The Eldridge Hotel — Lawrence, Kan.

The Eldridge Hotel in Lawrence, Kan., was built in 1855 as “The Free State Hotel,” further establishing Kansas a non-slave state and perhaps helping fuel William Quantrill to burn the place down in 1863.

 Overall, the hotel was destroyed and rebuilt three times, in additon to several extensive remodeling projects in the second half of the 20th century. Martin Luther King, Jr., and John Wayne were among some of the hotel’s more famous guests.

The hotel could be haunted for several reasons: For one, it’s over 150 years old. For another, Quantrill’s 1853 raid on Lawrence that resulted in the burning of the hotel also took as its victims 400 men and boys, all killed in just four hours beginning at dawn. That’s bound to leave behind some sort of residual effect on the town, and why not the building?

Rumors of hauntings at the Eldridge have included cold spots, a mischevious “elevator ghost,” and apparitions on the 5th floor. This floor, specifically room 506, is supposed to be a spirit portal. Breath marks on freshly cleaned mirrors and doors and lights that operate to their own accord have been reported in this room.

The photo above shows what might be the “elevator ghost” in a photograph taken in the mid-1990s in the hotel’s lobby. (Photo courtesy LJWorld.com)

Room 506, until recently, contained the original cornerstone of the hotel (see below — photo courtesy LJWorld.com). It was removed during remodeling in 2005. I have not heard whether this has stopped the reports of hauntings in that room.

The night deskie who was kind enough to let me roam the hotel while it was closed during remodeling told me that a couple times a year, someone staying in room 506 will get spooked and check out in the middle of the night.

Because the hotel was being remodeled while I explored it, guests cannot be blamed for odd sounds or sights. Additionally, the remodeling of historic places has been known cause a surge in paranormal activity.

Both of my investigations took place between midnight and three a.m. Amy C. accompanied me the first time and Ben J. came with me the second time. I had a lot of luck getting orbs in my photos here, and possibly obtained an EVP.

Ben and I were walking through a room in the hotel. I carried the camera, and Ben had the (RCA mini digital analog) tape recorder turned on and in is shirt pocket. As we passed the bathroom, Ben remarked, “I wonder how many people have had sex in this bathtub.” You can hear my muffled response from across the room, but also, kind of on top of what I am saying but closer to the tape recorder, you hear a very light, breathy whispering that sounds something like “sixty-six hundred six’o'clock.” I’ve no idea what that could mean. Click the link below to hear the EVP.

http://s11.quicksharing.com/v/9198970/eldridge1.wav.html

 Most excting about my investigation was a particlar orb photo. As I looked up into a stairwell, I snapped several pictures. Nothing unusual. Then I said, “If there is someone here, can I please take your picture?” Then I snapped this photo:

I’m not sure what the orange streak is in the photo below (taken in the Big 12 Room in the basement). I did an experiment when I got home: I tried holding a strand of my (red) hair in front of the camera and taking a picture, but it didn’t look anything like this. For one thing, it wasn’t as neon.

I got lots of orb pictures, but this one amazed me the most. It seems like they know when you’re leaving. They all come out to say goodbye or “wait, don’t go — ” I’m not sure which. I noticed this as we left Death Alley in Chicago, and author/ghost hunter Kriss Stephenson of MTV’s Fear Factor has made the same observation.

Stull Cemetery — Stull, Kan.

It’s nearly — if not completely — impossible to do an investigation of Stull Cemetery. Rumor and folklore have drawn college students and occult enthusiasts to the site for years. Understandibly, the cemetery’s neighbors are sick of the rowdiness and drunkeness, and especially the careless desecration of their relatives’ graves. “No Tresspassing” signs and a 5-foot fence now border the cemetery. Law enforcement patrols the site regularly during the  month of October. No doubt the houses situated just across the road from the cemetery are quick to call on them year-round if any trespassers are spotted.

Nothing paranormal about Stull can be traced back to fact. But the folklore surrounding Stull Cemetery is so vibrant, it’s difficult to think it came from nowhere. Among the legends:

-The child of a witch and the devil is buried in Stull Cemetery.

-Stull Cemetery is one of the two places on earth (the other in Stull, England) where the devil appears in person, both on Halloween and on the Spring Equinox.

-Stull Cemetery is one of the seven gateways to hell.

-A staircase (leading to…?) exists beneath the old stone church in the cemetery.

-The town of Stull was once called “Skull” (no evidence of this exists)

-Upon flying across the United States, Pope John Paul II directed his pilot to divert the plane so as not to fly over Stull (this has also been exposed as a myth.)

-If you throw beer bottles against the old stone church on Halloween night, they won’t break.

