HGB Ep. 497 - New Zealand's Vulcan Hotel

Moment in Oddity -  Le Passage du Gois (Suggested by: Karen Miller)

In France, there is a unique bridge called Le Passage du Gois that connects the French mainland to an island called Noirmoutier. This bridge floods on a daily basis, making it impassable. The length of the bridge is an impressive 4.5 km. This is a world famous natural wonder that floods twice in every 24 hour period. The average depth of the water that covers the bridge varies between 4 to 13 feet and the rising sea levels occur quickly. There have been digital signs that let drivers know if the road is currently safe to pass but there are some that tempt fate and every year there are reports of people becoming stranded or even dying. Rescue towers have been erected to give a safe haven for stranded motorists to climb up and wait for the sea levels to recede. This is not a recommended stretch of road for the common tourist due to its hazardous nature however that doesn't keep them away. One thing is for sure, a nearly 3 mile long bridge that becomes impassable twice a day due flooding, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - The Sinking of SS Andrea Doria

In the month of July, on the 26th, in 1956, Italian luxury liner Andrea Doria sank. The SS Andrea Doria was a flagship of the Italian Line and had the capacity for about 1,240 passengers and 560 crew. Amongst its luxuries were 3 swimming pools and many works of art. Its maiden voyage sailed from Genoa, Italy, to New York City. This proved quite popular so the Andrea Doria crossed the Atlantic several times before that fateful day. The ship departed Genoa on the 17th. As the Andrea was sailing south of Nantucket, her radar picked up an approaching vessel, the MS Stockholm some 17 nautical miles away. The Swedish passenger liner also detected the Andrea Doria. Both ships made adjustments to their course to widen the passing distance between them. Unfortunately, mistakes were made reading the radar and while the Stockholm chose the standard pass protocol of port to port, or left side to left side, the Andrea Doria decided to pass on the starboard side. There was heavy fog in the area of the Italian liner and once the ships had visual contact they were only 2 miles apart. With the speed at which each liner was sailing, the collision was unavoidable. At approximately 11:10pm the Stockholm struck the starboard side of the Andrea, perforating 7 of her 11 decks. Even though the Swedish liner's bow was crushed, it remained seaworthy. The Andrea Doria however, was not so fortunate. Within minutes of the collision, the Doria began listing hard to its starboard side thus prohibiting access to the ships port side lifeboats. Although 51 people were ultimately killed, this number was relatively low due to other ships rushing to the SOS call transmitted by the SS Andrea Doria. The collision causes cited were heavy fog, high speeds in poor visibility and incorrect use of radar. 

New Zealand's Vulcan Hotel

There are two things that bring people to St Bathans in New Zealand: gold and fossils. The St Bathans fauna bears dozens of different kinds of fossils. The small town itself was once a center of the Otago Gold Rush and one of the leftover locations from that time is the Vulcan Hotel. A painted lady might have lost her life at the hotel and today, people claim her spirit haunts one of the rooms there. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Vulcan Hotel. 

The Central Otago area of New Zealand is rich in sedimentary formations and fossils. In the lower Bannockburn Formation is something called the St Bathans fauna, which is a cache of fossilised prehistoric animals formed by deposits in a shallow, freshwater lake. Many tourists and scientists flock to St Bathans to see and study the fauna. One of these has been called the Saint Bathans Mammal because no one is sure what exactly this mammal once was, but it is extinct now. This is a curious species as bats, cetaceans and seals seem to be the only flightless creatures to exist in New Zealand because other mammals had to be introduced by humans. So how this thing got here is a mystery. 

Close to the town of St Bathans a fossil layer has been exposed along the Manuherikia River. This is the remnant of the prehistoric Lake Manuherikia. There is a lake near town that was man-made during the Otago Gold Rush named Blue Lake. This is a well known lake that formed when gold miners turned the 394-foot Kildare Hill into a 551-foot deep pit. After mining operations halted, the hole filled with water and it gets its name from the distinctive blue color of that water that is created by minerals from the surrounding rocks. Tourists love to camp near it and swim.

Gold was first found in New Zealand starting in 1842. This was just a small quantity, so when the gold rushes started in Australia and California, many settlers left the island. Commercial interests in New Zealand needed to keep people there, so they offered a prze of 500 pounds to anyone who could find payable quantites of gold. A timber merchant did just that in 1852 and a brief gold rush was launched. The Maori of New Zealand must have chuckled to themselves as they watched these fair-skinned men running around looking for gold that they already knew about and since they had no use for the ore, they probably wondered what all the excitement was about. The Maori preferred bone, obsidian and greenstone because they could fashion weapons from those materials. One area that they knew was flush with gold ore was Central Otago. One European did manage to stumble upon a small find in 1851, but it wouldn't be until 1861 that a rush would ensue.

Gold was discovered at Welshmans Gully in 1863. This is today the town of Cambrians and sits about four miles from St Bathans. The name was inspired by the Welsh coal miners that worked both the gold and coal pits here. Australian prospectors led by Irishman A.G. Peyman found more gold a few miles north-east of Welshmans Gully and within four months, there were two hundred miners at the site. They built a town and called it Dunstan Creek, which would later be changed to St Bathans. Those early beginnings were rough as one visitor described this as being "a pigsty on the edge of town, with an eye-watering smell, and piles of rubbish surrounding the town." The description isn't surprising considering that many of these mining towns were full of temporary structures made from canvas or calico fabric that covered timber frames. If a town proved viable, more permanent buildings were built from timber and concrete. And while many miners flocked to these towns, entrepreneurs came as well to establish shops, banks and hotels and most of them made more than the miners. Women who came and worked alongside their husbands were referred to as "Colonial Helpmeets." If a woman became widowed, she received ownership rights.

