The Geiser Grand Hotel was originally opened in 1886 in the height of the gold frenzy in Oregon. The Grand still operates to this day even after a few reopenings and change of owners, the latest of which was in 1993.
Name/Name & Location
The Geiser Grand Hotel opened in Baker City, Oregon, which was known as the “Queen City of the Mines,” due to the Gold Rush happenings within the region. The hotel also became known as “the Grand” for short because of the advanced technology and beauty it held within its walls.
Physical Description
An Italianate building containing technology that was ahead of its time: an elevator, a 4th story clock tower, a 200-foot corner cupola, a 2nd-floor balcony overlooking marble floors, crystal chandeliers, Honduran mahogany paneling, and stained-glass ceilings. All of these components made this hotel a grander of its time for all the wealthy and high society figures to flock to.
The Lady in Blue was also known as “Granny” Annabelle, a beautiful Victorian woman dressed in a blue gown is one of the hotel’s most known spirits. She was a permanent character making grand entries down from her room 302 and having her own reserved chair at the bar each night.
Origin
Opened in Baker City the hotel has stood for years and in 1906 was named the “the most fortunate place in the country” by a newspaper article. Ever since it’s 1902 reopening The Lady in Blue was a prominent figure at the Grand, which lead to the first tales of ghosts roaming the grounds after her death.
Mythology and Lore
The Lady in Blue has been a staple of siting’s at the Grand, multiple people have reported seeing her descending the staircase, sitting at the bar, and disappearing into the wall through-out the hotel. She is suspected of moving guests’ jewelry and items, nibbling snacks from their rooms, or down at the bar pinch the rears of those who sit in her chair. There are other well-known spirits to call the Grand home as well. There is a saloon girl in a red laced bustier who hangs about the balcony, a cowboy who chats with bar-goers, a little girl wandering the 3rd floor, and flappers from the 1920s. Many of the guests and workers have reported wide-ranges of experiences with the ghosts of the Grand, as well as paranormal groups who investigate the hotel regularly. Ghost Hunters and Atlantic Paranormal Group (TAPS) are two teams that see the Grand regularly and continue to collect data and do studies on the building and its spirits. The Grand also does daily ghost tours at the hotel to educate and tell the tales of the ghosts that stay at the Grand.
One Halloween night, as the sun slipped beneath the horizon, the young children were coming back from their rounds through the little Yup’ik village on the tundra in Southwest Alaska. The teenagers had waited their turn and eagerly squeezed out of their home, as their mother told them they were allowed to leave. They raced through to each of the small houses that dotted the dark, decrepit, and narrow boardwalks that snaked through the village. Not all of them donned costumes and there was still not yet a flake of snow on the ground, a rare occurrence for such a chilly autumnal night. The tall grass line the boardwalk like two moving walls that whispered with the winds that rushed through the spaces between the houses. They grabbed candy within the first house, then came back out and started back off; at each of the doors, they held their plastic grocery sacks aloft, and they became more heavily laden with candies and treats.
After coming out of the fourth house they spotted something strange emerging from the tall grasses onto the boardwalk behind them—it was a traditional Yup’ik parka, the hood was up and the ruff obscured the view of the face within. It wouldn’t have been strange except for the fact that it had no visible feet or hands. The teenagers sprinted to the next house, scared to death and unsure of what the seemingly floating parka had really been, but they were unwilling to say anything about what they had seen to the adults that were now handing them candy.
Photography by Joe Leahy
Between each and every stop for candy, the teens stepped outside and the floating parka had appeared again, as if it was just waiting to scare them. They had all grown up hearing the traditional stories of ghosts and ghouls—all meant to teach them to be cautious in one way or another, as a way to keep them safe in their unforgiving lands. They had a sense that they were being pranked—as if to test their knowledge and preparedness, but not a single one of them could muster up the courage to approach the floating apparition or to try to figure out who was toying with them.
