Ghost Stories Along Route 66

Another murder, Jesse grabbed a smoking gun and put it away in his holster, just another day of work. Jesse James was known for Robin Banks and murdering people. He was a genuine lawbreaker. As well as being one of the quickest shooters, he was also a fearless killer. The James and Younger Gang was a legendary criminal organization in the eighteen seventies the comprize of his brother and several of his relatives. In some accounts, they are depicted as folk heroes in the vein of robin Hood, but in reality they were somewhat villainous. Jesse James was put to death by a fellow member of his gang that was motivated by the prize money placed on his head. It is best to have a short life and die in your prime, they say, and he absolutely did. Undoubtedly he was a notorious criminal and bannit to rob Banks. His hiding place was in the cave system in Stanton, Missouri, known as the merrimec Caverns, which are four point six miles long. Visitors who stop by or were traveling around Route sixty six have reported seeing a figure dressed in black and believe it that it is Jesse himself. It is reported that James Farmhouse continues to this day to be intensely haunted by its former residents. Should not come as a surprise when one considers the violent nature of the people who live there. Are prettymature passing of Jesse himself and the acts of violence that took place on and around property. It is reported that the James family farm has a history of paranormal activity dating back more than a century. Jesse was initially laid to rest on the fields, but his body was eventually moved moved to the Mount Olivit Cemetery to be reburied there. Today, Phantom gunshots and hoof noises have also been claimed to be heard, as well as lights moving about both inside and outside the house. Others have reported hearing quiet voices and horses in the neighboring woods, while the house staff has reported feeling as though there is an intense presence within the residence itself. People who live in the area believe that the ghost they see is actually Jesse James, who, after living his entire life on the run, chose to end it by retiring to the farm. Today, we travel along one of the most famous roads in the world, one that spans across the United States and has been featured in movies, books, and pop culture for decades. Souvenirs in the form of stickers, keychains, and novelty license plates and more can be found all all over the United States, all with its famous logo the place one's heavily transitive, now sometimes completely empty in some areas. Today we'll explore some of the most haunted locations right along Route sixty six. My name is Edwin, and here is a dark memory. Oklahoma, also known as a Sooner state, is home to several haunted locations, urban legends, and ghost stories. It would appear that there are many stories of paranormal activity and whispers of the supernatural and virtually every town, city, and county in the state of Oklahoma, even if you travel to the most remote part of the state. It seems to be the case. The state of Oklahoma is a ghost hunter's dream destination, or so they say. All right, so here we go again with another ghost story or haunted to talk about. Have you ever been to the Beldevie Mansion, which is located in Claremore, Oklahoma. It is a magnificent home in the Gothic style that was constructed in the early nineteen hundreds and is reputed to be haunted by the spirits of its former residents. It was constructed by the late John M. Bayliss beginning in the year nineteen o two, and it took years to finish. Regrettably, mister Billis passed away only a little over half a year before completing the residence. In the end, his wife and children were the ones to finish the construction of the mansion, and they remained there until nineteen nineteen. It changed hand among a wide variety of buyers and financiers during the course of its existence. During the nineteen thirties, it was even used as an apartment structure. It was finally deserted and deteriorated to the point that it was going to be declared unsafe and destroyed. Then, the Beldevir Mansion was bought by the Rogers County Historical Society in nineteen ninety one. They spent subsequent years restoring it. According to the urban legend, Belle Miller grew so attached to her ideal house that she won't even consider moving out of it. Stories of a warm and pleasant voice that suddenly appears out of nowhere are being told by both guests and staff members. In other events, a spectral person has been perceived to float through doorways. According to one account, something strange has been happening with one of the bookshelves, with one of the books being removed and placed in the center of the room with no explanation. Another time, when the wallpaper began to peel away from the wall, it was found to be properly restored. The following day would appear that Miss Miller takes continued pride in maintaining her special residence. Other strange things can be seen in the Bell Miller house. People say that bell Miller also has a weakness for sweets, since the sound of the lid being taken from a crystal candy dish and then put back together can be frequently heard while no one else is in the roomor The weird occurrences in the elevator are the ones that get reported the most often. Guests frequently mentioned that doesn't matter which button they