History Goes Bump: Ghost Tours For The Mind

Santa Maria is a town that lies strategically halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. This makes it an attractive stop over point for travelers. The Santa Maria Inn is a central coastal historical landmark that has provided accommodation for business people, tourists and celebrities for nearly one hundred years. Those celebrities include Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino and Jean Harlow. O...

Deadwood, South Dakota was a rough and tumble mining camp at its beginnings, but it soon became a bustling city built on the wealth of the gold found nearby. Western luminaries visited and are buried here. Natural disasters and destructive fires ravaged the city on several occasions, but like the little city that could, Deadwood always bounced back. Prohibition and outlawing gambling did not stop...

Happy New Year Everybody! We hope 2017 is a year of love, hope and peace for you. In this special, we talk about a few changes to the format of the podcast, plans for the new year, introduce the ambassadors for our newly launched Ambassador Program and the history and haunting of the Indonesian Embassy in Washington, D.C., also known as the Walsh Mansion. Let's make 2017 spooky! Check out the webs...

In this special, Diane and Denise discuss two legendary creatures that appear on New Years Eve: Mari Lwyd and Namahage. Then they explore the history and hauntings of two bars in the town of Roslyn in Washington state. These bars are the Pioneer Restaurant & Sody-licious Bar and The Brick Tavern. Have a safe and fun New Years Eve! Check out the website: http://historygoesbump.com Become an Executi...

The Commissariat Store in Brisbane is the second oldest building in the city and dates back to the early years when Brisbane was a penal colony. The penal settlement in Brisbane was the most violent and toughest on the continent. Convict laborers were used to build many of the early buildings in the settlement, which included the store. A violent confrontation during that construction seems to hav...

This special is an edited version of the live stream Diane and Denise recorded from the lanai, featuring listener flash fiction, a poem called "The Nightmare Before Christmas and another ghost story. Merry Christmas and keep it spooky!

Waynesville, Ohio is known as the "Antique Capital of the Midwest." At the town's beginnings though, it was an important Quaker settlement. The Quaker meeting established here in 1803 was the first in southwestern Ohio. A stagecoach line connected Waynesville to the rest of the state and eventually the village would serve as a stop along the Underground Railroad. Despite having a pretty peaceful b...

Tempe, Arizona is the seventh largest city in the state of Arizona. The town was built on an agricultural base and grew out of the combining of two distinct pioneer towns. Many of the original historical structures built in Tempe have survived and its one of the town's greatest attributes. One of these buildings was originally a family home that is now a restaurant named Casey Moore's Oyster House...

Whidbey Island sits along Puget Sound and has a long history dating back to the 1800s. The island is the largest of all the islands making up Island County in Washington. It is a picturesque location that stretches for 55 miles making it the fourth longest and largest island in the contiguous United States. It is home to the Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. The island also is home to Fort Casey,...

The USS Hornet is an aircraft carrier located in Alameda, California. It is named for a previous aircraft carrier that sank in October 1942. This new Hornet joined the rest of the United States fleet in November 1943 and fought in many battles during World War II. She later served during the Vietnam War and then went on to help with the Apollo Program. She was decommissioned in 1970 and has gone o...

Atchison, Kansas is famously known as the birthplace of Amelia Earhart.  It was home to the Kansa tribe before settlement began when the territory opened in the mid 1850s. The Finney family were some early settlers to the town and prominent members of the family would live there all their lives. They built several homes and one of those came to be known as the Sallie House. It gained notoriety in...

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 haunte...

Granbury, Texas is a place where some claim Texas history lives and never left. The Granbury Opera House is a beautiful restored building that has a history of entertainment that continues to our modern day. It is a physical example of the importance theater has had in America in general and Texas specifically. The building has housed a variety of businesses. One of the more famous characters to p...

Happy Thanksgiving you Spooktacular people! We are so very grateful for all of you! When we think about Thanksgiving, one of the things that comes to mind is food. So we are talking food and ghosts on this episode with author and journalist James Bartlett. James has been featured in over 100 magazines and he is author of Gourmet Ghosts and Gourmet Ghosts 2, which feature murder, mystery and histor...

Windsor, Ontario is a mid-sized city on the southwest tip of Ontario, Canada, across the river from Detroit, Michigan. It's a multi-cultural city with a strong history in manufacturing. The French founded the early settlement here and this is reflected in the names of streets. There are many historical buildings in the city and one of these locations is the Capitol Theater where full seasons of co...

The New England area is dotted with lighthouses to protect ships from the treacherous shores of the coast. Some of these lighthouses are more inland like the Ledge Lighthouse that sits in the Long Island Sound. It has a unique design that makes it appear to be a house floating out on the water, although the bright flashing light atop it is a dead give away of its true purpose. Across the water is...

Key West, Florida is the southernmost part of the United States. The city features man-made beaches, resorts, shopping, eateries and lots of history. One of the historical bars here is Capt. Tony's Saloon. The building has a long and diverse history that includes brothels, speakeasies, morgues and much more. One of the former bars here was a favorite watering hole of Ernest Hemingway. The current...

For over two hundred years, a building called simply "The White House" has housed the most important leader in the United States of America, the President. The structure that sits at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue today is not the original. And even after being rebuilt, it has been transformed throughout the decades both outside and inside. Despite the changes, the White House has always been a symbol o...

Minnesota became the 32nd state in America on May 11, 1858. The Minnesota city of Sauk Centre has a long history as a wild west of the Midwest. In this city sits The Palmer House Hotel, which is both a hotel and a restaurant. It has been a popular place for over 100 years. It was not the first building on this location. An earlier hotel burned to the ground. The Palmer brought innovation to the ci...

Happy Halloween you spooktacular listeners! You guys are so amazing and you have had some amazing and scary experiences in your lives! On this special, we feature your true ghost stories. Some are heartwarming and some are terrifying! We wish you all a safe and fun Halloween! Enjoy the 2016 Halloween Special! Check out the website: http://historygoesbump.com Become and Executive Producer: http://p...

Boris Karloff was a man of many talents who made a name for himself on stage and screen. Fame eluded him until he stepped into the heavy boots of a classic movie monster known as Frankenstein's Monster. It was a role that Karloff would not even be credited with, but it launched him into more horror films as he became an overnight sensation. He would do many things in his career, including providin...

Study a map of the world with a focus on name places that carry the word "devil" in the name or some derivative thereof, and you will literally find hundreds of them. What is the fascination with using the devil's name? There are some who believe these places have been named this way because they harbor some kind of evil. Some of them are located at places thought to be crossroads. And it would se...

Many people are aware of the Salem Witch Trials in America. And while these trials and these alledged witches get most of the attention, these were not the only people accused of witchcraft. It is generally understood that these people were not really practicing witchcraft, but that does not mean that there were not really witches in America. Witchcraft has long been practiced in America and Wicca...

This topic was suggested by our listener Miranda Hofer and she joins us as special co-host to talk about the Djinn and her personal experiences with these entities. Many people's only experience with the creatures called Djinn are through stories about genies. We've been lead to believe that these creatures live in lamps and can only be released by rubbing the outside of the lamp. Once released, t...

There are many legends that incorporate curses into their telling. A curse is a type of magic that is meant to harm people. It would seem that curses can fall upon the land as well. And there is a place on Earth that is considered one of the largest areas of cursed land. This is a forest that is said to be the world's most haunted forest. A forest so completely terrifying that many have feared eve...