The Otago Gold Rush lasted until 1864, but this didn't end prospecting. Gold extraction became a more industrialised-mechanical process and gold fields were reworked. Chinese laborers were invited to come help with this reworking. The first commercially successful gold dredge in the world was developed in New Zealand and named the Dunedin for the New Zealand town. Throughout this time, St Bathans, which had been named for the Scottish Borders village of Abbey St Bathans, grew and by 1887, there were 2,000 miners in the area. Many buildings from the start of St. Bathans still stand today. There are many cottages that had served as homes for the various merchants in town. The timbered kauri post office opened in 1909 and is still in operation today. There are a couple of churchs, St. Patricks Catholic Church and St. Alban the Martyr, which was one of the first prefabricated buildings in New Zealand and was made from corrugated iron.

The most famous leftover building from the gold rush days is the Vulcan Hotel. The man who built the hotel was Samuel Hanger. Hanger had been born in 1830 in Hobart Town, Tasmania, Australia. Hanger married Mary Pattison in 1852 and they had eleven children. When Hanger heard about the gold in Otago, he decided to go, leaving behind a pregnant Mary and the two children they had at the time. He traveled via the ship Aldinga in November of 1862. In 1864, he sent for his family to join him. Samuel didn't work in St Bathans as a miner. His skill was blacksmithing and he set up a calico tent from which he supplied the miners with sluice pipes and drink. Hanger built his family a stone cottage that still stands in the town today. Even though the main part of the gold rush ended in 1864, there were still many people living in and traveling to St Bathans. Hanger decided to open a hotel.

For many of us, when we hear the name Vulcan, we immediately think of Star trek and the character Spock. Vulcans were logical beings who didn't experience emotions and Spock was half Vulcan. But the name of the Vulcan Hotel clearly wasn't inspired by this because it dates back to the 1800s. The Vulcan the hotel is named for was the Roman god of fire, Vulcan. Metalworking was one of his areas of expertise and since Hanger had been a blacksmith, he was inspired to use the god's name for the hotel he decided to open. Hanger opened the Vulcan Hotel in 1869 despite the fact that there were already thirteen hotels in St. Bathans. The original Vulcan Hotel was a corrugated iron building with two doors and and two windows. Five years later, he expanded and built an annex across the street that featured a billiards room and more rooms. Samuel died in 1879 and left Mary to run the hotel and she did that for several years. In 1888, she decided it was too much for her and none of the Hanger children were interested in the hotel business. But her son David's father-in-law John Thurlow was interested and he bought the Vulcan Hotel with his brother William.

The men had barely had the hotel for a year when it was damaged by a fire. They repaired the Vulcan and in 1899, they extended the billiard room annex by building on stables. William Thurlow died in 1902, so the license was transferred to a man named Patrick Sexton who held it for five years and then transferred it to Gilbert O’Hara in 1907. A couple by the name of McDevitts held the license for the Vulcan from 1912 to 1922. During their tenure, the Vulcan Hotel was destroyed by fire and it was decided to rebuild it with red brick. The Vulcan ironically had major issues with fire. In 1931, it would again be destroyed by fire. 

The Ballarat Hotel was built in 1882 from mud brick and stood just three sections to the south of the Vulcan Hotel. It had sat empty for a while, so when the Vulcan burned down in 1931, the license was transferred to the Ballarat Hotel building and renamed the Vulcan Hotel. The sign was repainted out front with a shamrock between Vulcan and Hotel. This shamrock is a throwback to the rivalry the Irish settlers from St.Bathans had with the Welsh settlers from Cambrian. The rivalry was dubbed the War Of The Roses locally and got very bitter. In 1934, it was decided that mining operations should stop because there was a real fear that the main street and buildings would fall into the hole that eventually became Blue Lake. In 1974, the billiards room and stables were sold for use as a holiday home. In 1987, a number of locals formed a company to buy the Vulcan to keep it in local hands, until the new owners Gerry and Denise Shaw purchased the Hotel in June 2021. Sue Ingram managers the Vulcan. The building is registered as a Category I historic place by Heritage New Zealand.

The Vulcan Hotel is thought to be one of the most haunted buildings in New Zealand. The most active room is Room 1 and that is because a legend claims that a lady of the evening that worked in St. Bathans, was killed in this room when this was the Ballarat Hotel, some time in the 1880s. Her name was Rose or Rosie or sometimes she is referred to as The Rose. To add insult to injury, the reason for the murder is thought to be that Rosie had a small quantity of gold that miners had given her and the murderer took that and left town. From that time, there have been many reports of lights going on and off by themselves, disembodied footsteps, doors creaking and locking themselves, cold spots, sightings of full-bodied apparitions, groaning in the hallways, kettles boiling without being turned on and a mysterious shadow figure seen at the foot of the bed in Room 1. Rosie's apparition has been seen several times reclining on a chaise lounge in the dining room. Women usually don't have any issues staying in Room 1, but men reportedly get held down and sometimes throttled.

