some of whom had been slaves. This is also a river town with lots of limestone. We talked about a limestone cave in Hannibal in Ep. 342 that featured Doctor McDowell who put his daughter in a copper tube in that cave. Mark Twain wrote of this, "There is an interesting cave a mile or two below Hannibal. In my time, the person who then owned it turned it into a mausoleum for his daughter, age 14. The body was put into a copper cylinder filled with alcohol and this was suspended in one of the dismal avenues of the cave. The top of the cylinder was removable, and it was a common thing for the baser order of tourists to drag the dead face into view and examine it and comment upon it." Perhaps because of the river and limestone, there are a few haunted places in this town!

LulaBelle's Bed and Breakfast

LulaBelle's Bed and Breakfast had been a fine dining establishment and bed and breakfast located at 111 Bird Street. It is our understanding that this location closed in 2013. This establishment has an infamous history as a brothel that was built in 1917 and run by a madame who had arrived from Chicago. Her name was Sarah Smith and men could not only enjoy the ladies here, they could gamble and drink during Prohibition. Obviously, this business flourished. When Sarah died in 1932, another madame named Bessie Heolscher bought the bordello and refurbished it, decorating with a lavish Spanish motif. Bessie took good care of her girls and paid well. The ladies here were highly sought out because of their discretion. The ladies were respected in the town and the women were happy to spend their money on the finer things.

Things went well until the early 1950s when local church leaders made it their goal to shut down the brothel and it was plagued with many police raids. Eventually, Mike and Pam Ginsberg bought the property and opened it as LulaBelle's Bed and Breakfast and a fine dining restaurant. The upper floor had six rooms with heart-shaped whirlpool bathtubs and queen-sized beds. The Ginsbergs expanded their business by buying two nearby properties. One they named the Painted Lady with two bedrooms and the Main Street Bed and Breakfast that had three rooms. Business was great for a while and people raved about the food at the restaurant, but eventually the economy just proved too hard to keep the establishment open. 

While it was open, there were stories of haunting activity. Guests who stayed on the upper floor claimed to hear disembodied footsteps and voices, to see shadowy and misty forms, to see small balls of light, to have their doors locked and unlocked by something they couldn't see, to be touched and to have furnishings and objects in their rooms moved around. Employees and guests claimed to see a Lady in White as well. One area with a lot of activity was the kitchen. Metal cooking utensils would be moved, equipment would turn on and off by itself, disembodied voices were heard, shadow figures were seen especially out of the corner of the eye and objects were thrown in the kitchen. Spirits have been seen in the mirrors that were in the dining room as well. 

The Paranormal Task Force and a crew from KZZK investigated in October of 2008 and they stayed overnight. They reported on their website, "Some heard the voice of a lady who they could not see while others heard unexplained footsteps. Moving areas of notable temperature decreases were also documented along with intelligent interaction by the unseen with an investigator's electromagnetic field (EMF) meter. One investigator was actually touched by the unseen when something softly stroked his arm with that special cold touch.  A crew member of the KZZK team actually became so frightened that she ran outside the building screaming! Intelligent communication was also received through an experimental device called the Ovilus, which was being field tested by our team at this location. The words "sex" and "pain" were said by this device multiple times. It even said the name of a KZZK crew member when he was near it on more than one occasion. Multiple Class B and C EVP's were captured."

Java Jive Coffee & Tea Shop

Java Jive Coffee & Tea used to be Java Jive and before that it was Haydon Hardware. And that is what our ghost here seems to be connected to, the hardware store. It was named for Percy Haydon who was the owner and described as a man who was a little gruff and never without a cigar in his mouth, but kind. He loved his store, which he had started in 1919. When he passed away, Jerry Adkins took over the reins and he was the first to start experiencing weird events. He was in the restroom one night when he heard someone walking loudly outside of the door. He thought an employee was fooling around and so he thought he would surprise them by jumping out of the door. He swung the door open and found that there was no one near the restroom. Adkins was closing up one evening with an employee when they heard a really loud sneeze. They looked at each other and realized that neither of them had sneezed. They checked the store for another person even though they knew they were the only ones there and, of course, they were right.

