Where Spirits Conjure- A List of Haunted Places

Stanley Hotel
Estes Park, Colorado

Stanley Hotel by Miguel Vieira from Walnut Creek, CA, USA, Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, CC BY 2.0

Freelan Oscar Stanley circa 1910

The co-inventor of the Stanley Steamer, Freelan Oscar Stanley, came to Estes Park in 1903. He was suffering from tuberculosis and came West due to his doctor's orders. Stanley's health began to improve. He fell in love with the area and decided to invest money into it. The Stanley Hotel was opened in 1909 and catered to the rich and famous, including Titanic survivor Molly Brown, President Teddy Roosevelt, and Emperor Hirohito of Japan.

The Stanley Hotel has quite the reputation of being haunted. Staff have reported hearing a party going on in the ballroom when it's empty. Guests of the hotel have claimed to see to have seen a man standing over their bed at night before running into a closet or just disappearing. Phantom voices and a child's laughing have also been heard. With a reputation like this, it's no wonder the hotel was the inspiration for Stephen King's novel "The Shining". Scenes from the TV adaption of the novel were also filmed here.

Bird Cage Theater
Tombstone, Arizona

Birdcage Theater | RE Hawkins, BirdcageTheater, CC BY-SA 3.0

The Bird Cage Theater, in addition to being a theater also served as a brothel, saloon and gambling parlor. It opened in 1881. There were 14 cages, that were situated on balconies above the stage. "Soiled Doves" or prostitutes would drawback curtains in the cages or "cribs" and dance and entertain their clients.

The theater was the second home of entertainers, cowboys, and outlaws alike. The smell of liquor, smoke, and sex must of hung heavy in the air. In 1882, the New York Times reported that "the Bird Cage Theater is the wildest, wickedest night spot between Basin Street and the Barbary Coast." Hundreds of bullet holes in the walls of the theater lay claim to that statement.

Poker Table in the Birdcage Theater | Marine 69-71, Tombstone-Building-Bird Cage Theatre-Poker Room Table, CC BY-SA 4.0
According to legend, the longest-running poker game is said to have been played there. Played non-stop for 24 hours a day, for eight years, five months, and three days. The players included Doc Holliday, Diamond Jim Brandy, George Hearst, and Bat Masterson.

Tombstone in the late 1800s wasn't a place for the weak of heart. It was a town full of violence, and death. Some say that the ghosts of people who died in Tombstone still walk the streets at night and the Birdcage Theater is where the spirits still find entertainment that they found in life.

Employees and visitors of the theater have reported seeing ghosts of prostitutes, and cowboys. Some have claimed to have been touched or even pushed by these ghosts. It's said that you can hear the distant sounds of laughter and yelling, poker chips being thrown on a table, and liquor glasses still being filled.

Bachelor's Grove Cemetery
Midlothian, Illinois

Bachelor's Grove Cemetery by Mark Bergner, CC BY-SA 4.0

The first burials recorded in Bachelor's grove date back as early as the 1830s. There are stories that the cemetery was a favorite spot in the 20s and 30s for Chicago's organized crime to dump their victims.

A fallen tree in Bachelor's Grove
Many sightings of paranormal activity have been reported there for quite some time. Including, orbs, a lady in white, a phantom farmhouse is said to appear then vanish, a two-headed ghost, a black dog, and the famous image of the "Madonna of Bachelor's Grove"- a photo taken in August of 1991, by the Ghost Research Society which ran in the Chicago Sun-Times, showing a transparent woman sitting on a tombstone. Reportedly, the photographer said there was no one in the cemetery when the photo was taken.

Ghost Research Society- Official Website
Bachelors Grove Cemetery

The Myrtles Plantation
Saint Francisville, Louisiana

Bogdan Oporowski, Myrtles Plantation, CC BY-SA 3.0

The history of the Myrtles Plantation starts with a man named General David Bradford. Bradford was a lawyer, a deputy attorney general, in Pennsylvania who protested the whiskey tax. The whiskey tax was the first tax imposed on a domestic product by the newly formed United States. It became law in 1791. The whiskey tax applied to all distilled liquor but whiskey was the most popular spirit. It was often used in bartering by the frontier regions of the U.S., such as Pennsylvania. The revenue generated from the tax was intended to combat the debt accumulated during the Revolutionary War. 