The manager of the hotel, Sue Ingram, said of the spirit Rosie, "She locks and unlocks door, moves things about and behaves like a general toe rag. Right now, she is generally well-behaved, but she has her moments. We had a new carpet installed in November, and she didn’t seem to like that at all. Maybe it was the color, maybe it was the disruption, but she was very active and a real nuisance. People sleeping in the room have felt her sitting on the bed, there’s been an extra weight. Others have felt her on their feet. When she’s about, the room gets cold. One of the guests was unphased by Rosie’s presence and waking up said ‘I know it’s you Rosie’. At which point she left the room." 

Royce Clarke, a co-partner of the hotel in 2020, told Debbie Jamison from the website Stuff, "On a previous occasion when he stayed there he was awoken by the electric jug turning on and off by itself during the night. Convinced it was a friend playing a prank, Clark sat with the door ajar and a mirror, but saw no-one moving before the jug started again. The next day he examined the jug and pulled it apart, but was unable to get it to operate independently. 'Then I knew for sure it was her,' he said."

Author of Haunted New Zealand Roadtrip, Mike Wallbank, wrote on Haunted Auckland in 2020 of his stay at the hotel, "There was another story of a female staff member working there one night, who screamed as she saw someone walking through the bar area. They say she was terrified. Royce was working that night and witnessed the look of sheer terror on her face at the time: an image that has remained with him since. More recently – that week in fact – Royce awoke at 2am to a loud clicking sound. It was the kettle jug in the corridor for patrons to make tea and coffee, switching on. Thinking it was a mate of his also staying there, he went back to sleep. The next morning, he questioned it. His mate hadn’t gotten up. Checking the jug, it was still warm. For some reason the jug had turned itself on and boiled. This happened numerous times soon after. The men could find no logical reason for this happening other than one playing a prank on the other and denying it (Royce’s initial assumption towards his mate), which they both swear wasn’t the case. I’m told of a few male patrons reportedly being woken, and held down with hands around their throats, and an overwhelming sense of fear. These are the more common reports. A theory being that The Rose might be getting back at men for causing her death.

The night before I arrived, Royce tells me he had gone around the bar, locking up after a long day – something he does every night. He locked the front door first, then went around shutting windows, drawing the curtains closed and turning off the lights. Before heading to bed he checked the front door one last time, as he always does. The next morning the bar door was found open. The door can only be unlocked and opened from the inside. The lock itself, being of the solid slide-bolt make with a second locking button, is firm and secure and only released from the inside. No one, including myself, could find any reason or answer to this mystery. So, what do we have? Many years of anecdotes from both patrons and staff. Many experiencing the exact same event. Many describing the same details. Could it be just the power of suggestion at play?"

Mike Pole visited the Vulcan Hotel and wrote of his experience there in 2022 on Medium, "It was summer and still perfectly light, and I pulled up beside a pretty laid-back scene. The publicans, husband and wife, were sitting on the chairs outside the pub along with two guests. I parked the car and joined them. They produced my meal and we all shot the breeze for a while, until eventually the guests headed to bed. The husband then went to bed and it was just me and his wife chatting. The next day I wanted to hunt for fossils, so arranged an early breakfast, at 07:00. Eventually she got up to go and told me to find myself a room when I was ready 'Any room except the Number One, or the Number Two — it’s got the guests.' My ears pricked up. 'The Number One?' I asked. 'Oh, I guess you may as well spread yourself out,' she said 'Take the Number one if you want.' The room had a small double-bed against the far wall, and a bed-side table with an alarm clock on the near side of it. There was a window out on to the deserted street. I went to bed, and (unusually for me) fell asleep quickly. In the dead of the night I was woken by being slammed twice into the mattress. There was no fear — just immediate exhilaration. All I could think was: 'Wow — that was the ghost!' I looked at the clock — it was 06: 20, and I could hear music coming down the corridor from the vicinity of the kitchen. Good, I thought, that’s the sound of my breakfast being made. I lay in bed going over and over the ‘experience’ and thinking 'Wow! Wow! Wow! That was the ghost! I’ve experienced the ghost!'

But then …. I realized — 'I’m lying on my left hand side. If I had just looked at the clock, I would have had to have been lying on my right hand side — and I know I haven’t moved at all. And then I opened my eyes. It was pitch black. It was so dark I couldn’t have seen the clock anyway. And there was no music. It was dead quiet. I got up, turned the light on, and checked the time. It was just after three. Confused, I turned the light back off and went back to bed. I didn’t sleep for ages, then did, then woke up about thirty minutes after I said I wanted breakfast. I rushed to the shower then into the dining room. The publican wasn’t too happy of course. As I tucked into breakfast, I tried to redeem myself: 'That ghost.' I said –'people feel someone sit on the bed beside them, don’t they?' 'Yes,' she said, 'but some people get slammed in the mattress. But just last week we had a woman who was woken up by someone playing with all of her toes.'

The best way I can try to describe what I felt was as if someone had lowered a huge electromagnet over the bed (yes, I’d have to have the opposite polarity, but work with me on this one) and then thrown the switch twice in quick succession. If there was a sound to it (and there wasn’t), it would have been a 'WAAARP… WAAARP.' To be absolutely clear — it had a sort of ‘electronic’ nature, but there was no ‘shock’. What I experienced deep in that night was far from my expectations. [Unfortunately] I wasn’t woken up by the spirit of some young woman, good-natured, despite being robbed of her life well over a century before. Rather, what it was, was entirely ‘inhuman’. Of course, it may be entirely unrelated to the ‘ghosts’ other people have experienced for decades, but this seems like too much of a coincidence. Whatever it was that I felt — I have never felt either before or since. Whatever it is giving that Number 1 bedroom a strange reputation, I’m sure I’ve experienced it."