click, they always end up on a different floor in the hotel. This happens even though the elevator has been repaired and examined several times, and even with reports indicating that it is in excellent condition, the incidents that have been taking place continue. In any case, Miss Miller appears to be a kind and welcoming presence at the end, which now features every conceivable contemporary amenity, while preserving the air of gracious grandeur that Belle Miller established almost a century ago. Now we go up to the Gilcrease Museum. There are rumors that the ancient grounds there are home to the spirits of children who once live there. The paranormal investigators have gathered electronic audio recordings of a woman singing, the sounds of males arguing, some weird muttering. Other strange occurrences that have been reported by both staff members and visitors to the museum include loud banging noises that are coming from the second floor, significant temperature shifts, doors that are slamming by themselves, unexplained technical malfunctions, items that mysteriously disappeared only to reappear later are in odd place where it does not belong, and the list apparently continues. Some people believe that as many as seven separate spirits continue to linger on the land, all of which are said to be harmless and remain simply because they like the area. At a Hotel Montevista, they shot more than one hundred movies right there in the vicinity of Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon during the decades of the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties, when Western films emerged to dominate the popularity polls in the United States. During the filming of these scenes, the Hotel Montevista played a home to many well known guests, including John Wayne being Crosby, Jane Russell, Gary Cooper, and Spencer Tracy. A scene from the movie Casablanca was filmed inside one of the hotel's rooms. In fact, it was John Wayne who, in the late nineteen fifties was a first person to claim seeing one of the hotel's ghosts. This kind of ghost reportedly made a fleeting apparition in the chamber of the famous movie actor. They allegedly described the spirit as being nice. In the nineteen seventies, three guys robbed a bank in Flagstaff, which is located close to the hotel. During their escape from the bank, one of the men was shot. Following their successful heights, the three individuals decided to celebrate by having a drink in the Montevista lounge of all remaining out of sight. However, the guy who had been shot had apparently sustained a more severe injury than any of them had anticipated, because he passed away right there the lounge before he even had a chance to complete his first drink. Today, both the workers and the customers at the establishment have the impression that this disease these bandits is one of the numerous ghosts that inhabit the structure. When one manager opened the bar every single day, he would say that he would hear a spooky voice say hello or good morning. Others have claimed to have experienced feeling a ghostly presence in the cocktail lounge when they were there having a drink. This may be the ghost of the gunmen, but since there have been so many gunfights, cowboys on horseback in the lobby, and drunken brawls throughout the hotel's history, no one can be certain. At the hotel, guests have claimed several additional unexplained occurrences, including ghosts that are said to produce weird noises, rearrange the hotel's furnishings, and make unexpected appearances. They also ring the telephone and knock items over music from a band that has been heard playing in the lobby on the second level. There's no band performing. Both personnel and guests have reported this, but despite all of this, the employees have grown so accustomed to the strange happenings that they now consider them to be a joke. Many of the visitors who have been in Room two ten, also known as the Zane Gray Room, have reported being awoken in the middle of the night by a phantom bellboy who knocks on the door and announces that the room service has come. However, when the visitors open the door, they see an empty hallway. They don't even get a glimpse of somebody running down the long corridor. Others have claimed to have witnessed the apparition of a lady who can be seen walking the halls outside this chamber. It is rumored that the hotel visitors traveling with their dogs are discouraged from booking this particular room because their dogs may become overly anxious or destroy them. It seems like this floor is a hotbed of paranormal activity, since several accounts of eerie things happening have been made in Room two twenty, which is located just down the hall. In the early nineteen eighties, it would appear that this room was occupied by a peculiar long term tenant who was infamous for hanging raw meats from the chandelier in the room. After some time, he passed away in his chamber. This corpse wasn't found for several days afterward. Nowadays, guests frequently claim that they can hear coughing and other noises coming from the room, which is otherwise unoccupied. On one occasion, the light was turned off and a maintenance worker shut the door after he had completed the necessary repairs in the area. When they returned to the room barely five minutes later, the light was already on and someone had stripped the bed linens and