History Goes Bump: Ghost Tours For The Mind

On 12 acres in West Fargo, North Dakota sits a treasure chest of historic buildings and artifacts known as Bonanzaville. This is a pioneer village and museum that is home to 43 historic buildings and over 400,000 artifacts. The historic park has been operated by the Cass County Historical Society since 1967. The buildings have been collected from various places and bring more than just historical...

We have been inside the Sorrel-Weed House twice and while we have never had a paranormal experience in the house, there is definitely an energy inside this house. The house has been through many changes in its 175+ years. After starting as an Antebellum mansion to a wealthy slave owner named Francis Sorrel, it served as a store that found the outside of the house completely changed, then it was ap...

The name bestowed upon Rotherwood Mansion really says it all. It is known as the House of Terror and Sadness. Today, it is a private residence where the inhabitants seem to live in peace, but the history here is anything but peaceful. This home was once one of the largest slave plantations in Eastern Tennessee where life for slaves was terrifying. Death came calling many times in all of its forms:...

The Baker Family moved to Altoona, Pennsylvania in the 1830s and grew a successful iron-making business. Elias was an ambitious man who ruled his family with an iron fist that resulted in him alienating his first son and driving his daughter to dedicating herself to a spinster life. He built the family a mansion in Altoona, known as the Baker Mansion. The home remained with the family for decades...

In the United States, there are 59 separate natural protected areas known as National Parks. The Department of the Interior oversees these parks under the National Park Service and each area has been dedicated by an act of Congress. The effort to set aside these areas was initiated to prevent the expanding population from destroying distinct natural areas, so they could be preserved for future gen...

The Keith-Albee Theater in Huntington, West Virginia was a part of a national chain of theaters that hosted vaudeville shows and then eventually converted to motion picture theaters. The Keith-Albee Theater also has the distinction of being one of a very few atmospheric theaters built in America. Nearly all of them are gone today. This theater has survived and has been refurbished to its former gl...

Cape May in New Jersey is considered to be America's oldest seaside resort and while the word "cape" is part of its name, Cape May is actually an island. Dr. Emlen Physick, Jr. built his home on Cape May at the age of 21 and he spent his entire life there. The estate is gorgeous with a unique "Stick-Style" Victorian architecture style. The doctor clearly loved the home that he shared with three ot...

Every Christmas Eve we follow the tradition of telling scary ghost stories around the fire. This is the audio from our live stream, unedited and lots of fun! So if you weren't able to join us at Facebook or YouTube for the live stream, you haven't missed it completely. We share listener's flash fiction and a story by Vonnie Winslow Crist, "The Return of Gunnar Kettilson." Merry Christmas and Happy...

Gettysburg is a town in Pennsylvania that is well known for its haunts. The place is steeped in history from the bloody Battle of Gettysburg to one of the most well known Presidential speeches of all time, the Gettysburg Address given by President Abraham Lincoln. So it only makes sense that spirits would be alive and well here. One location that is overshadowed by the Gettysburg Battlefield, but...

The final resting places we are covering in this haunted cemeteries episode are all very different with one thing in common, they are all haunted. The Waldheim Cemetery is a large conglomeration of several cemeteries within one cemetery that was set aside for the Jewish dead of Chicago. The famous specter here is a hitchhiking ghost. La Recoleta Cemetery is a graveyard that Denise has visited in B...

Port Townsend claims to be one of the coolest small towns in America. The city had its heyday during the Victorian era and several of the historic buildings here are Victorian in design. Many of the earlier settlers envisioned the seaport becoming the largest harbor on the west coast. One of the prominent families in Port Townsend were the Eisenbeis and they built their home in 1892 in the style o...

The Calico Mountains rise out of the Mojave Desert, painted in a variety of colors, which is how they got their name. These mountains are home to Calico, a ghost town that was once a thriving mining town. As was the case with so many other mining towns, once the price of silver dropped, people started leaving. The gunfights, gambling and mining of the past just faded away. Today, it is a tourist a...

Most cemeteries are peaceful final resting places, but occasionally these graveyards have spirits at unrest for a variety of reasons. On this episode, we have three cemeteries that we will be visiting. Paranormal investigator Peter Dowling joins us to discuss Woodlawn Cemetery in Sandy Creek, New York. Then we venture to Ohio and visit Chestnut Grove Cemetery that is the final resting place of the...