There is another haunted place in St. Bathans. The post office that we mentioned earlier is said to be haunted by an elderly woman, possibly a grandmother, and she usually has two young children with her. It isn't surprising that a town like St. Bathans, which is nearly a ghost town now, would have spirits. There was so much life here with saloons and brothels and mining. Is it possible that some of that former life still continues on in the afterlife? Is the Vulcan Hotel haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 167 - Portland Cement Works

 
Moment in Oddity - Phantom Dragoon of the Delaware River

Iron Hill in Delaware was the scene of a conflict during the Revolutionary War. The Americans were situated at Welsh Tract Church in Newark. A sentry was positioned at the outpost to keep watch at night. One night, the sentry got the scare of his life. A horse came charging at him carrying a figure in white from head to toe. The sentry hid in fear until the phantom left. After he was relieved, he went to the head of command and begged to be moved to a different area. He said he would desert before he would face the phantom again. His request was granted. The next sentry was also scared by a rush of hoofs. The horse was carrying a creature that was ghostly white. He tried to keep his wits about him and he raised his gun. He fired at the riding ghost. He was sure that he hit it with a bullet, but it only laughed mockingly at him. This continued for many nights, with the rider visiting every night and every night, the guard on duty would shoot without any effect. The Americans started calling the rider the Phantom Dragoon. The command was so fearful, that they did not push forward against the British. An old American corporal was fed up with the stories about the phantom. He was a true skeptic and he took over guard duty to put a stop to the stories. He primed his musket and set himself up near the fence. Just after midnight, the beating of hoofs started in the distance and approached quickly. The Phantom Dragoon looked like the pale figure of Death riding towards him. He mustered his courage and took aim with his flint-lock. The white form toppled from the horse and hit the ground hard. The corporal ran over as the horse sped off into the distance. He found a British scout lying on the ground, very dead. When he pulled away the white garments he found that the scout was wearing steel armor, which had protected him from all the previous gun shots. The corporal had shot the scout in the head, which was unprotected. The British had used the superstitions of the Americans to keep them from pressing forward. The idea that a British soldier dressed to look like a ghost was able to fool the Americans and keep them from pressing forward certainly is odd!

This Day in History - Peking Man Skull Discovered

On this day, December 2nd, in 1929, Chinese Archaeologist and Anthropologist Pei Wenzhong discovers the first "Peking Man" skull on Dragon Bone Hill in Zhoukoudian of Fangshan District in Beijing. It is believed that Peking Man lived in the cave system of the upper part of Dragon Bone Hill. The site was discovered in 1921 and several teeth and bone fragments were recovered, but nothing that could definitively prove this was a species. The discovery of the complete skull changed all that and it was decided that this came from Sinanthropus pekinensis, a Beijing species of Chinese ape popularly known as Peking Man. The shape of the skull indicated that it belonged to a juvenile male around nine years old. Pei continued his explorations all the way into 1966, finding stoneware and other skull caps. In 1987, the Peking Man site was listed as a World Cultural Heritage site and its relics now receive world-class protection.

Portland Cement Works (Suggested by Atticus Wolfgramm)

Portland Cement is a material that helped build much of the world in the 1800s and still continues to be a major component of construction to this day. Early Portland Cement Works were unsafe places to work, as was the case with most fields of manufacturing. Dismemberment, burns and death were a real concern. Three of these plants not only had injuries and deaths, but they are now reputedly haunted. Two are abandoned ruins and another is a world class haunted attraction today. We will explore the history and hauntings of the Portland Cement Works in Salt Lake City, Utah, Mahurangi Cement Works in Warkworth, New Zealand and Kansas Portland Cement Works in LeHunt, Kansas.

Portland Cement was developed in the 18th century in Britain and in 1824, an English stone mason from Leeds by the name of William Aspdin obtained a patent on his mix that was a middle step towards Portland Cement. He burned limestone and clay together, ground the mix to a powder and added water and sand. The result was similar to stone that was quarried on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, England and that is where it derives its name. The basic ingredient in this cement is lime from limestone and it is generally mixed with shale, silicon, chromium and other materials to make the powdery substance. This is a dangerous substance to make and use. It is very caustic and is a lung irritant. One can imagine that making Portland Cement would be a tough and dangerous job. This form of cement was a revolution in building due to it being cheap to make and very versatile to use.

The further development of Portland Cement is a list of men from various countries throughout the 1800s claiming to have the patent on Portland Cement. Isaac Charles Johnson of Britain would claim to be the father of the cement and he is considered a pioneer in the industry. The United States imported the cement from Germany and England before developing its own plants, starting in Pennsylvania. David O. Sayler of Pennsylvania became the first producer of Portland Cement in America and he secured a patent in 1871. By the early 20th century, America was making its own cement and was no longer importing Portland cement. One of the plants in the United States was the Portland Cement Works in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Portland Cement Company of Utah was located on the 600 block and 800 South. We've heard addresses ranging from 601 to 611 to 643. Today, the address is 666 West 900 South.  It opened in 1890 in the Parleys Canyon in Salt Lake City. Initially, they were small and developed a weak product, but a bigger company, LaGue & Campbell, took over the holdings in 1893 and decided to use the same methods as the Pennsylvania cement works. By 1896, there were only two companies west of the Mississippi River producing Portland Cement on a commercial scale and this plant in Utah was one of them. The manufacturing process took 80 steps and included using a rotary kiln to chemically combine the raw materials at 3000 degrees, which is hotter than the temperature used to melt steel. The compound was pounded to a fine powder and gypsum was added to regulate the time of hardening.

