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Real Ghost Stories
Chapter 12
Cripple Creek Ghosts
Cripple Creek, Colorado, around 1930 – Alice shook the door knob. Her father had forgotten to lock it for the first time in a long, long time. She opened the door the smallest crack and peeked out into the kitchen. There was no one there but she could hear voices from somewhere inside the house. It sounded like Mother and Father were yelling again. Alice didn't like it when they yelled. It made her feel sad although she could not quite remember why.
She slid a foot out into the kitchen and nothing happened. The other foot followed and she was standing outside her room. It scared her a little; it felt so strange and she knew that father wouldn't like it but she had seen the snow outside her window and she wanted to touch it. She thought it was cold. She couldn't remember now but if she could feel it, maybe she would be able to remember again.
She put her back to the wall and inched along to the back door but when she got there it was locked and again she couldn't remember. There had been a way to unlock it once, she knew it, but like other things she had known once, it was gone.
Alice looked around the room and saw another door. When she inched her way around the room and got to that door it opened but not to the outside, not to the snow. It opened to a dark place and steps going down. She was afraid of the dark below and cast her eyes around for something to hold. An iron frying pan hung on a hook over the stove. She thought she would take that with her. It looked nice and she could hit with that. If something found her she could hit it with the frying pan. She thought that might ba a good plan so she took it with her and went down the steps into the dark.
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Mr. George Long, owner of the Imperial Hotel walked into the kitchen very much upset. He and his wife had yet another argument about what to do with Alice. Time and time again he had argued to keep his daughter with them and his wife had argued that Alice was a danger to the other children. George would not back down; he wanted his daughter here. He did not want to send Alice away
He did not want to do to her what his family had done to him, sent him away for a defect he could not help. It wasn't his fault he was deaf. He loved his little girl and even if she was all grown up and not quite right in the head he still could not bear to give her up.
Entering the kitchen he was horrified to see that the door to Alice's room was open. Moving quickly he checked. The room was empty; no Alice to be seen. He stepped back into the kitchen. The back door was closed and barred but the door to the cellar was open. He went to the head of the stairs and looked, trying to peer down into the dark.
Even if he called Alice, he could not tell if she answered. He couldn't read lips in the dark. The only way to find out if she was down there was to go look. He snatched up a kerosene lamp from the kitchen table and lit it. Carrying it high he walked down the stairs to the bottom and looked for his little girl. He didn't see her but thought he'd go get his wife. They could look together and his wife maybe would hear Alice. He turned to go back up the stairs. He was almost to the top when he felt a horrible sudden pain in his head and the dark cellar became completely black.
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Around the year 1930 George Long, the owner of a Cripple Creek hotel called the Imperial was killed by his mentally disturbed daughter with a blow from an iron frying plan. Whether he died from the blow or the subsequent fall down the stairs was never determined. Dead was dead and how he came to be dead, in the greater scheme of things, really didn't matter. George was buried in the historic Mt. Pisgah Cemetery and Alice spent the rest of her life in an asylum.
The Imperial Hotel still exists and is a fine example of Victorian splendor, a landmark in Cripple Creek. Attached to this historical relic is a thoroughly modern, flashy casino, catering to the latest Gold Rush in Cripple Creek, gambling. Alice's former room is now the Red Rooster Bar and George's antics and Alice's scratching's at the bar's door have grown to annoy the bar's patrons. In some cases, it grew to more than just annoyance. Some people ended up dead.
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The Impala's engine didn't much care for the thin air of Cripple Creek. At an elevation of 9,494 feet the carburetor was adjusted for high altitude driving but Dean could feel the lack of power in his baby. After all, at 10,000 feet airlines were required by the FAA to provide supplemental oxygen to the passengers' cabin. You couldn't fault the car for being grumpy about it.
Dean glanced at Sam who was studying a map of Cripple Creek looking for the Imperial Hotel and Casino.
Sam looked up. "We're really close. It's on 3rd Street."
Dean smiled. "No problem. How hard could it be to find? How big is this town? We should be able to see the place from a mile away."
"Don't let the place fool you," Sam answered. "Cripple Creek has legalized gambling. Beside the Imperial there's the Palace, the Grande, the St. Nicholas, the Victor; they're all over the place. Cripple Creek is a resort town with legal Casinos. The place may have started as a Gold Rush town but now the place exists on a gold mine of tourist trade. There may be only about two thousand permanent residents but there's more than half a dozen big hotels, all of them located in historic buildings and every one of them is reputed to be haunted."