the television was on at its highest volume. Many visitors have said that they were startled by the distinct impression that someone was observing them while they were in the Gary Cooper room. According to the report, someone killed two prostitutes in this room before hurling them out the window to their deaths. There have also been reports of these two women being seen in the lounge area and the pool hall in a different room with the number three zero five. The specter of a woman is said to be seen occupying the rocking chair frequently, and then it said when the cleaning staff actually moved, the chair just seems to magically return to its original position near the window of the following day. Another place along Route sixty six is the Oltman Hotel. As a result of its reputation for having ghosts that play pranks on unsuspecting guests, the Oatman Hotel has become one of the most popular destinations in the rural setting. Clark Gable and Carol Lombard clearly have so many beautiful memories of the ancient hotel that they simply refuse to go. They are the most famous and prominent ghosts of the property. Visitors and staff frequently overhear a couple muttering to one another and giggling from the room, even when it is empty. According to one account, a professional photographers snapped a picture of the vacant room, and when they developed the image, spectral form of a man emerged in the picture. There are supposedly more spirits that inhabit the old hotel, so Clark and Carol are not the only ones there. The theater room museum is look on the second level. Then visitors can see the silhouettes of sleeping corpses in the dust that has accumulated on the mattress there. When you look at him more closely, Another region surrounding this one appeared to have been disturbed. The establishment employees have a sneaking suspicion that the specter in the room was formerly occupied by a chambermaid work there. A second guest room is reportedly said to be haunted by an Irish miner who used to reside in the building. He developed a drinking problem as a coping mechanism after learning that his family had perished when they were traveling to the United States. One evening, he became so drunk that he fell behind the hotel. He had gotten carried away with the drinking, and he never woke up. Since then, there have been rumors that he continues to linger in the hotel room that he previously occupied. The hotel employees referred to this spirit as Odie, and they say that they have frequently heard them playing his bagpipes throughout their property. Other frequent practical jokes include stripping the sheets off the bed and opening the window in the previously occupied room. There have also been claims that the room is quite chilly, even though the day is rather hot in the desert. It seems that there are many mischievous spirits at work at the saloon's lower level. These spirits have been reported to move money off the bar and hoist glasses into the air. Other unexplained occurrences include lights that seem to switch on and off by themselves, sounds of creepy voices, toilets that flush in empty bathrooms, and footsteps that appear out of nowhere on floors that have been recently cleaned. The Old Man Hotel seems to be in luck, since it looks like the strange visitors that they have there are the kind of people who just enjoy having fun and don't want to make it a practice to frighten others and scare them away from staying there. Our trip along Route sixty six continued right after this. There have been persistent rumors that the rialto Theater has been haunted ever since it first opened its doors many decades ago. Several stories circulate about people who have passed away there, including one about a young woman who supposedly slashed her wrists into the toilet before climbing the stairs to the balcony and bleeding to death there. Another legend talks about a guy who was working in the projection booth when he lost his mind. In any case, members of the staff and customers claim that the stalls in the women's restroom have occasionally been observed to begin shaking on their own accord. Within the structure of the theater itself, witnesses have reported seeing the ghosts of an older man, frequently strolling up and down the balcony steps and sitting in a variety of seats. Is it possible that this is the same man who went crazy in the projection booth. Some people believe that there is also the ghost of a cat in the theater. The theatre's early years, its mascot was a cat that prowled around in the ancient movie house. It would occasionally rub up against patron's legs and would frequently walk in front of the screen. Some legends claim that the cat continued to wander quietly through the cinema, and that an eerie red glow was generated whenever the ghost moved in front of the movie screen. Another patron saw what seemed to be a shadowy figure gliding down from the stage, making its way toward the theater seats before vanishing into the lobby. Other phenomena that has been claimed has been unpleasant emotions that people have in various theater places, particularly in the women's bathroom, and whispers that are sometimes heard in some parts of the theater. All of the paranormal research organizations that have looked to the theater have concluded that it is most definitely haunted. The Hornet spook Light has been a mystery surrounding the paranormal