In 1898, the plant caught fire and nearly burned to the ground. All that was left were brick walls, damaged machinery and the large smokestacks. *Fun Fact: They were filling an order for the Denver Mint at the time of the fire.* It was rebuilt and then later restored in 1910 to produce a capacity of 1000 barrels of cement a day. Work in a cement factory was incredibly dangerous. Many workers lost their limbs or their lives in cement factories and Utah's Portland Cement Works was no different. George Howe was one of these men. The coal crusher was a machine that had huge grinding gears and George was in charge of its operation. He worked the graveyard shift and one night he was oiling the gears. One of the gears hooked his shirt sleeve and began pulling him further into the machine. He screamed for help, but no was there. His arm initially pulled free from the socket, but eventually George was pulled in completely and crushed together. Not much was left of his body in the morning.

Despite this first accident, no real precautions were put in place and the factory continued to be a place of dismemberment and death. Charles Whitner was another victim and he had only been at the cement works for two weeks. The steam from the vat caused him to become dizzy on an upper platform that was above the chemical boiler. He experienced some kind of vertigo and lost his footing. He fell, but managed to grab the lip of the vat. His hands were no match for the hot steel and he fell into the chemical concoction.

Portland Cement Company of Utah was sold to Lone Star Industries in August 1979 and they ran it until 1987 when they decided to shut down its Salt Lake City cement plant. The closure was suppose to be temporary, but eventually became permanent when conditions did not change. Not only was the work dangerous, but to keep costs low, cheaper fuels were used and these included waste solvents, shredded tires and other materials that may have contained toxic chemicals. This left behind contaminated dust. A Superfund Clean-Up was formed in the mid 1990s to clean up the site and this was completed in 1999. It was still being monitored in 2014 to ensure that no toxic elements were still around. In 2011, the current owners acquired the property. They rebuilt and now host one of the most successful and one of the scariest haunted attractions in America, the Fear Factory Haunted House. The haunts that they create are fake, but there are real spirits here. This is a haunted haunted attraction!

The haunting experiences reported here by staff and guests of the haunted house include the distant screams of terror. These are not screams manufactured by the attraction as they are only heard when everything is quiet. Could this be George or Charles? Shadow figures are seen looking down from upper levels. During the witching hour, it is claimed that a little girl laughing is heard, although there are no records of any deaths of children at the factory. Ghost Adventures came and investigated the building.

This is not the only haunted cement works in the world. New Zealand had the Mahurangi Cement Works, located near Warkworth. Warkworth was originally a timber camp called Brown's Mill for a man named John Anderson Brown who built a sawmill there. Brown eventually changed the name to Warkworth after Warkworth in Northumberland. The Mahurangi Cement Works is quite different from Utah's cement works in that it sits in ruins today. But at one time, it was producing 20,320 tonnes per year. (A tonne is a metric ton that equals around 2, 204 pounds.) Nathaniel Wilson had emigrated from Glasgow with his family when he was a child and as an adult, he bought a parcel of land south of Warkworth Village. There he set up a lime kiln in 1866. He produced Roche Lime, which was used in the making of plaster and mortar.

In 1885, he began experimenting with Portland Cement and opened Wilson Cement Works with his brothers. The Roche Lime had been an inferior product, but once Nathaniel started producing Portland Cement, they were able to ship high-quality cement to Auckland. The cement was used in many building projects, including the Queen Street Sewer, Rangitoto Beacon, Grafton Bridge, and Queen’s Wharf, the Rotorua’s Bath House and Napier’s breakwater. By 1903, the plant employed 180 workmen. The works was expanded with a large concrete building at that time. The Mahurangi River was nearby and that is where the cement works got the name it is known by today. The river is a tidal estuary in Northern New Zealand. Success continued until 1918 when the New Zealand Portland Cement Company amalgamated with Mahurangi. This company was located at Limestone Island and the cement production was moved there. Mahurangi then focused on hydrated lime. It eventually closed in 1929.

There is only a ruin left, but it has been registered under the Historic Places Act of 1980. It is a place important to industrial archaeology and people come to visit for the history and to take cool pictures of the ruins sitting next to a picturesque lake formed by the flooded quarry. It also serves as a testament to the first cement works in the southern hemisphere. But are the ruins completely abandoned? People who visit claim to see mysterious shadow figures amongst the ruins and screams are heard here as well. Odd lights and ball orbs have been witnessed and one of the stranger sounds people have heard is something like a generator running.

Picture courtesy of Haunted Auckland

Returning to America, we find another abandoned and haunted Portland Cement works in Kansas. As was the case with many of these cement plants, this was practically the sole provider of jobs in the small town of LeHunt and when the plant shut down, the whole town was abandoned. The United Kansas Portland Cement Company built the cement works in 1905 on 1,500 acres on the side of Table Mound outside of Independence. Leigh Hunt was president of the Hunt Engineering Company of Michigan and he supervised the building of the plant and helped design the company town around it, naming it after himself: LeHunt. Table Mound was rich in raw materials that could be used in the production of the Portland Cement and a quarry was located atop the mound. The material was transported via gravity.