The far north side of the village is where the last batch of houses resided—the travel between where the teenagers were and where their last glimpse of the prized sweets laid was a lengthy weaving, dismally unlit sprawling boardwalk. This path took them directly past the hauntingly abandoned teacher’s quarters that the entire village regularly avoided being near and even speaking about in passing. They made their way down the boardwalk towards this last remaining treasure trove of candy, when the little parka appeared behind them once again. One of the teens looked behind them as they crawled into the artic entry of one of the houses and saw its silhouette looming alone between the spirit-infested teacher’s quarters and the house they entered, blocking their dark and dreadful passage home.
The teenagers reappeared cautiously from the house, but the little parka was nowhere to be seen–each house they exited they huddled together in fear that the ghostly figure would leap out of the shadows and attack them from the front or back, but it didn’t. Then one of the teens gasped and pointed, there it was in the darkness beneath a building, huddled behind one of the steel posts that propped it up from the permafrost–it sat upright, waiting for them. All at once, it sprang up toward them with a hideous scream and chased the teenagers down the boardwalk, growls emanated from the unending abyss of the hood. As the spirit overcame them, they recognized the dead black eyes that sat deep in his sunken frostbitten features; it was the village boy whose snow machine had broken through the ice on the river. The boy had then managed to climb out from what would have been a certain death only to succumb to the elements before anyone could find him, only a year prior.
Georgia-based author and artist, Mary has been a horror aficionado since the mid-2000s. Originally a hobby artist and writer, she found her niche in the horror industry in late 2019 and hasn’t looked back since. Mary’s evolution into a horror expert allowed her to express herself truly for the first time in her life. Now, she prides herself on indulging in the stuff of nightmares.
Mary also moonlights as a content creator across multiple social media platforms—breaking down horror tropes on YouTube, as well as playing horror games and broadcasting live digital art sessions on Twitch.
The current St Augustine Lighthouse in Florida was built between 1871 and 1874 and stands at the North end of Anastasia Island. The original lighthouse was actually a wooden structure that dates back to 1589. It was a tower which went dark during the Civil War of 1867, and had since lost the battle with encroaching tempestuous seas and long periods of erosion. Congress approved the rebuilding of the lighthouse in 1871 amidst myriad reports from the United States Lighthouse Board concerning its condition, they could never have expected such a benefit to public transportation and safety to end in such catastrophe. The Ghost of St Augustine Lighthouse is one of tragic beginnings.
Lighthouse Reconstruction
Hezekiah Pittee was superintendent of Lighthouse Construction at the time, and moved with his family to Anastasia Island to oversee the construction of the new and improved lighthouse. He had a wife, Mary and four children; Mary Adelaide, Eliza, Edward and Carrie, all who lived on site with him during the building period. Of course it didn’t take long for the young children to turn the site into their own personal playing field, and the children of many of the workers soon joined in the fun.
Two years into the process and not even half of the tower had been erected. To streamline things, a railway track and cart were installed to transport supplies from the supply ships docked at Salt Run to the building site. Of course the children all loved the cart, riding it down the hill like a rollercoaster and pulling it back up again several times a day. The only thing that stopped the cart from flipping and careening into the water was a single wooden board slotted into place at the end of the track. Clearly health and safety standards were less evolved back then.
It doesn’t take an expert on tragedy to foresee what happened next. On the fateful morning of July 10th, 1873, the three young Prittee sisters were riding the cart with the 10 year old daughter of one of the construction workers, though for some inexplicable reason the safety board was not in place. The cart descended the hill and tipped into the water, trapping all of the girls inside the watery metal box. One of the workers, Dan Sessions, witnessed the incident and ran to the water where he managed to lift the cart from atop the girls. Sadly by this time three of the four girls had drowned, the only survivor being the youngest of the Prittee sisters, Carrie. Construction on the tower, and indeed the whole town was shut down in the days following the incident, and after the funeral was held the family returned to Maine to bury the children in their hometown.
The Hauntings
In the nearly one hundred and fifty years since the tragedy occurred, many strange and unusual instances have been blamed on the spirits of the unfortunate young victims. Haunted lighthouses are a common trope, but this is one of the most active haunted lighthouses in the world. Heceta Head lighthouse in Oregon is another notable haunted lighthouse.