for more than a century. It is said to be a source of light that is bobbing and bouncing along a rural road in northeast Oklahoma. The orb moves from east to west down a four mile gravel road that has been known as the Devil's Promenade by people in the region for a very long time. It is most commonly described as an orange ball of light. The spook light, sometimes known as a Joblins Spooklight or the tri State Spooklight, be seen in the state of Oklahoma close to the small town of Quappa. However, it is viewed from the east. The majority of the time, and for this reason it has been connected to the little town of Hornets, Missouri the bigger and more well known city of Joplin. However, they did not make the ghost light's first official report until eighteen eighty one in a magazine and named it the Ozark spook Light. The tale states that the Indians along the famed Trail of Tears were the first people to view the spook light in the year eighteen thirty six. The ball of fire, whose size has been reported as ranging from that of a baseball to that of a basketball, It seemed dancing and spinning down the center of the road at fast speeds. It then rises and hovers over the trees before retracting its steps and vanishing altogether. Some people have described it as swaying from side to side, like a lantern that is being carried by some kind of unseen power. In any case, reports indicate that the orange orb that resembles fire has been making nightly appearances for a well over century. People who live in the area claim that the ghost light can be seen most clearly between the hours of ten o'clock at night and twelve o'clock in the morning, and that it avoids big gatherings of people in loud noises. Even though several scientific and paranormal investigators in the Army Corps of Engineers have looked into the source of the light, no one has been able to offer a definitive answer as to what the basis of the light is. All of the wisps are a type of luminescence that is caused by decaying organic matter. Over the years, other theories that have been proposed or explain this phenomenon, and those are things such as escaping natural gas and reflecting automobile lights and billboards. Concerning the idea that Marshy regions have a high concentration of escaping natural gas, the hornet light does not appear to be impacted by either the wind or the rain. Therefore, how would it self ignite. The possibility that it may be will of the wisp is ruled out because this natural occurrence does not exhibit the same brightness level as a ball of light observed along the Devil's Promenade. The light was observed many years before they ever constructed vehicles or billboards, before there was even a road in the vicinity. Therefore, explanations such as head lights or billboards are simply not possible. Many more fascinating tales around the light, some of which present a more supernatural explanation. The earliest version tells of a Quapa Indian woman who met and fell in love with a young warrior. However, because a man did not have a sizeable enough dowry, her father would not consent to her marrying him. The two then ran away together, but a group of warriors quickly chase them. According to the Earth legend, the pair, realizing that they were about to be detained, jumped together into the Spring River while holding hands, just before they got caught. It wasn't long after this happened that the others started seeing the light and attributing it to the souls of the young couple who had died together. A different version of the legend talks about a miner whose hut was assaulted by Native Americans while the miner was absent. It is reported that upon his return, he discovered that his wife and children had gone missing, and that he has since been wandering the old route with his light in an attempt to locate them. Others say that the spooklight is a specter of an osh Indian chief who was beheaded in the region and is said to wander the area with a lantern held aloft in his hand while looking for his severed head. The spooklight is frequently spotted, and witnesses have even claimed to see it inside moving cars. On occasion, people who have been strolling along the road at night have said that they even felt the heat of the ball as it passed near them. Reportedly, the moving anomaly can be observed around twelve miles southeast of Joplin, Missouri, and it varies in brightness and dimness. The size can even be larger or smaller, so if you're coming from Joplin, if you follow inner State forty four west, you'll probably be able to see it. And as our trip continues along Route sixty six, continue to look out into the darkness and wonder of the many people who once use this road for vacationing and for visiting their loved ones. But along with that, you realize that the long anty roads also have a dark side, from accidents on the road to those who were up to no good with intentions to rob or to throw away a body. In such a long stretch of road, memory sometimes come to life once more as you catch a glimpse of the past. This episode of A Dark Memory was researched by Medel Inguera and produced by me Edwin Comarouyez. If you have an idea for an episode for A Dark Memory, be sure to send it to us. I'll leave the email in the description of this episode. Don't forget a tap follow to stay up to date with the podcast. Thank you very much for listening. Yes sooner