The company town started with a couple hundred people and a school, church, store and bars were built. By 1906, the population was 1,000. Life in a company town was controlled since the company provided all services and deducted fees from the workers wages. A man named Tom Mix was brought in to be marshal of the town. This is the same Tom Mix that would go on to fame in silent movies. So the cowboy he played in movies was not far removed from his real life. Mix did a good job as marshal, but eventually he was run out of town on a wagon, literally. He was a womanizer and was caught with another man's wife. They loaded him in a wagon and took him outside the town limits and dumped him.

Everything was great at the plant before the Great Depression, but by 1911, things were going south and the decline was swift. The fuel they were using, natural gas, was depleted and railroad rates spiked. In 1913, the plant shut its doors. They reopened briefly in 1915, but soon World War I began and production became unprofitable. Bankruptcy followed in 1918 and the plant would never reopen. The school remained opened until 1947. Not much remains of the abandoned town. The plant is in ruins and covered in graffiti and there is a nearby cemetery. A few foundations still exist as do sidewalks and the school still stands.

There is a cemetery about a half mile down the road from the plant. Vandals have toppled headstones, but volunteers try to upkeep the grounds, although weeds do not grow much in the cemetery. Five stones mark the graves of children. One person died in LeHunt in its 1905-1917 heyday and that person's grave is here. There is also a large headstone for the Murphy family plot. That grave marker is more prominent because they donated the land for the cemetery. There is illegal dumping around the town and signs of partying left behind. There are claims that the abandoned site has been used for Satanic rituals. As a matter of fact, that came up in a trial during the 90s after a teenager named Brian Durnil was brutally beaten and shot in the woods near the plant. Keayon Hadley was convicted of the murder, although his lawyer argued that two teenage girls who were the main witnesses had actually been the killers. He claimed they were Satanists who used the abandoned cement works as a place to perform human and animal sacrifices.

There is a memorial to a Mexican laborer who was named Boars. It is three sections of wall dedicated to him near the crumbling smokestack. He was working on one of the 15 foot high walls when he became pinned inside the wall while the concrete was being poured. He died and the workers decided to leave his body in the wall since there was nothing that could be done for him. The first wall section contains his shovel and pick axe, the second section has his wheelbarrow and the third has his name sculpted into the wall. It is believed that Boars spirit is still here. Several people have claimed to see his ghost wandering the ruins.

There are other hauntings and urban legends connected to the abandoned town. A ghost dog has been seen and heard rustling among the bushes and other wooded areas. Disembodied whispers are heard near the crumbling plant. Visitors feel a heaviness, particularly near the Boars memorial. The full-bodied apparition of an elderly man has been seen walking the sidewalks at twilight.

The cement works are remnants of an earlier time. Do these abandoned places hold more than just memories? Are the ruins haunted? Is the haunted attraction Fear Factory really haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 141 - Waitomo Caves Hotel

 
Moment in Oddity - George Wyman's Journey
by: Bob Sherfield

George Wyman crossed the Sierra Nevada, following a route from San Francisco to Reno, in 1902 and during that journey he decided to do something amazing. He had made this current journey so that he could race on his motorbike at a county fair. The motorcycle he road and hoped to race had only 1 ¼ horsepower. During the ride, Wyman realized that no one had ever travelled across the USA in or on a motorized vehicle, and he decided to be the first to achieve it. Wyman departed San Francisco on May 16, 1903, leaving from Lotta’s Fountain on the corner of Market and Kearny at 2:30pm. He had promised The Motorcycle Magazine (a periodical of the time) that he would document and publish an account of his journey. He rode a California Moto Bike that was for all intents and purposes, simply a bicycle frame with an engine motor attached. It was capable of 25mph, and could cover 75 to 100 miles on a tank. Wyman carried with him surprisingly little in the way of equipment. He took warm clothing, money, a water bottle, oil and gas cans, a camera, cyclometer, a small set of tools and spare parts, and a long barrelled revolver. Fifty days later, on July 6th, he rolled into New York City. His motorcycle was so broken by the time he reached Albany, that he had been forced to pedal the last 150 miles using a path reserved for licensed cyclists. He had completed his journey and he was the first person to undertake and complete a transcontinental crossing on a motor vehicle. It had taken him 51 days to cover the 3800 miles. Then, just 20 days after he arrived, Horatio Nelson Jackson completed the same journey in a car. Jackson’s cross-country trip had taken longer than Wyman’s. He had two companions with him, one human and one canine, and the journey took 63 days from the west coast to the east coast. To the American people, it didn't matter that Horatio's journey took longer. He had captured their imagination because he had done it in a car. For this reason, most people do not know that Wyman was the first man to cross America on a motorized vehicle. That such a pioneer could be almost forgotten because he accomplished the feat on a motorbike, certainly is odd!

This Day in History - The Whiskey Rebellion
by: Kristin Swintek

On this day, August 7th, in 1794, US President George Washington invokes the Militia Acts of 1792 to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion. In hopes to reduce the national debt which was incurred during the American Revolutionary War, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton imposed the first tax on a domestic product, distilled spirits. Whiskey was the most popular distilled drink in 18th-century America and this tax became known as the Whiskey Tax. This tax was resisted by farmers who distilled their grain and corn into Whiskey and used it to barter. Many of the resisters were also war veterans who believed in the principles they originally fought for: no taxation without local representation. Throughout Western Pennsylvania, federal officials who attempted to collect this tax were met with violence and intimidation. In July of 1794, 500 armed men attacked the home of tax inspector General John Neville. In response, Washington sent peace commissioners to negotiate with rebels and called on governors to send militia forces. With 13,000 militiamen, George Washington rode at the head of the army to suppress the insurgency. The rebels left before the the army’s arrival and there was no confrontation. The Whiskey Rebellion showed that the new US government had the will and ability to repress violent resistance to its laws. The Whiskey Tax was repealed when Thomas Jefferson came to power in 1801.