Bradford was an open protester against the tax, giving several anti-government speeches.  In 1794 President George Washington and troops went to Washington, Pennsylvania arresting suspected rebels, Including Bradford. Bradford fled to Spanish West Florida now know as New Orleans, LA and obtained a land grant of 650 acres and built the plantation in 1796. In 1820, Bradford's son-in-law, Judge Clarke Woodruff, remodeled the mansion. In 1834 the plantation was owned by Ruffin Gray Sterling and it was once again remodeled.

Stirling and his wife, Catherine doubled the size of the former house, and changed the name to "The Myrtles". The house changed owners several times in the late 1800s until the 1970s when it was purchased by James and Frances Kermeen Myers. The mansion is now a bed and breakfast. It is on the National Historic Register and is a perfect example of antebellum splendor, and grandeur.

There is a story of a slave named Chloe. She was a slave owned by Judge Woodruff and his wife Sara. The judge was, which unfortunately was all too common at the time, was having sex with, one of his slaves, a young woman named Chloe. The Judge caught her eavesdropping on his business dealings, and as punishment cut off one of her ears. She then wore a green turban to hide her missing ear. The legend goes that she poisoned Sara and her children's food as revenge for her missing ear, other reports say Chloe poisoned the food only to make Sara and her children became sick, not kill them. Chloe was in fear of being sold to another plantation and making them sick would allow her to stay and nurse them back to health. Whatever the reason all the stories end with the same result, Sara and her daughters died. Chloe was then hung and thrown into the Mississippi River.

Another story says that the spirits of Sara and her children haunt one of the mirrors in the mansion. Traditionally mirrors were covered with cloth or sheets after the death of a person. The legend goes that a mirror was missed when Sara and her children died, which trapped their spirits inside the mirror. Apparitions are sometimes seen in the mirror along with handprints.

There is another ghost story associated with the plantation. A man named William Drew Winter was a lawyer who lived at the plantation from 1865 to 1871. It's said that he was shot outside the mansion and died while trying to climb the stairs in the house. Supposedly, he died on the 17th step.

Wikipedia contributors. "Myrtles Plantation." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 21 May. 2019. Web. 17 Jun. 2019.

Tomahawk. “One of the Most Haunted Homes in History | The Myrtles.” The Myrtles Plantation | Visit St. Francisville, www.myrtlesplantation.com/history-and-hauntings/history-of-myrtles-plantation.

“MYRTLES PLANTATION’ LEGENDS, LORE AND LIES.” American Hauntings, American Hauntings, Ink., www.americanhauntingsink.com/myrtles.

 Lineup, The. “The Myrtles Plantation: Who's That Girl in the Window?” HuffPost, HuffPost, 7 Dec. 2017, www.huffpost.com/entry/the-myrtles-plantation-wh_b_8741576.

 Guss, Jon. “The Bradford House and the Whiskey Rebellion.” The Bradford House and the Whiskey Rebellion | Pennsylvania Center for the Book, 2007, pabook.libraries.psu.edu/literary-cultural-heritage-map-pa/feature-articles/bradford-house-and-whiskey-rebellion.

Wikipedia contributors. "David Bradford (lawyer)." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2 Jun. 2019. Web. 17 Jun. 2019.

 Wikipedia contributors. "Whiskey Rebellion." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 14 Jun. 2019. Web. 17 Jun. 2019.

The Baker Hotel
Mineral Wells, Texas

The Baker Hotel | Renelibrary, Baker4 (1 of 1), CC BY-SA 4.0

It was built by Theodore Brasher Baker in 1926 and completed in 1929. The opulent hotel boosted 14 stories, 450 guest rooms, 2 ballrooms, a beauty shop, bowling alley, gymnasium, and the first swimming pool built at a hotel in Texas. Many celebrities and stars have stayed at the Baker Hotel including, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Lawrence Welk, Clark Gable, Judy Garland, and it's rumored the famous outlaw couple Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow have also stayed at the Baker.

It was permanently closed in 1972 and has suffered the ravages of time, and vandalism. There are stories of orbs, disembodied voices, strange sounds, and moving objects in the Baker. There are said to be ghosts of people who have committed suicide in the hotel, and even Bonnie and Clyde's spirits are said to haunt the halls. There are now, plans, to restore the Baker Hotel with a budget of $54 million.