Could be these beer bottles are the reason the church is no longer standing. The dilapidated, roofless bulding was torn down in 2002, under mysterious circumstances. A Lawrence-Journal World article reported that niether the owner of the cemetery’s land nor the cemetery’s caretaker was aware of or authorized the church’s demolition. Machine tracks were visible in the soil, so it’s not as though something ethereal caused the building to disappear.

I visited Stull on a Sunday afternoon and parked my car on the side of the road. I went up to the fence and took several pictures, but dared not do more than that. Disappointingly, nothing extraordinary appeared in my pictures.

Las Vegas Casinos — June, 2005

Bally’s was formerly the site of MGM Grand. A fire in 1980 killed 87 people. This has spurred rumors of hauntings, although I have found no anecdotal evidence of this. I did get an extremely bright picture of an orb in the lobby.

The Flamingo’s most famous owner was New York mob ganster Bugsy Siegel.  Althought the original casino was torn down and rebuilt, Bugsy apparently isn’t going anywhere. He seems to like lounging by the poolside and strolling through the gardens (once the site of the original casino), as he has been seen there by dozens of guests over the years. See photos below.

(A faint orb is viewable in the photo above, at the top right corner.)

Several other Vegas casinos along the Strip are reportedly haunted, although I was unable to capture anything unusual on camera. Read more about these locations at http://lasvegas.citysearch.com/roundup/40468 .

Independence, Mo. (four locations); August, 2005

I’m grouping these four investigations together because they took place on the same day with the same people present. As these are all public, historical locations, we visited in the daytime during regular visitor hours.

The Old Jackson County Jail was built in 1859 and once housed famous prisoners

William Quantrill and Frank (brother of Jesse) James.

 

It’s a depressing, dark, cave-like building. Supposedly, the first jail cell is haunted. Visitors report feeling nausea and chills, and hearing footsteps, growling and gasping in this cell. Some have seen a man wearing blue in this cell.  The jail could also possibly be haunted by a marshall that was killed during a jailbreak in 1866. Woman and children were housed here during the Civil War, so that could be another source of the hauntings.

(The jail cell above once housed Frank James. His celebrity status, outlaw or no, earned him a cell all to himself and special treatment from the wardens.)

Doug, Audrey and I experienced no chills or nausea during our visit. We heard no unusual sounds, and none of us felt uncomfortable. I did not get any strange pictures in the jail.

The Marshal’s Home, adjacent to the jail, was another story. While none of us experienced anything, orbs showed up in several pictures.

Photos:
1- An orb can be seen in front of the open door in one of the upstairs bedrooms of the marshal’s home.
2- An orb appears in front of the curtain.
3- An orb hovers just to the right of Doug’s right shoulder.

 

The Vaile Mansion was built by Colonel Harvey Vaile in 1881.

When Colonel Vaile was indicted for mail fraud, a distraught Mrs. Vaile, ostracized from Independence society, killed herself in her bedroom by overdosing on morphine in 1889. Unfortunately for Mrs. Vaile, Colonel Vaile was later exonerated. He died in 1894.

Mrs. Vaile appears to haunt the mansion. She has been spotted looking out the windows and several reports of sightings of a woman in red on the main staircase could be tied to her. Additional, one docent at the now historic museum has seen an apparition in the mirror of Mrs. Vaile’s bedroom, and heard a lady’s voice calling to her, also from Mrs. Vaile’s bedroom — which was empty at the time.
In 1910, the mansion became a sanitorium and asylum, which it remained until the state closed it in 1981. One room, where lobotomies and other savage surgeries were performed on the mentally ill in the early days, is supposed to be very active. Most of the patients were kept locked up on the 3rd floor of the manion. This floor is now blocked off from museum visitors. Human cages and the smell of urine could be a reason why.

None of us noticed anything unusual while on the tour. Although the guide explained the history of the surgery room when we entered, I still felt nothing strange. I dodged away to take multiple pictures of the stairs while on the tour, and my preserverence was rewarded — I got two clear pictures of orbs on the stairs. The tour guide denied the mansion was haunted. The Vaile Mansion’s Web site says nothing about its alleged haunted status. If you visit, don’t expect the staff to welcome ghost hunters.

Photos:
1- An orb appears in front of the open wardrobe door in Mrs. Vaile’s bedroom. Mrs. Vaile committed suicide in this room.
2-A woman in a red dress, possibly the ghost of Mrs. Vaile, has been spotted on these steps. An orb appears at the top of the picture above the stairs.

As far as I know, and as much as I can find on the Web, the Bingham-Waggoner Estate  is not supposed to be haunted. The home of Missouri artist George Caleb Bingham, and later of the Waggoners, millers of “Queen of the Pantry” flour, the home has 21 rooms and was built in 1855. Orbs appeared in two of the pictures I took in the estate: