With the New Year creeping up on me at an accelerating pace, I have already been thinking about what I want to accomplish next year and am frantically trying to close out old business as well. One of the items on my to do list is to wrap up old Haunted Asylums, Prisons, and Sanatoriums traveling business. What I mean by this is for every chapter of the book, it seems as if I have some sort of side story or point of interest along the way that I would like to draw attention to.
So. That being said, in accordance with the prophecy (I’m sorry, I just honestly could not help myself), I have to share these photos of the Indianapolis Union Railroad Station. I stumbled upon it on my way to investigate Ashmore Estates in Illinois for Chapter 1.
If you know me, you know I have a semi-obsession with trains and train stations. But not in a weird way. Candidly, I’ve never even actually packed a bag and been on a destination train, although I REALLY, REALLY want to, Amtrak. Are you listening, Amtrak? I think it is one of those things we just don’t get to do down here in Georgia. I mean, I’m all for it. I would love to ride a train somewhere. I just don’t want it to take two days and cost $1,000.00 to get from Georgia to New Orleans, you heard?
Indianapolis Union Railroad Station
But I digress. I just wanted you to see this building.
Indianapolis Union Railroad StationIndianapolis Union Railroad Station
One of the locations that Sam and I rented one weekend back in 2011 for some training prior to traveling for Haunted Asylums, Prisons, and Sanatoriums was Old South Pittsburg Hospital in Tennessee.
Old South Pittsburg Hospital – TennesseeThe Car Inside Old South Pittsburg Hospital in Tennessee
The place did not disappoint. This is the only place I know of that runs more like a research facility for serious ghost hunters as opposed to a Friday night free for all that some public ghost hunt events can turn into. You can camp inside the hospital for the entire weekend, and if you bring a cooler with food you won’t even have to leave the building. Don’t forget to look for the car.
The Operating Room – Inside Old South Pittsburg Hospital in Tennessee
My favorite part of the hospital was the third floor, although it was also the place that scared me the most. While sitting in an operating room in the pitch black, I was overcome with the feeling of suffocation. Simultaneously, I felt myself getting angry with Sam for no reason. At the time, I just wanted to get out of the operating room. The next morning, as I reflected upon the previous night’s events, it occurred to me that it was very possible that I was feeling someone’s dying energy.
Third Floor, Pysch Ward – Inside Old South Pittsburg Hospital in TennesseeDownstairs – Old South Pittsburg Hospital in Tennessee
We had a lot of flashlight activity throughout the hallways. So much so, that even Cindy remarked upon it while she was checking up on us via live video feed from her room.
Original Equipment – Old South Pittsburg Hospital in TennesseeBasement – Old South Pittsburg Hospital in Tennessee
The hospital is a perfect setting to try out your new equipment and run experiments.
Gratuitous boiler room shot:
Wish it would have made the book!
Further Reading:
From time to time, I end up somewhere that is really special. Maybe it is the place itself, or maybe it is in comparison to what has immediately gone before it, I can’t be sure. There are moments in time where all of the elements just add up perfectly. For instance, take these things and add them together: an overcast day, a perfect dirt road that has just had the loose dust beaten into submission by the rain, an 18th century estate, and a canoe on the back pond.
Truth be told, the perfect day didn’t start out well. There was a supposedly haunted lighthouse at Point Lookout State Park that I wanted to poke around in. No one wanted me to do it, because the place was blocked off.
What’s more, I looked down at my feet and a fish head met my gaze.
He was not having a great day either.
We left the locked lighthouse behind and set off for Woodlawn. Things got better. And quick.
Woodlawn – Ridge, MDWoodlawn – Ridge, MD
Out back, an orchestra played my favorite Led Zeppelin song (or at least, they played a Led Zeppelin song) while we sat at the end of the dock and watched the small crowd of guests on the back porch.
Pretty soon, we had to take a canoe out on the water. When we rounded the last bend out of sight of the main house, a bald eagle flew right over our heads.
Our home for the night was a small cottage with a red door away from the main house, and by the pond. We were secluded, tucked away from the world, and safe from anything not directly related to our own happiness.