Waitomo Caves Hotel (Suggested by listener Erin Olivia)

Waitomo is a beautiful natural location on the North Island of New Zealand that is known for its lush bush area and sea caves. The original people of this land, the Maori, have developed a culture rich in legend. A main draw for people from around the world are the Waitomo Glowworm Caves. The caves are not only known for their natural beauty, but for the creature for whom they are named: the glowworm. A popular tourist destination needs lodgings for the visitors and that is where the Waitomo Caves Hotel comes in to fill the need. The hotel has existed for over a hundred years. Situating a hotel in a land rich with lore, limestone and strife has led to rumors of this hotel being haunted. Join us as we share the history, lore and hauntings of the Waitomo Caves and their hotel!

Waitomo is a Maori word that means "stream which flows into the hole in the ground." The name makes sense when considering that beneath Waitomo winds a series of caverns formed millions of years ago. Limestone bluffs shoot up above the ground, dotting the landscape. The Maori have been here since 1350. They claim to have come from the mythical Polynesian land of Hawaiki. In reality, they came by canoe from Eastern Polynesian islands. They settled on the shores of what would become New Zealand and they hunted seal and moas, which are a type of bird now extinct. They spread out and lived in small tribal groups. The Europeans arrived in the 1800s and initially it was mainly missionaires. They converted many of the Maori to Christianity. There was peace until the British tried to establish rule and set laws.

In 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi established British law and government, but the Maori revolted and the Maori King Movement or Kingitanga, was formed. This would be the first time that the Maori had a king and that first king was Pōtatau Te Wherowhero. A dynasty was started with his coronation in 1858. This caused war, particularly in the 1860s. This war was known as the Waikato War. The Māori sought to defend their authority and lands. Eventually the Māori lost much of their land. The Kingitanga continues today and it is important to understand that this was not something formed against the British Crown as much as it was formed for the Maori. *Fun Fact: The Maori perform traditional dances called hakas. The most well known, particularly to Diane and I, is the Ka Mate Haka. The dance dates back to the early 1800s. We are going to play a portion of the audio for the Ka Mate Haka.*

The Maori consider the caves of Waitomo to be Tapu or sacred. They believe the caves are inhabited by Taniwha, guardian beings that live in rivers, in the sea and dark caves, and Patupaiarehe, whom are pale-skinned spirit beings that according to Maori folklore, live in deep forests and mountaintops in New Zealand and are thought to use ethereal flute music and singing to lure people to their doom. Similar to the Sirens of Greek mythology. It is thought that the caves have been used as a burial ground for the Maori. The caves are believed to have formed some 30 million years ago. Fossils and other deposits gathered on the sea floor, forming sedimentary rock. Volcanoes erupted and the shifting caused earthquakes and through this process huge slabs of limestone were lifted out of the sea. The rocks had cracks into which water flowed creating caverns that are the caves we see today. Inside the caves, visitors can see limestone crystal deposits, stalactites and stalagmites. Exploration of the caves by Europeans began in 1877 when government surveyor, Fred Mace, floated on a raft into the caves.

The caves are home to the glowworm. The caves are perfect for the glowworms because they are sheltered in a damp area where a river brings plenty of insects for food. These glowworms are the larvae of a species of gnat called Arachnocampa luminosa. This gnat is unique to New Zealand and resembles a maggot, growing to the size of a matchstick. They glow because their tails are bioluminescent. Oxygen in the air reacts with a chemical that they secrete and the result is a glowing light that appears to be bluish in color. They trap their food in a similar way to spiders by spinning a thread and then using their light to attract the bugs who become caught in the threads. *Fun Fact: Playskool makes a glowworm toy that plays lullaby music.*

The Waitomo Caves were first discovered by the Maori and it would be local Maori Tane Tinorau and his wife that would build a hostel near the caves for lodging. They picked a spot where a British fort had formerly been located. They completed construction in 1904 and called it Waitomo House. New Zealand had established the Department of Tourism and Publicity in 1901 and the goal of the government department was to buy up these national treasures. In 1905, the department bought both the caves and the hostel and a paper at the time claimed that a W. Rattan was running it when it was purchased.

The hostel needed updating, so wood was brought in via horse-drawn carts and utilites were equipped in special ways since the location was too remote to be hooked up to town supplies. Running water was pumped in from the Waitomo Stream and electricity, which was a luxury at this time, was generated by a dynamo powered by a petrol driven motor engine. This was completed in 1908 and now the lodgings were called the Government Hostel at Waitomo. The architectural style is Victorian and it has similar features to the mountain chalets of Europe and was designed by architect John Campbell. Guests were moved about by coach, which was great in the summer, but during the winter, the muddy pass forced the hotel to have to pull the coach through the quagmire.

This original structure still stands and is called the Victorian Wing today. When looking at the hotel, it is clear that there are two distinct buildings. The original hotel was proving to be too small to manage all the tourism. Many times, visitors would have to share rooms with total strangers. And when there were too many people for that arrangement to work, tents were set up outside. A new addition was completed in 1928 and it is known as the Art Deco Wing today. It features concrete pillars and was built in the Cape Dutch style found in South Africa and designed by architect John Thomas Mair. This style has roots in medieval Holland and Germany and most buildings built with this influence have a large distinctive front gable. The outside is clay with lime mortar and then the entire surface is whitewashed. Reminds us of old missions. This addition added twenty-four rooms to the six in the Victorian Wing. A large kitchen and dining room were added at this time as well.