Heceta Head Haunted Lighthouse
One of these occurrences comes from Lighthouse Keeper James Pippin who lived and worked in the tower from 1953 to 1955. The man reportedly heard footsteps above him late at night sometime in this 2 year period, though when he went to check it out, no one was there. At first Pippen lived in the usual Keeper’s house, but he quickly moved to a smaller coastal lookout building, insisting that the main building was haunted and refusing to spend any more time there.
Another haunted story comes from the 1960’s at a time when the lighthouse’s lamp was fully automated and lighthouse keepers were replaced with workers known as ‘lamplighters’. These people didn’t live on sight as keepers did, so the buildings were rented out instead. One man who was renting the Keepers’ house in the 60s tells a story of waking up in the night with a small girl standing over his bed. As he blinked and rubbed his eyes, the spectral apparition vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
In the 1970s the keepers’ building burned down mysteriously, and in the process of it being rebuilt, those involved reported the area was a hotbed for ghostly and unexplainable activity. It’s said that even today a strange and spooky presence can be felt in the basement of the home, which is also coincidentally one of the only parts of the place that didn’t fully burn.
These days the tower is reserved for supernatural tourism, and of course there has been no lull in the hair-raising activity the place is known for. It would seem that the spirits of the girls like to play games with unsuspecting people. When one staff member was closing up for the night alone, he heard giggling coming from the top of the tower. Thinking he had left a tourist up there by mistake, he went to check but, of course, found no one.
Patrons of the ‘Dark of the Moon Tours’ consistently talk of ghostly activity to this day, so why not take a trip and see if you can come into contact with some 19th century spirits?
Joe first knew he wanted to write in year six after plaguing his teacher’s dreams with a harrowing story of World War prisoners and an insidious ‘book of the dead’. Clearly infatuated with horror, and wearing his influences on his sleeve, he dabbled in some smaller pieces before starting work on his condensed sci-fi epic, System Reset in 2013.Once this was published he began work on many smaller horror stories and poems in bid to harness and connect with his own fears and passions and build on his craft. Joe is obsessed with atmosphere and aesthetic, big concepts and even bigger senses of scale, feeding on cosmic horror of the deep sea and vastness of space and the emotions these can invoke. His main fixes within the dark arts include horror films, extreme metal music and the bleakest of poetry and science fiction literature. He holds a deep respect for plot, creative flow and the context of art, and hopes to forge deeper connections between them around filmmakers dabbling in the dark and macabre.
The Golden North Hotel was built in 1898 to provide accommodations to ‘gold-rushers’ making their way through the city of Skagway every week. In 1908 the hotel was moved, then another story was added to it, as well as the dome.
Name
Golden North Hotel is also known as the Golden North to local Skagway residence.
Physical Description
The Golden North Hotel was beautiful off white, 3 story building, with large windows and golden trimming. On the roof, there was a large golden-colored dome clearing marking its place on
Origin
The origin comes from the height of the rush when a prospector Klondike Ike was staying at the hotel with his beloved fiancé Mary. Mary took residence in Room 23 while awaiting Ike’s return from the goldfields with hopefully their new fortune. This is where legends split for dear Mary; some say she grew ill with pneumonia and died. Other variations say that Mary grew sick with worry when her lover didn’t return, locking herself away from the town and passing away alone. Hotel staff found her in Room 23, and for years since have reported experiences with her spirit.
Mythology and Lore
The true nature of ‘Scary Mary’ also comes with a variety of reported sightings. Some claim to see a woman roaming the halls and watching from windows while others hear strange noises, feel colder then one should in Alaska. Some guests reported waking up in the middle of the night choking as well.
They are another Supernatural event claiming a room at the Golden North, this is Room 14. Staff and guests have reported mysterious lights ‘sparkling’ and also ‘twinkling’ around the room. There’s also an orb about the room that visits guests and workers. None of these “lights” have an apparent source, all reports state they are non-threatening to the viewer.
Though the hotel officially closed in 2002, the Golden North did let guests take a turn at staying in the ‘haunted rooms. Room 23 was on the 3rd floor toward the northwest corner, and Room 14 is believed to be on the 2nd floor. The build is currently the Frontier Excursions & Adventures but features the Golden North sign.
Is there anything we missed about the Golden North Hotel? Let us know in the comments section below!
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