The Winchester Mansion
San Jose, CA

TilTul, Winchester House, CC BY-SA 3.0

Gun magnate William Wirt Winchester was the President of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1880. He married a woman named Sarah Pardee in 1862. They had a baby girl named Annie. Sadly Annie died five short weeks later of marasmus, a form of malnutrition. Sarah suffered another blow when her husband, William also died in 1881 of tuberculosis.

Sarah Winchester, 1865

Grief-stricken Sarah consulted a psychic who told her she lost her baby girl because the spirits of all the people killed by the Winchester rifle wanted revenge. The psychic told her to move West from Connecticut.
Sarah moved to San Jose, California and hired architects and construction workers to renovate a farmhouse in 1884. Under Sarah's guidance, the construction on the house never stopped until Sarah's death on September 5, 1922. Dubbed "The House That Fear Built." Sarah believed that as long as construction continued the ghosts would be appeased.

Sarah wanted to confuse the malicious spirits and keep herself safe. So the mansion has stairways that lead to walls, doors that open to nowhere, and windows overlooking other rooms.  There are 160 rooms, which include 40 bedrooms, 2 ballrooms, 47 fireplaces, 2 basements, and three elevators. The money Sarah received from the proceeds from the sales of the Winchester Rifle allowed Sarah to continue to build the mansion. There was an earthquake in 1906 that reduced the number of stories of the mansion from seven to four.
When Sarah died in 1922, oddly there was no mention of the mansion in her will. So it was sold at auction for $135,000 to John and Mayme Brown. The mansion is now open to the public and is owned by Winchester Investments, LLC. A private company that represent the descendants of John and Mayme Brown.

Ghost stories abound with this mansion. Workers and guests claim to hear strange noises, to seeing spirits of construction workers who have accidentally died in the mansion, servants of Mrs. Winchester, to that of Sarah herself.

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
Weston, West Virginia

Photo By Tim Kiser (CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikipedia Commons)

Opened in 1864 it was a state-run to house the mentally ill. It was designed to hold 250 people but became overcrowded with over 2,400 patients. The acceptable treatment of mentally ill patients back then would be considered downright torture today. For example, a common treatment was insulin shock therapy. Large doses of insulin were injected into the patient to put them in a coma, to "reset" their brain. Many patients died due to this course of "treatment". This treatment, along with lobotomies, and bloodletting, this place of care, was more like a place of horror.

The hospital was closed in 1994 due to reports of mistreatment and abuse of the patients. A man named Joe Jordan bought the hospital in 2007 and opened it for tours. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1990.

Disembodied voices, strange noises, and apparitions are said to abound within Trans-Allegheny's halls. It seems to me that a life of neglect and abuse behind closed doors is a recipe for a tortured spirit. I hope these souls have found some peace in death, but it seems according to people who have been to Trans-Allegheny, they have not.

Gettysburg Battlefield
Gettysburg, PA 

Gettysburg by Dorian Wallender from Lake Havasu City, Arizona, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0

The town of Gettysburg became the place of the violent death of over 46,000 soldiers in July 1863.  "General Robert E. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania in late June 1863. On July 1, the advancing Confederates clashed with the Union’s Army of the Potomac, commanded by General George G. Meade, at the crossroads town of Gettysburg."

"The Harvest of Death": Union dead on the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, photographed July 1863, by Timothy H. O'Sullivan
"It's estimated that between 46,000 and 51,000 casualties were suffered by each side when the battle was over."

President Lincoln spoke his now-famous words of the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863, when a national cemetery was dedicated to the fallen soldiers.

"....But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract...."

Photographers such as Mathew Brady, Timothy O'Sullivan, and Alexander Gardner helped to bring a realization of the terrible cost of war with there photos of the dead. The bodies lying lifeless on the ground where someone's brother, father, or husband.

No doubt that with all the blood that was spilled on Gettysburg, there are numerous reports of phantom soldiers walking the hallowed ground. Maybe the battle never ended for them but continues to play out into eternity.

"Battle of Gettysburg." History Channel. A&E Television Networks, 2009. Web. 15 Aug. 2015.

"Battle of Gettysburg." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 14 Aug. 2015. Web. 16 Aug. 2015.

"Gettysburg Address." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 9 Aug. 2015. Web. 16 Aug. 2015.