Tag Archives: haunted

The Haunted New Sheridan Hotel (Telluride, Colorado)

Text:

“What is the New Sheridan?”

Interviewee: “It’s a hotel and bar.”

“Why is The New Sheridan Hotel considered haunted?”

Interviewee: “Why? Because Telluride used to be an old mining town, and the miners would work in a small town called Tomboy up above Telluride. They would come down to the new Sheridan and get drinks and, like, get with prostitutes, and there would be fights. Like, people would die and stuff.

“Why would they die?’

Interviewee: “I mean, it was just, like, an old Western town. Like, there were no laws, people would just shoot each other. Like, if you lost a poker game and couldn’t pay your money, you would just be killed.”

“So, the ghosts who died are apparently the ghosts of people who would kill for, like getting with the prostitutes or losing poker?”

Interviewee: “Yeah, and also just, like, minors who died. Like, I think their ghosts supposedly hang out at the New Sheridan, because that’s where all the minors hung out.

Context:

The interviewee lives and grew up in Telluride, CO.

The New Sheridan Hotel is a historic hotel in Telluride, an old mining town. The interviewee explains that the hotel is considered haunted because of its history during the mining era, when miners traveled from nearby towns like Tomboy to socialize, gamble, and visit prostitutes. Violence, accidental deaths, and shootings were common in this lawless period, which contributed to the hotel’s reputation as a haunted site.

Analysis:

This is an example of a legend tied to historical events. The tales of miners dying from gambling disputes, fights, or other misadventures function as a way to connect visitors to the town’s dangerous and lawless past.

The ghosts’ presence is tied specifically to the New Sheridan Hotel, where the miners congregated. The narrative blends real historical practices (gambling, prostitution, and violence) with supernatural belief, showing how folklore can preserve memory and transform past events into entertaining ghost stories.

Haunted Film Camera

Interviewer: “Tell me more about this haunted film camera”

TN: “Ok so basically I heard this story of this girls creepy experience with a film camera. She allegedly bought the camera from an estate sale for like 20 bucks because it was a dead guys camera. When she was on vacation she took pictures on it. It was a really old like vintage film camera where you have to get it developed.”

TN: “When she got it developed they shipped the photos to her house and in the package with her pictures was like old photos from the guy who died. Photos of him with family and like his kids, and some really blurry pictures it was really weird cause she didn’t know the camera was used.”

TN: “But the thing that was scary is that his face showed up in pictures she took of her and her parents. Like a shadow behind her in the pictures, and you could see his teeth and his eyes on a lot of the photos, like he was haunting her.”

Interviewer: “Wow thats really creepy, thank you for sharing!”

Context: The informant learned this story on a trip with friends. They all told ghost stories and tales at the fire at night, and this is one of the stories that was performed. The informant is aware that there is no verifiable truth to this story as it came from a friend of a friend of a friend, as is the nature of folklore. However, it has become a ritualistic practice for him where he tells the story whenever prompted, essentially acting as a mechanism for entertainment for audiences.

Analysis: This story is a classic example of contemporary legends or “urban legends” because it blends supernatural horror with relatability and modern technological mediums. This makes the story feel more modern and accessible because cameras are engrained in every aspect of daily life, making it feel visceral and contagious. The story also has “friend of a friend credibility” which isn’t completely valid, but the storytelling nature and the transmission of the story makes it folklore, regardless of its truth. The story essentially is a warning tale, cautioning listeners to not take from the dead, and to leave the past in the past.

Philadelphia Childhood Haunted House

Context:

H has an old house in Philadelphia, built during the Battle of Valley Forge. Her house had many rooms and hallways. She is one sibling out of the five in her family, and they would always share their ghost stories with each other.

Text:

“So I’m from outside, and if you guys know like, the Battle Valley Forge was there, like, in one of the wars. So my house is over, like, 250 years old, I’m pretty sure.
So we’ve always, like, I’m one of like five, so we’ve always, like, exchanged ghost stories with our house when we were younger. There are like, two that I really remember.

We have this thing called the Ice House and it’s basically just, like a little place that, we put, like old Christmas decorations, like storage, but it’s separate from our house. And my parents always said we couldn’t go in there because, like, I think it’s just unsafe.
It’s so old. And, like, the floor was, like, not stable. They’d always said we would fall through. 
But, like, one time, me and my brother were like, we want to go in and explore, because, like, I would love it. It was just weird. So we went in and we both swear that, like—first of all, it looked like someone was, like, using the house. 
Like, it didn’t look super old. Like, he says he saw, like, food on the counter. 
And then, like, we both, like, out of, like, in between, like, a cabinet or something, like, swear that we saw, like, a set of eyes, and then we ran out. So, yeah. And it was probably like three days after, like, one of our dogs died.”

Analysis:

This legend that my informant experienced seemed to have been built upon the history of her house. The historical events surrounding the building made a perfect background for her parents to build off of. This memorate of her brother and her exploring the house shows the implementation of the legend. Although their dog dying soon after might be a coincidence it might also just because of the haunted house, who knows.