The next morning, I drank coffee by the pond and finalized Chapter 8 of Haunted Asylums, Prisons, and Sanatoriums.
Before traveling and the official work began on Haunted Asylums, Prisons, and Sanatoriums, my co-author (Sam Queen) and I wanted to try out our investigation tactics and equipment a little closer to home. I grew up in Rex, Georgia, and just down the road from my home town sits an 1839 Antebellum home. Growing up, I never heard any ghost stories about the home, but it just always had that “haunted” look to me. You know the feeling. A lot of folks have a certain fixation on a neighborhood spot that “just has to be haunted because it is so old.”
We rented the home for the evening so we could poke around and investigate.
The gorgeous home:
Notice how the atmosphere changes based on twilight setting in:
We could not have picked a better time to investigate as far as the atmosphere of the home. Victorian Mourning Tours are given the entire month of August, and the house is decked out with authentic pieces related to Victorian funerals. Some of the most fascinating exhibits on display were the tear catchers and funeral jewelry!
Throughout our visit, we had full access to the grounds,
including the old schoolhouse.
Nothing strange happened to us until after about three hours, when we made our way down to the parlor.
It was here that we captured an EVP of a man’s voice. He responded to a request to state his name. What did he say? “Buddy Franks.” Maybe, just maybe, we were in contact with a Civil War Soldier.
New Year’s Day 2013 and Bob and I were driving from Sedona to Bisbee, with a stop in Tombstone. We passed through Tucson (and would be coming back through for our last night in Arizona).
Tombstone
Birdcage Theatre – Tombstone, AZ
Like every good ghost hunter, I had marked the 1881 Birdcage Theatre on my list of must see stops. We did not do any hunting there, this was a straight tourist stop during business hours. We were met by a weirdo woman who totally creeped us out at the cash register. The main area of the museum is nicely preserved, but the place reeks of sadness and dusty desperation. (I think this is an accurate portrayal of what it must have actually been like when it was brand new and serving it’s purpose, by the way). The basement area that holds an old gambling table and some more cribs is downright haunting. It would not be hard to imagine ghosts rambling around this basement when they shut the lights off for the night.
I wanted to like Tombstone. I was excited to travel there for the first time. However, my impression of the town is that it is what Disney would contrive to preserve an old Western town. I saw Boot Hill Cemetery and it made me feel dirty, as though I were guilty of exploiting the dead. Bob and I both turned around and got out of that place in less than two minutes. We burned rubber out of Tombstone and never looked back.
Boot Hill Cemetery – Tombstone, AZ Tucson Cactus – Arizona
Tombstone made me wish we had spent more time hiking in Tucson amongst the gorgeous, taller than us, cactuses.
Bisbee
Downtown Bisbee, Arizona
We settled in to the Letson Loft Hotel, overlooking the main street of historic downtown Bisbee. I didn’t think about all the shops and galleries being closed because it was New Year’s Day until we got here! I missed out on some good shopping, but there were a few antique stores still open so I got a quick fix, at least. I also got in a good walk and a great lower body workout while I was navigating my way over black ice traps, and I had a lot of fun picking out locations from The Great Stair Climb. The whole town is built on the hills.
I also witnessed a fantastic female drunk outside of a bar in the middle of the day just losing her mind and yelling in some language that was not quite English or Spanish, or any romance language I have ever heard, actually. I entered her line of vision by accident when I turned left at a dead end street. Except she was deliriously and dangerously drunk, so she never saw me. I stood there frozen for a few seconds, watching the drama play out before me. For a moment, I contemplated helping her. Then my roots kicked in, and I did what any self-respecting Southerner would do in the same situation: I turned and walked away. It has never benefited me to insert myself into the dealings of others.
Dinner was at the famous Copper Queen Hotel, and sadly, it was not worth mentioning.
Here’s the thing about Bisbee. It’s weird. I didn’t know why until we left the next morning, but I could sense that the atmosphere in the town was “off.” The night before, as the sun was setting and we were exploring the streets of historic downtown, I looked at Bob and said: “Something bad happened here. Something is really not right here.”
