Tag Archives: haunted

The Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs

Main piece:

“The Crescent Hotel is a famous building in Eureka Springs with a long history because now it’s a common ghost attraction and makes a lot of local haunting lists. The building which began as a hotel for elite visiting Eureka Springs later became a tuberculosis ward during the plague and there were rumors about doctors who experimented on their patients trying to find cures to diseases like cancer”

Background:

The informant for this piece is a woman in her late 40s who lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She was born in Joplin, Missouri but moved south to Fayetteville and has lived there for almost 18 years by now. Fayetteville is a college town as it is adjacent to the University of Arkansas. Due to the proximity of the town to the Ozark mountains, the Ozark culture influences the town alongside the culture of those going there for college. This specific building is located outside of Fayetteville in an area called Eureka Springs. The hotel is just one of many structures converted to a tuberculosis ward to fight off the diseases in the 1900s. Similarly, in the past there have been similar stories of abandoned and haunted hospitals. 

Context:

The piece was shared with me via a phone call with the informant. This exact topic was brought up in response to my general question looking for local folklore of the Fayetteville area. 

Thoughts:

I feel as though this piece is interesting as it represents an amalgam of other similar haunted buildings. The Crescent Hotel began as a hotel for the elite members of society, but the business went under. This keeps in the theme of haunted buildings having ties to old money, and I feel represents a distrust of those with extreme wealth. This also makes sense in context of the location, which while not poverty-stricken, by no means has a large population of extremely wealthy inhabitants. The hotel is also described as a tuberculosis ward, which while not entirely accurate does reflect a fear of doctors and disease. This is a common fear and is often featured in similar structures like haunted hospitals. In my opinion, what differentiates this building is how the history of the building as both a hotel for the elite and hospital combines these two separate but similar stories into one extremely haunted structure.

The Haunted House in Calabasas

Main Piece: 

The following is transcribed from a conversation between the informant and the interviewer.

Interviewer: Tell me about the haunted house that’s in your neighborhood.

Informant: well, it’s actually not in my neighborhood but just a couple streets down. I’ve only been a couple times because you have to take a pretty long uphill hike to get past the gate without getting caught. 

Interviewer: So it’s a private neighborhood with people still living there?

Informant: Yeah it’s just your average suburban calabasas neighborhood, this one house has been abandoned for a solid fifteen years though. 

Interviewer: Well why do people think it’s haunted then?

Informant: I guess most people don’t hahaha but one time I went up there with a group of friends and we had a crazy supernatural experience and never went back. Basically we had our faces up against the window and all saw a face in the distance that wasn’t there before, and we just turned and booked it outta there. 

Interviewer: Oh so you guys actually started the rumor about this place being haunted?

Informant: I guess so! We’ve heard a couple other groups have similar things happen to them at the house though so we all think it’s legit. And I’ve seen enough horror movies in my life to know to never go back there again haha

Background:

My informant was born and raised in California, both of his parents also born Americans. He grew up in the Calabasas area and never believe in the paranormal until his experience at this “Haunted House”

Context: 

I spoke to my informant over the phone amidst the 2020 coronavirus epidemic. 

Thoughts:

While the story of this haunted house is interesting, I was more interested by the fact that my informant didn’t think the house was haunted, but just abandoned, before they went there. Even though other groups have said they’ve seen similar things, those accounts reportedly only started after my informant’s initial scare. This leads me to believe they are actually responsible for the folklore of this house, and it is interesting to see just how far those stories spread even though they don’t talk to the other groups directly. 

Driving around Scary Dairy

MAIN PIECE

Driving around Scary Dairy

“Scary Dairy is what you do when you wanna pass the time as a teenager, but also don’t want to spend any money.  It’s not really that scary or haunted, but younger kids like to believe it is so that they get a thrill from it.”

“What it is specifically is an old building on the CSUCI campus that used to be used to kill Mental hospital patients, so people drive past it or even sneak into it when they want to be frightened.”