Employees at Haydon’s Hardware heard disembodied footsteps, particularly on the stairway leading to the ground floor and the lights would turn on and off by themselves. Percy seemed to be a prankster and whenever something would go wrong in the store, employees would blame Percy. One such prank disturbed a female employee when she was closing up one night. Her name was repeatedly whispered in her ear. When Java Jive moved into the space, the haunting activity continued. Those employees heard disembodied footsteps too, but their experiences went beyond just Percy. They heard women talking, the laughter of children and music that seemed to belong in a dance hall or saloon. A woman's crying is heard near the restroom. Baristas claim to have been touched by something they can't see on many occasions. The bell at the front counter rings on its own and an employee heard a male voice yell in her ear. The shadow of a large man has been spotted and Percy was said to have been an overweight man. Another employee had her purse disappear when she stopped by one night after hours. She had set it down while she used the restroom. She and her boyfriend looked everywhere for it and eventually found it in a crevice down in the basement.

Garth Woodside Mansion

The Garth Woodside Mansion was built in 1871 and at the time of our recording in September 2021, it was up for sale for $1.9 million, which is down from its original ask of $2.4 million. This is a beautiful Victorian built in the Second Empire Italianate architectural style with a large wraparound veranda. There were originally six buildings on the property, but two were barns that have been torn down. Three cottages on the property were built in the 2000s and the entire property covers 36 acres. Weddings were also hosted here. The mansion was opened as a bed and breakfast in 1987 with 11 rooms in the main house and five in the three cottages. The larger cottage has two fireplaces and the main house had fourteen. Eighty-five percent of the furnishings are original to the house. The most recent owners were John and Julie.

The mansion is named for John Garth. He is thought to be the inspiration behind the character of Tom Sawyer. He was born to John and Emily Garth in Virginia in 1837. The family moved to Hannibal in 1844 where John's father got into the tobacco business. In Hannibal, John met Helen Kercheval and Samuel Clemens. The group were all students at Mrs. Elizabeth Horr’s school and later at that of J. D. Dawson. They remained friends into their adulthood with John and Helen even getting married on October 18, 1860. They had two children, John David and Annie. John went away to college, but returned to help run the tobacco business with his brother after their father died. When the Civil War broke out, the Garths left for New York and stayed there until 1871 with John making a fortune working in banking and manufacturing.

When the Garths returned to Hannibal, John started several businesses and became vice president of the Farmers and Merchants Bank, eventually becoming the president. The Garths purchased a farm southwest of Hannibal and built their summer home there, dubbing it “Woodside.” They raised and bred shorthorn and Jersey cattle. John got into lumber and other business prospects. They exchanged letters with Clemens and hosted him in their home. John was probably one of the boys who provided Clemens with inspiration for the character Tom Sawyer. When Twain's book "Life on the Mississippi" was released, he sent the Garths a copy and John wrote to Twain, “Thanks for the book. Each and every one at Woodside has enjoyed it greatly.” Twain also had a copy of "Huckleberry Finn" sent to the Garths upon its release. John Garth died in 1899 and Helen died in 1923. Helen was successful in her own right, getting involved in the same businesses as her husband and she was even elected to the board of the Farmers and Merchants Bank in 1910 making her the first woman bank director in Hannibal.

Mark Twain wrote in his Autobiography about Garth’s cigars, “In those days the native cigar was so cheap that a person who could afford anything could afford cigars. Mr. Garth had a great tobacco factory and he also had a small shop in the village for the retail sale of his products. He had one brand of cigars which even poverty itself was able to buy. He had these in stock a good many years and although they looked well enough on the outside, their insides had decayed to dust and would fly out like a puff of vapor when they were broken in two. This brand was very popular on account of its extreme cheapness. Mr. Garth had other brands which were cheap and some that were bad, but the supremacy over them enjoyed by this brand was indicated by its name. It was called ‘Garth’s damndest’. We used to trade old newspapers for that brand.”

Mark Twain seems to have really loved visiting this home because his spirit is said to haunt the place. The room that has been named for him is where his apparition is seen most often. There are eerie orbs of light in there and the smell of pipe smoke.