I had the Queen Mine marked on my list of things to do, but in the morning, I looked out over the town once more from our hotel room, and I didn’t want to go anymore. When we got back to the highway, I was googling Bisbee and tragedy, trying to figure out if there was a tangible reason for the way I was feeling. It turns out that in the summer of 1917, about 2,000 men were kidnapped right out of their homes and boarded onto trains that would drop them off in the New Mexico desert. The owners of the mine did it as an act of retaliation for the striking workers, and this was the largest mass kidnapping in America.
I swear this left a mark on the land.
I shivered as our car sped back to Tucson, carrying us just as fast as we dared go. And I said, in a tone of voice that could never convey what I was actually feeling on the inside (my gut-speak raw innards): “I told you something bad happened in that place. It’s time to go.”
As always, we like to index our travels inside our “Play”Journal, from Stealth Journals. A sample entry page is contained below:
Arizona: Indexed inside our Play Journal, by Stealth Journals.
When I lived in Atlanta, one of my favorite weekend jaunts was Chattanooga. Just far enough away to make you feel as though you are going somewhere, and just close enough to make it not a hassle to get there.
If you live in or near Atlanta, and are itching to get away for the weekend, listen up because I am about to let you in on my perfect weekend in Chattanooga. First of all, I have always been partial to The Chattanoogan Hotel. My next favorite choice would be to stay in the Bluff View Art District.
When you wake up on Saturday morning, head straight over to Rembrandt’s Coffee House and get fueled up. If you do it properly, this will carry you through your Aquarium and Hunter Art Museum touring. Truth be told, the Aquarium sort of loses me towards the end, but it is worth it if you’ve never seen it before, and I still really love going. The penguins are hysterical show-stoppers. The last time I was there, they had a few little penguins separated from the pack (I guess they were misbehaving and had to go to penguin jail), and some of their friends were gathered around them trying to figure out how to bust them out. They had a lot of heart, those penguins. Much better than just watching the fish float around blowing bubbles (but the fish were good too – I don’t want to get any angry emails calling me a fish hater). Come to think of it, the seahorses were almost as good as the penguins. I loved how many of them held onto each other with their tails. You could really tell those seahorses loved each other. Either that, or they had major separation anxiety. I prefer to think they were in love.
Hunter Art Museum – Chattanooga, TN
As for Hunter, this is a venue that offers American Art from colonial times to the current day. You can tell this from the architecture of the complex before you even go in! The main building is a stately old mansion, and to your left is the modern wing. This facility will always be special to me because it was the first art museum I ever introduced Bob to. There are some fantastic spots within the museum to relax and look over the Tennessee River.
When you are finished up with the museum, you have to make one last stop, and it is pure touristy kitsch at its finest. You have to go to Lookout Mountain and see Rock City. It really is a beautifully maintained former private garden, and when you hit it towards the end of the day you will have some privacy and can pretend that it is your own backyard. It goes a little awry at the end, but I still recommend it. For you locals, notice that I made no such recommendation to see Ruby Falls. I don’t have anything against the Falls, but you just can’t see everything in one weekend, so I am cutting it from the itinerary.
For dinner, you can walk to the Terminal Brewhouse from The Chattanoogan Hotel. I would like to be able to tell you that I eat an entrée when I come here. But inevitably, what happens is that I start off with Mr. Frogs Super Happy Fun Journey, and then that’s it. I love that stuff. After dinner, walk next door to the Chattanooga Choo Choo and poke around a bit. This is a really cool old train station that is now a hotel.
Walnut Street Bridge – Chattanooga,TN
The next morning, take a walk across the Walnut Street Bridge and take in a shop or two at the North Shore. Your last stop before you head home is Cloudland Canyon State Park. Take the 2 mile waterfalls trail down to the base of both falls. This is such a good workout, because you will be going up and down a lot of stairs in between your hiking!
Cloudland Canyon State Park
Congratulations, you just completed Jamie’s Chattanooga quick fix perfect weekend getaway.
As always, our weekend getaways are always indexed inside our “Play” Journal by Stealth Journals. A sample entry page is pictured below:
Chattanooga: Indexed inside Play, by Stealth Journals.