BACKGROUND

SM is from Camarillo, California and has grown up in the area since he was born.  He says he remembers Scary Dairy from driving past it and even going inside.  He says he and his friends would make up ghost stories and talk nonsense when they were around it.   He also says that he has done this with many other friends and  that people that grew up in Camarillo always talk about it when they are in high school.

CONTEXT

SM is an old high school friend of mine.  I invited him to a  Discord server and I watched him play The Witcher.   He was open to talk about folklore of the area we grew up in during cutscenes he said he had already watched when he had played the entirety of the game before.

THOUGHTS

Ghosts are a very popular folkloric trope and it’s not surprising to hear about one in a suburban town like Camarillo.  What I believe is that, like many other “haunted” places in suburban towns, it’s  purpose less so is the straight fact that it is haunted, but instead the thrill that believing it is gives to young people.  To go drive around Scary Dairy must have some sort of rites of passage meaning as  well because SM specifically mentioned teens, but not younger kids like middle or elementary schoolers.

The Haunting of the Lorenzo

Main Piece

JS: “Yeah, dude! The Lorenzo is haunted! You’ve never heard about this?”

Collector: “No! I guess I don’t know enough people who live there.”

JS: “The Lorenzo used to be a hospital, which was abandoned for a bunch of years before the developers bought out the land for the apartments. A bunch of people died in that hospital, so obviously some parts of a place that big have got to be haunted. They try to gloss over it, but the carpets in there still give it away. It looks like The Shining! People get lost in the hallways all the time, and never come back.”

Collector: [laughter] “Has this happened to people you know or is it just something that you’ve heard about?”

JS: [laughter] “No, it’s never happened to anyone I’ve known. It’s probably all just made up. You can never be too careful, though. The place still gives off the creepy vibes and I am not making up that it used to be a hospital…look it up!”

Analysis

Buildings that have taken on lives beyond their original intention or original owners are often claimed as haunted places. The inevitability of death and pain in places like hospitals and prisons adds a very convincing layer to many that there are still souls who cannot escape the earth trapped in these locales. Many people are uncomfortable thinking about the harsh lives of those in the same spot as them, even if they did not know them directly. The legend is known to students of USC because of how many end up living at the Lorenzo after they lose their spots in student housing. To this very day, people consider ghosts as considerations when deciding where to live, which demonstrates how strong the belief in after life and spirits are in the US.

The Ursuline Ghost

(trigger warning: talk of self-harm)

 

INFORMANT: Do you remember the ghost story about the nun that haunts Ursuline?

 

ME: Yes I do, but go ahead and tell me about it.

 

INFORMANT: Okay so in the entryway of the highschool Ursuline, they have an old picture of a class where you can actually see this ghostly figure in a window in the background. The legend is that the nun killed herself in the school and is now cursed to walk the halls for eternity. I remember when I took a tour of the school, I got goosebumps and instantly creeped out. I didn’t even know the story at the time but I knew that place was haunted. It’s also just super old and creepy looking

 

Background

The informant fully believes that the school is actually haunted by the nun and found the picture that everyone references online. She originally heard the story from one of her friends who attends the all girls school and has since passed it onto her friends at her school as well.

 

Context

Ursuline Academy is an all girls private Catholic school in Dallas, Texas. The informant is currently a student at a different, co-ed private school in Dallas.

 

Thoughts

The idea that the nun was forced to haunt that school as a result of killing herself is a statement about the catholic roots of the school. In Christianity, suicide is considered a sin instead of a result of depression. This concept that suicide is a punishable act may have contributed to this story (it should be noted that there is no record of a nun ever dying on the school’s grounds- much less commiting suicide on school grounds). On the other hand, Christians believe in Heaven and Hell and therefore don’t believe in ghosts. So the idea that a servant of God would be damned to haunt Earth forever is a naturally rebellious idea that goes against traditional beliefs.