From ‘The Shining’ Hotel to the Queen Mary: Haunted Places You Can Visit

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum stylized — Wikipedia

Every American town has its own spooky folklore. Abandoned buildings and neglected homes inspire tales of hauntings and serve as rites of passage for youths daring each other to peek inside.

The country is rife with buildings where spirits linger and myths are born, and for this Halloween issue of ReMIND, we take a look at a handful of ghostly locales sure to chill your spine, and places you can visit or spend the night in, if you dare.

The Stanley Hotel

Estes Park, Colorado

Stanley Hotel Colorado

Founded by Freelan Oscar Stanley as a wealthy retreat in 1909 (in the park that helped cure his tuberculosis), the Stanley Hotel has a rich history of strange happenings and 117 years of people passing through its rooms and hallways. In 1911 an explosion occurred while a gas lighting system was being installed, sending a chambermaid through the floor and injuring seven others. The concert hall is said to be haunted by Stanley’s wife Flora, who can be heard quietly tinkling away from the beyond on her prized Steinway piano.

Fourth-floor guests report hearing children playing at all hours, doors opening and closing on their own, and the ghost of “Rocky Mountain Jim” Nugent standing at the foot of their beds. After Stephen King wrote The Shining following a stay at the Stanley, Room 217, which plays a pivotal role in the novel, became the building’s most popular destination and still prompts reports of paranormal activity.

The Villisca Ax Murder House

Villisca, Iowa

Wikipedia/Public Domain

On June 10, 1912, someone entered Josiah Moore’s home in remote Villisca, Iowa, and bludgeoned six children and two adults with an ax, escaping into the night and prompting more than 100 years of speculation as to who committed the atrocity. In 1995, a couple purchased the home and restored it to its 1912 state, hosting tours and overnight stays for the morbidly curious. The couple planted a sign on the yard, garishly emblazoned with “The Villisca Ax Murder House.” The location has been featured on countless paranormal shows that report mystery fog, communication with the deceased occupants, ghostly orbs, the sounds of kids playing, toys moving on their own, and an intense sense of dread throughout.

Eastern State Penitentiary

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Wikipedia/Public Domain

The castle-like Eastern State Penitentiary was designed to encourage regret or “penitence” in its criminal residents through solitary confinement and psychological abuse in windowless stone rooms that were perpetually cold and damp. The punishments doled out by guards were legendary in their barbarism, which Charles Dickens referred to as “cruel, wrong, rigid, strict and hopeless.” The unrelenting horrors prompted an unusually high suicide rate among inmates until the facility’s closure in 1970. Today the location is visited by thousands of tourists every year who report hearing rattling chains, footsteps, cries and screams, and being stalked by shadowy specters.

The RMS Queen Mary

Long Beach, California

Wikipedia

Construction on the luxurious Queen Mary ocean liner began in Scotland in 1930, and after delays prompted by the Great Depression, it finally began its maiden trans-Atlantic voyage on May 27, 1936. Over the following 31 years, the crown jewel of the Cunard Line carried 2.2 million passengers across the pond, pausing public transport during World War II when it was used for military transport. During one wartime trip off the coast of Ireland, the Queen Mary was being escorted by the HMS Curacoa through German U-boat-infested waters when it collided with the guide ship, cutting it in half and sending it and most of its crew to the depths. During its lifetime at sea, the Queen Mary saw a reported 47 onboard deaths, a tragic legacy that has fueled reports of supernatural goings-on since its 1967 retirement and permanent docking in Long Beach, California. Visitors report seeing apparitions; hearing ghostly wails, banging and noises like splashing in the empty pool; and spotting a mysterious lady in white who wanders the ship’s elegant rooms and galleries.

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum

Weston, West Virginia

Wikipedia

Prison laborers started construction on the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in 1858 but had to abandon their efforts when the Civil War broke out in 1861. During the war, both Union and Confederate soldiers occupied the asylum’s partial structures at various times, with the Southerners absconding with building supplies. Work on the site resumed in 1863, with the first patients admitted a year later. During its run as a “health facility,” the asylum implemented barbaric treatment methods including insulin shock therapy, caged isolation and electroshock regimens. In the 1950s, the hospital was home to the West Virginia Lobotomy Project, intended to reduce the number of patients in overcrowded asylums. The campus is now a tourist stop where visitors report seeing apparitions and shadow figures, along with hearing voices, chilling screams, and thundering footsteps wandering corridors.

Lincoln Park Zoo

Chicago, Illinois

Wikipedia/Paul R. Burley

The land on North Cannon Drive where the Lincoln Park Zoo sits originally served as Chicago’s first cemetery in the 1840s and 1850s. More than 35,000 people were interred on its grounds, many the result of the Civil War and a typhoid outbreak, and while most bodies were eventually moved to a new location when officials found that the remains were infecting the city water supply, thousands were still in residence when the zoo was established in 1868. A bridge overlooking the park became a tragic magnet for suicides between 1894 and 1919, until it was removed due to the persistent rash of deaths. Visitors have reported seeing apparitions, as well as floating orbs, fog and human-like shapes in photos, and the Couch Mausoleum, the only remaining aboveground cemetery feature, is said to be a hot spot of unusual activity.

From ‘The Shining’ Hotel to the Queen Mary: Haunted Places You Can Visit