The Haunted Mirror

Age: 18

Text:

Interviewer: “S, tell me your story whenever you’re ready.”

SA: “Okay. So, my uncle had moved into a house a couple years ago, and my grandparents and my aunt had helped him move in. 
And while they were looking at the house, they really liked it. He was able to get everything unpacked. But he and his wife, a couple weeks or months after he had moved in, weird things started happening. 
Like, while he was home alone and his wife was at work, lights shut on and off, or he would hear things around the house, which shouldn’t have been possible because he was home alone. So after a while, with all these strange things happening, um, he decided to call, uh, like, a ghost specialist. Like a, like a priest or something like that. 
And basically the priest went through the house and saged it. Then he got somebody who he wanted to just check deeper into what was happening. But basically this person was asking a bunch of questions. 
They’re like, yeah, there is something definitely off about the house. We just don’t know what it is. And as they kept asking him more and more questions, they finally asked him something that really clicked to him, which was, ‘do you have a mirror in your garage?’ 
And he was like, yes, like, how did you know? They were like, ‘where did you like get this mirror?’ 
And basically he had told them, he said, he had gotten this mirror, which was ike, it was almost like a cultural thing around the mirror. It was like a face on top of this tiny mirror that was in his garage. 
And he told the priest or whoever it was, come in and check the house, that he had got it from a garage sale, and then the person told him you need to get rid of it immediately, because there was a spirit attached to it. And that is what was happening in the house. And basically, they told them, don’t ever bring things back from garage sales, because you never know why the person is even trying to sell it. 
Because it was a really nice mirror. So why were they trying to sell it for not a lot of money in the first place? And as soon as he got rid of the mirror, all of the weird things disappeared.”

Interviewer: “Thank you so much. Um, what do you think of the story? Do you believe it?”

SA: “My uncle… My uncle likes to lie a lot. So what do I think? 
I thought he was lying. But what made me really believe it is that his wife was also saying these things were happening and she isn’t a liar. So it’s probably true.”

Interviewer: 
”What do you think about it?”

SA: “About what?”

Interviewer: “The ghost and whether or not you believe in it or believe in ghosts in general.”

SA: “
I believe that stuff like that can happen. I believe things like that could happen, but I also believe it could be things other than ghosts.”

Interviewer: “Like such as?”

SA: 
“The wind?”

Context:

She was told the story when she was 13, and her uncle was about 39. He grew up in Oregon, and he was unemployed at the time of the story. He told this story to her in the living room of her grandparents house. The actual setting of the story took place in St. John’s, Oregon.

Analysis:

This is a clear example of peer / familial groups and their influence on ghost stories. The informant, knowing her uncle, was fairly certain he was probably not telling the truth. However, because of her aunt’s testament, she believed it. This story also follows typical ghostly motifs (flickering lights, strange noises, etc.)

The Queen Mary’s Haunted Pool – Ghost Story

Nationality: American
Age: 28
Occupation: Author
Residence: Long Beach
Language: English

Text/Context: “When I was in elementary school, probably about 10, I went on a family trip to the Queen Mary with my mother, her best friend, and her daughter, who was my best friend. We were taking a guided tour, not even the ghost specific tour, just the regular one. We go through the hallways, all over the deck, and then we eventually made it down to the pool room. The guide tells us the pool room is the most haunted room in the whole ship, with a lot of alleged deaths happening in there, specifically a little girl drowned in the pool. We enter the room, and it’s very large. There are no windows, which is weird for a pool, because you’d think it would be in a nice bright area, but it’s not. It’s two stories, and at the bottom is the pool. It’s not filled of course, they don’t use it anymore, they just keep it there for posterity. We walk around the bottom, and then we go up to the top floor so we can look out over the pool, and it’s beautiful. There’s gorgeous tilework, stonework on the walls, it’s very 1920s art deco, very Queen Mary. Everyone’s excited looking around, and then the tour starts to move on. But me, being a freak, decide that I want to spook myself by waiting behind a bit to, I don’t know, feel the spooky energy. And so by the time everyone has trickled out, I start to make my way back to the exit, when I look out over the pool one last time. I see this very vivid flare of light coming from the corner of the pool, and it was green. Again, there were no windows, no light sources other than small lamps on the walls, but the lamps weren’t green. There was nothing I could see that could possibly be causing such a strange light. After seeing the light, I got an overwhelming feeling of dread and for a moment, thought I could hear the sound of someone splashing around and drowning, and booked it out the door. To this day I am completely convinced it was supernatural activity.”

Analysis: While this story isn’t necessarily from a folk group, I think it illustrates the importance of memorates within the broader scope of folklore and more specifically, folk narrative. This is the type of experience that through telling and retelling, eventually becomes something that can be considered authentic folklore. My informant spoke with a certainty in her voice that led me to understand how important this experience was for her, and how she fully believes it to be of supernatural origin. I myself have witnessed things I could only describe as supernatural so I understand the belief, especially after re-reading her story several times. While she may have been a kid when it happened, I don’t think it discredits how real the experience was to her, nor does it make it any less spooky to hear now.