In 1990, the government decided to sell the business and the hotel has transferred ownership multiple times. Wellesley Hotels and Resorts own the property today and they have been conducting an extensive renovation of the property, which was in desperate need of that according to reviews all over the internet. They have added a spa and relaxation area and most public areas have been refurbished including the reception and dining area. There are now 33 rooms and each has their own private bath. *Fun Fact: You can see the Southern Cross from the hotel. This constellation was immortalized in the Crobsy, Stills and Nash song "Southern Cross." "When you see the Southern Cross for the first time, you understand why you came this way..."*

A land steeped in legend that has experienced strife can sometimes spawn stories of hauntings of both the nefarious and sublime. The Waitomo Cave area and the hotel are reputedly quite haunted. While the hotel would have you believe that the only thing guests will experience is peace and tranquility, the possibility of cold spots, bathtubs dripping blood and encounters with dubious shadow people are all possibilities. Staff may be unwilling to detail their experiences, but enough of them and enough guests have encountered supernatural occurrences to put this hotel on the paranormal map.

Room 14 is one of the haunted locations at the hotel and its story was inspired by a Maori legend. This tale dates back to the war between the Maori and the British. One of the daughters of the Maori king had fallen in love with a British soldier. They would meet in secret and it was while she traveled to the British fort for one of these renedevous, that she was killed after being mistaken for a warrior. Her spirit has been at unrest ever since and haunts the former fort's area. A young male guest was staying in Room 14 and he suddenly felt the icy chill of a spirit he believed to be this Maori princess. He told several guests later that day of his experience and he was quite shaken. Later that evening, he ended up committing suicide. Some say it was by hanging and others claim it was by slitting his wrists. Stories that the bath tub in Room 14 is seen dripping with blood back-up the slitting the wrists theory. The young man's apparition is seen both in Room 14 and outside wandering the hallway.

The Maori princess not only is reputed to have visited this Room 14, but she has been witnessed walking around the Victorian wing of the hotel, which features the Honeymoon Suite. She also seems to like the attic and people claim to hear her moaning in there. She frequents Room 12 as well, which is next door to Room 14. Lights move about the room and guests complain that their bed sheets are pulled off and something unseen tickles their feet. Another room with activity is Room 12a that actually is Room 13, but superstition prevents the hotel from numbering it as such. Talcum powder spilt on the floor by investigators reveals footprints later on and objects within the room are moved about.

A little boy spirit named Daniel is heard giggling in the halls and his spirit is seen skipping sometimes. Little children complain about a child that is picking on them that parents cannot see. It is believed that Daniel was the son of a maid at the hotel in the 1930s. The hotel had a small cluster of rooms that catered to the staff and a hallway that connected these rooms to the kitchen and restaurant was dubbed Cat Alley. Daniel was skipping through Cat Alley and popped into the kitchen where he hit a pot of boiling water that came crashing down on him, scalding him horribly. He eventually died of his injuries. This Cat Alley is where Daniel is most often seen.

These hauntings all seem rather tame, but there is a malevolent spirit here, usually found in Room 25. The staff dislike entering this room and claim that they feel sick and that the energy in the room feels oppressive. Disembodied screams are heard and objects are moved and sometimes thrown. No one is sure who haunts this room, but it has been surmised that a former head staff member that has taken ownership of the building is to blame. They seem to want to keep order in the Art Deco wing.

Several paranormal groups and TV shows have investigated the hotel. The Haunted Auckland and Strange Occurrences teams are a couple of them. One of the members of the teams reported this weird experience in Room14, “I heard sounds of wind being disturbed, as if a bird with very soft wings was flying around the room.” This same individual felt strange in Room 25 and said,  “At a spot, in the middle of the room and at the foot of the left most bed, I felt a massive sinking sensation. Like when you go over a bump in the road, and leaves your heart in your mouth. It felt very different in there to other parts of the hotel. This was my first feeling of dread in the place. Until then, we had felt embraced. This felt uncomfortable, more in that room, than the bathroom, and definitely more in that area of the room.”

Another investigator named Barbara was staying in Room 12a. She had been wearing a cross and she took it off and put it on the night stand before going to bed. The next morning, she found it broken and took a picture of the cross. A woman named Christine claimed to catch an EVP at the hotel during a stay in 2006:  "My hubby had just asked me if I wanted a glass of wine. I said "yes", he handed it to me, and I said "thank you" and continued to tape the room. When I took a breath, there was a very audible sigh and "argh". Neither of us heard a thing at the time & it is not my husband's voice."

Joanne on TripAdvisor in 2012:  "I could not sleep as every noise played havoc with my mind, creeping floor boards all night long, footsteps coming from the room above and then around 1.30am I heard a strange moaning, crying coming from the room above, I woke my partner up so scared and he said go to sleep it must be a dog, but I knew there were not dogs here at the hotel and the noise was definitely coming from the room above.When we returned from our holiday we examined the photographs and this one in particular caught our eye. The photograph was taken in daylight by a digital Nikon SLR camera – no flash was used, there appears to be an orange glowing ball in front of us and above our room where we stayed there appears to be a strange green light top center a little to the left."

The Waitomo Caves seem to have attracted more than just tourists. Do spirits reside here in the afterlife? Is the Waitomo Caves Hotel haunted? That is for you to decide!