Cumberland Island has a well-earned reputation for being a beautiful, desolate wilderness beach. Owned by the National Park Service, and accessible only by their ferry or private means, it takes some effort to get there. But it is oh so worth it! We caught the 9:00 a.m. ferry out of St. Mary’s, Georgia, to Cumberland. It takes about 45 minutes to get to the Dungeness Dock. Once we landed, we walked up the gravel path and on toward the driveway leading up to the Dungeness Ruins.
Gates to the Dungeness Ruins – Cumberland Island, GA Dungeness Ruins – Cumberland Island, GA
This is the old Carnegie estate, which fell victim to an arsonist in 1959. Much still stands, though. And it isn’t hard to imagine the old grandeur at all. When I arrived at the old iron gates leading up to the house, I paused for a moment and let my imagination soak it all in before I took a step back in time.
We enjoyed exploring the grounds, the cemetery, seeing the wild horses, the pergola remains, and even stumbling across some rusting remains of Carnegie automobiles!
Wild horses – Cumberland Island, GA Pergola – Cumberland Island, GA Pergola – Cumberland Island, GA Rusting Carnegie Cars – Cumberland Island, GA Cumberland Island, GA
When we were finished rambling through the grounds, we continued on through the boardwalk that passes through the salt marsh. In just a few short minutes our boardwalk ended, and we were climbing up sand dunes that looked as if we had landed on the surface of the moon. No one else was around. We had it all to ourselves! We strolled a little further down the path and found the actual entrance to the main beach. I’d never seen anything like it. Just a gorgeous, wild desolate beach. Miles and miles were ours for the taking. We’d packed a picnic lunch so we picked a spot and enjoyed our private picnic. We then played on the beach for a few hours.
Cumberland Island, GA
Soon, it was time to walk further south to exit the beach for the Sea Dock ferry pick-up. The entrance off the beach is like some kind of fairy tale land. The trees are magnificent! Winding, and interloping with each other. I was walking under a gnarled canopy of oak trees, and feeling as if I might be stepping into Hobbit territory.
I was so tired I fell asleep on the return ferry. We selected Borrell Creek Landing for dinner in St. Mary’s and were not disappointed! This is a fantastic local place that has a deck overlooking a salt marsh and great quality food combined with excellent service.
This trip is definitely earning a spot on rotation for a quick Saturday escape.
As always, our travels can be found indexed inside our “Play” journal from Stealth Journals. A look inside the Play Journal can be found below:
Cumberland Island: Indexed inside our Play Journal, by Stealth Journals
I am posting part of an email that I received from The Fitzpatrick Hotel in Washington, GA.
“Weekend Special — October 4th and 5th, 2013
Spend a delightful weekend with a stay at the Fitzpatrick Hotel and experience the outdoor cemetery drama, “Resthaven Revisited”.
For a limited time, book a Standard room* at the Fitzpatrick Hotel on October 4th and/or 5th for $115.00 and receive 2 tickets to “Resthaven Revisited” on Saturday evening October 5th.
“Resthaven Revisited” takes place in the historic Resthaven Cemetery and gives you the opportunity to meet some of its most famous residents. Their dramatic tales will haunt you for a LIFEtime! Performances begin every 20 minutes from 6-9 pm. Transportation to and from the cemetery will be provided at no charge by the Washington Pilot Club. Guests may also go directly to the cemetery if desired.”
The Fitzpatrick Hotel – Washington, GA
The Fitzpatrick Hotel is located in historic downtown Washington, GA in walking distance to the Robert Toombs House. One of the best things you can do is eat dinner at Talk of the Town and then stroll around the neighborhood.
There are so many antebellum homes out there! Can you see the ghost in the upstairs window?
Washington is one of the few towns in Georgia that actually has Revolutionary War and Civil War History. What’s more, Washington, GA is the last place the Confederate Gold Treasury was seen. Somewhere around $450,000 in silver and gold coins went missing during a train robbery. Callaway Plantation is nearby, and is allegedly the sight of many Confederate ghostly spirit guests. They certainly have some authentic props around the house. Check out the hair art and the coffins. Yikes!
Callaway Plantation – Washington, GA
The Mary Willis Library is gorgeous! They even have one of the original Confederate Treasury chests on display.
Jamie Davis Writes 