Along the shores of the Great Salt Lake in Utah stands The Saltair Resort. The resort has three separate incarnations and seems to have been plagued with a curse of sorts, because the first two Saltair resorts were destroyed by fire and the third has suffered flooding. This originally was a family place for fun similar in style to Coney Island with carnival rides and games and today is a place tha...

Whitby, Ontario is in southeastern Ontario and is what we would consider a suburb of Toronto. The name is Danish and means "White Village." The original surveyor of the area chose the town names here from towns in northeastern England, so Whitby is named for the seaport in Yorkshire. Camp 30 was an urban explorers playground with several abandoned, crumbling buildings just waiting to be explored....

Sabah is one​ ​of​ ​two​ ​Malaysian​ ​states​ ​located​ at the northern tip ​of​ ​Borneo. The​ ​island​ ​is​ ​shared​ ​with​ ​Brunei,​ ​ Indonesia​ ​(Kalimantan),​ ​and​ ​the​ ​second Malaysian​ ​state,​ ​ Sarawak. This is ​home​ ​to​ ​over​ ​forty​ ​different​ ​ethnic​ ​ groups​. Beaufort is a town located in Sabah and this is where our guests join us from. They attend SMKBeaufort and it is one o...

Happy Halloween you Spooktacular People! This is our fourth Halloween Special and we have it packed with chills featuring your real life supernatural experiences! Collin, Steven and Emily share their experiences themselves and Denise and Diane read the stories they have collected from listeners over the past couple of months. Enjoy! And have a safe and fun Halloween! Music: Episode 014 - Part 03 -...

The three cemeteries we are featuring in this episode are some of the most well known cemeteries in the world. They also happen to be famously haunted. Each has beautiful and ornate monuments and have become favorite spots for taphophiles. Hollywood Forever has become the final resting place for a plethora of deceased celebrities. Some of them haunt the cemetery even today. Greyfriar's Kirkyard ha...

Poasttown Elementary School was dedicated in 1937 in Middletown, Ohio. Before a school was located on this spot, there was a train wreck with casualties within a mile of the property. There was no hospital close by, so the field where the school now exists was set up as a triage center. Many believe that the spirits of those who died from the accident still remain on the land and now haunt the sch...

A rather nondescript and falling apart farmhouse in Hinsdale, New York has been described as one of the most haunted places in the state. The house has a mysterious history and unexplained paranormal activity that eventually led to an exorcism being performed. Many families have tried to live in the house, but not many have stayed. The experiences of one of those families, the Dandys, was featured...

Lilith is an enigma. Did she ever actually exist? And if she just was a mythological character, which description of her is accurate? Was she just the shunned first wife of Adam? Was she a demon hellbent on killing babies? Was she a demon in the form of a succubus? Was she a vampire? Or is she simply a model of feminist power worthy of worship in goddess religious practices? On this episode, we ar...

The city of Tooele in Utah has a history of mining, industry and bloody conflicts. The original Mormon pioneers who settled here were not on friendly terms with the local Native Americans. Conflicts arose and much blood was spilled. Over seventy years ago, the Tooele Valley Hospital was built for citizens and military members stationed there. It was closed in 2002 and is now the home for Asylum 49...

On this episode, we celebrate our three year anniversary. It's been a wonderful journey! We have some new rewards for Executive Producers, which means more great stuff for them and we announce those changes on this episode. Last year, we held our first flash fiction contest to celebrate our special occasion and we have done it again this year. We share our two runner-ups and our three winners and...

Many cemeteries have been designed to serve as parks. They have many features that we would find in large public parks like statuary, stone architecture, large trees, lush landscaping and beautiful flowers. For taphophiles, cemeteries offer a place of adventure and discovery, whether it is seeking out a specific burial plot or figuring out the meaning of the symbology we find there. For genealogis...

The Old Idaho State Penitentiary was in use for over a hundred years and had more than 13,000 prisoners pass through the gates. As was the case in most prisons that were built in the 1800s, conditions were brutal with a complete lack of sanitation and ventilation. All variety of criminals were housed here and many were executed on the gallows that were set up first in the Rose Garden, and later in...