Garden House Bed and Breakfast

The Garden House Bed and Breakfast is part of Hannibal's Millionaire Row. This is a beautiful example of Queen Anne architecture and the house was built in 1895 by Albert Wells Pettibone Jr. who was heir to the Hannibal Saw Mill Co. and the Hannibal Sash and Co. Tragedy struck early for Albert and he died at the age of twenty-nine. The house was then bought in 1905 by Charles H. Trowbridge who owned the Duffy-Trowbridge Stove Manufacturing Co. The house was inherited by his son Charles Albert who lived in it in the 1920s. Will Griswold who was the founder of a furniture store was the next owner, so you can see that this home passed through many hands. The Garden House B&B opened in 2003 featuring old-fashioned feather beds and hand-sewed comforters. Today it is veteran owned and operated by Chris. This B&B was named by the Today Show as one of the top ten places to sleep with a ghost in America. Apparently they investigated the place themselves, but couldn't get their cameras to work in the attic.

The cool thing about this place is that they embrace their spirits even hanging a picture in the dining room the shows a man sitting at a table and what appears to be the ghost of a boy peeking into the side of the picture with just his face visible. The sounds of sawing are heard coming from the basement and the sound of piano music is heard on the first floor. Disembodied voices are heard throughout the house. A ghost hunter witnessed a shadowy figure walk in front of the television while investigating in 2006. Melissa Sexton was a manager at LaBinnah Bistro and she stayed a few nights at the Garden. She ended up leaving the bed and breakfast after a few nights and found lodging elsewhere because of the experiences she was having. She heard disembodied footsteps and smelled men’s cologne. Melissa had her Siberian Husky with her and he clearly started reacting to things she couldn't see. The final straw for Melissa was when she saw what she decribed as a “translucent figure which scrambled away in the kitchen that seemed to bounce off the walls and then to concentrate itself into a blue dot.” She left the bed and breakfast for other lodgings and soon after, left Hannibal. 

Arif Dagin stayed at the bed and breakfast and helped out the Innkeeper Chris as an assitant from 2006 to 2010. Arif was left one weekend in charge. There was only one guest that first evening and Arif came down the following morning to find the usually fully set dining room completely amiss with silverware scattered all around the tables. He thought the guest had done it. That guest left and there was a new one that evening. Arif came down the following morning to once again find the dining room messed up and he knew it wasn't possible that he had two guests that rude right in a row. This happened on a third morning and Arif was the only person in the house, so he knew at this point that something weird was going on here.

Arif was home alone again in 2007 and he was awakened after midnight by the sound of footsteps stomping around downstairs. He was scared because he thought someone had broken into the house. Arif locked his bedroom door and grabbed a nearby bottle to use as a weapon. He listened as the footsteps came upstairs and went into the room next to his. He summoned his courage and went out into the hallway. The door was unlocked, so he pushed it open and flipped on the light. There was no one there. Arif called out "hello" and then he searched the room. He found no one in the house and so he returned to his room, but soon heard footsteps running down the stairs. He quickly ran to the stiars and heard the footsteps stop halfway down the stairs. There was no one on the stairs. Arif searched the house and when he went to the front door he found that the screen door was still locked from the inside. When Arif told Chris about this experience, Chris said, "You know that’s the ghost."

Someone wrote in 2019, "My wife and I slept in the West Room at the Garden House in Hannibal Missouri both Thursday and Friday nights February 21 and 22, 2019. Thursday night, both of us woke up hearing men in lengthy conversation in low voices downstairs. We were the only guests in the house and Chris, the proprietor assured us he was not in conversation with anyone that evening. My wife also reported to Chris that there was no spoon at her breakfast place-setting Friday morning...just after being told by Chris that it had been a common occurrence for guests to notice missing pieces of flatware the following morning at breakfast. We never felt threatened in this wonderful period mansion and would definitely like to return for another stay at the Garden House."

Rockcliffe Mansion

Rockcliffe Mansion is a gorgeous Gilded Age estate that sits on a limestone bluff overlooking Hannibal. The mansion was built by St. Louis architectural firm Barnett, Haynes & Barnett for lumber baron John J. Cruikshank, Jr. Construction lasted for two years between 1898 and 1900 and the house was done in the Georgian Revival architectural style. The house features double-bricked walls, so this house was built to last. No expense was spared on the interior. Windows featured Louis Comfort Tiffany stained-glass windows and there were also chandeliers by Tiffany. The fireplaces featured South African pink marble and the walls and stairways featured hand-carved and ornate woodwork made from walnut, mahogany and oak with lemonwood sideboards in the Reception Room. The plumbing fixtures were the finest made and the lighting fixtures were custom-made offering power via both gas and electric. Several rooms had gilded wallpaper and the Green Room had the added touches of gold leaf and garlands, lace and velvet drapes and white onyx around the fireplace. The Music Room had a grand piano on each end.

John lived there with his wife and four daughters until his death in 1924 and then it seems that the family moved out and left the house abandoned. This wonderful mansion sat for 43 years with only a caretaker there. Parts of the house were deteriorating until three families bought it to prevent it from being demolished in 1967. These families restored the house and even got many original pieces from one of the Cruikshank daughters. The mansion was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 and is open for tours and runs as a bed and breakfast with thirty rooms. It has passed through many hands through the years. There was Mary and Jerry McAvoy, then Ken and Lisa Marks and then Warren Bittner and Juan Ruiz-Bello of Florida who took over in 2010.

There are several spirits at the mansion. The main one belongs to John Cruikshank who died in the house. He appears as a small man wearing a brown felt hat and a period suit with a goatee and mustache. His ghost is seen all over the mansion and many guests report seeing him standing by the bar in the kitchen on the ground floor and floating through the grand music room. One of the first people to see John's ghost was Mary McAvoy who was caretaker at the mansion from 1993 to 2005. She was two years into the job when she was sleeping alone in a second floor guest room. Her husband had lived at the house too, but he was away on a trip. She heard someone open the door to the servant's entrance and she sat up and looked at the clock. It was 2am. She then heard footsteps walking up the back staircase and heading to John's old room. There was no one else in the mansion when she checked. This routine has happened several times in the house and people figure John is returning to the large canopy bed where he breathed his last breath. Many times tour guides come into the house in the morning and when they check the bed, they find the impression of a person left on the bed they had fluffed the night before.

Another spirit here is said to belong to Mark Twain. This is not an apparition that appears, but rather manifests in the odor of cigar smoke. Guides claim that sometimes they have to leave the room because the scent is so strong. Twain was only at the mansion once and that was in 1902 to deliver his "Farewell to Hannibal" speech. So it seems a bit strange that Twain would haunt this place as he was only there a brief time. And clearly, other people probably smoked cigars in this house. Perhaps this is something residual.

Ken and Lisa Marks have written the book Haunted Hannibal and they purchased Rockcliffe. Their experiences started almost immediately. They were careful to lock all the doors because lots of curious people would stop by the mansion. So they were perplexed when they started hearing doors slamming downstairs when they were on the second floor sleeping. These weren't just regular slams either. They were really loud as though the door was opening as wide as possible and then slamming shut. Other times they would be downstairs and hearing furniture moving upstairs and disembodied footsteps. One of the tour guides told the Marks that she had seen the ghost of John three times. Two times were very brief glimpses, but the third one lingered. John was standing by the pantry and then slowly disappeared and that is how the guide knew this was not a real man.

Lisa tells the following story in Alan Brown's "Ghosts Along the Mississippi River, "We were in the office one night and we heard a crashing sound. It took us twenty minutes of searching to find out what had happened. In the girls' bedroom is a closet containing a lot of dresses. We had placed a vase of artificial flowers on a shelf in the closet. When we walked into the room, we saw where the vase had shattered. But it wasn't like it had just fallen off the shelf in the closet. It fell into the room several feet away from the closet. I picked up the pieces of glass and put them at the base of the oak tree just outside the door, almost like an offering." The Marks have had guests leave in the middle of the night because they were scared by phantom music playing or ghostly footsteps. 

When Alan stayed with his wife Marilyn at Rockcliffe, she had an experience. She got up to use the restroom around 2am. She returned to bed and heard footsteps out in the hallway. The kinds of steps that a child would make or possibly a woman. They were not heavy. And then the doorknob started to rattle. Marilyn decided not to open the door. They had been the only guests at the bed and breakfast and Lisa told them that it wasn't her or Ken either. 

Hannibal has its mysterious caves and historic locations infused with history. Many think that this is one really haunted little town. Are these locations in Hannibal, Missouri haunted? That is for you to decide!