"Sounds like Home Sweet Home for Winchesters." Dean snickered. "Why are we heading for the Imperial? What about the rest of them?"
"The Imperial's resident ghosts have been acting up. The rest of the hotels would not look kindly on us messing with their pet spooks," Sam answered.
Sam looked up at the street signs, "Ok, we're on W. Carr. Turn right on 2nd and then left on Bennett. In a block turn left on 3rd and we should be right there."
Dean followed instructions and within a block they were passing a three story, red brick building. "is that it?"" Dean asked.
"No, that's the Palace," Sam answered. "The hotel is closed but the attached Womack's Casino is active. The hotel is haunted by Miss Kitty, the wife of a former owner and by a blind piano player. They're not our problem. Keep driving."
In another couple of blocks Dean hove in sight of the Imperial and pulled around to the back parking lot. As they were getting the duffels out of the trunk Dean looked further down the street and saw yet another multi story building. "What's that; another hotel?"
Sam looked up. "Yeah, that's the St. Nicholas. It was built by nuns as a hospital back in 1898 but is actually the most recently converted hotel in Cripple Creek. We might want to check it out later. It's supposed to be haunted by nuns and kids from the hospital and patients from the old mental ward. They don't bother people much but they have one ghost they call 'Stinky' who smells like rotting garbage. I don't think anybody would have a problem with us getting rid of him."
"Are these the most haunted places in Cripple Creek? It's beginning to look like the place has more ghosts than people." Dean laughed.
"No, there's lots more," Sam answered. "The most interesting building might be the Victor Hotel but it's a little ways away, on the edge of town. That's a real fun spot. It's four stories high and has an elevator. Back in the day when people died in the winter and the ground was frozen too hard to dig graves they would store the bodies on the fourth floor to wait for spring."
"Do they list that on their tourist website?" Dean smiled.
"No, they don't. They also don't talk about their resident ghost 'Eddie' who fell down the elevator shaft. Eddie supposedly takes 3:00 A.M. elevator rides and scares the crap out of everybody when the doors open and close on different floors and there's nobody visible inside."
Sam hoisted his duffle. "Come on, let's check in. You're going to like this hunt. It's a haunted bar."
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Once in their rooms the Winchesters settled down with Sam's research. He told Dean the story of George Long and his daughter Alice. One fact that definitely interested Dean was that Alice's former room was now the Red Rooster bar.
The bar's patrons were being annoyed by the sounds of something, or someone, falling down the stairs found behind an old cellar door and by ghostly scratching at the bar's main door when it was closed. Some patrons had investigated the loud thumps coming from the old cellar steps and had ended up at the bottom of those stairs. The ones who lived to tell the tale swore that they had been pushed.
They had dinner in the Red Rooster Bar. Sam settled in with the laptop at a table next to the old cellar door while Dean wandered off to assess the level of the pool players near the back wall. Sam watched his brother insert himself into the band of waiting players. Dean had a beer in his hand and a smile on his face. In just a few minutes he was a member of the group, welcome and laughing among his prey, the ultimate wolf in sheep's clothing.
Sam just shook his head in disbelief and returned to his study of the monitor. He had a lead on George Long and he was intent on tracking his way through various websites looking for that small piece of knowledge that would lead to the end of yet another successful Winchester hunt. He was also was subconsciously attuned to the potential sound of something falling on the other side of the door behind him and for the very likely sound of angry voices when Dean cleaned out the pool player's money.
Which event would happen first was dependent on too many factors for Sam to calculate the odds. He only hoped that he succeeded first and that Dean would drag the hustle out long enough to give him the necessary time. He hated stopping in the middle of a search and then having to set up somewhere else to complete it.
It only took another ten minutes or so and Sam had the information he needed. He wrote up the facts in his notebook and cleaned up. Stuffing the laptop and his notes into the messenger bag he hung it on his shoulder and wandered over to the pool tables.
Dean was on the table, ready to strike. Sam identified the stage of the hustle presently in progress and glanced at his watch. If nothing went wrong they would be out of here in less than ten more minutes. Plenty of time to do what they needed to do to put George down and get a good night's sleep.
Sam held his breath as Dean went into the 'sorry, sucker' phase of his program.
The green eyed man leaned over the pool table, lined up his shot and gave a hip wiggle to get comfortable. Then the balls began to fall. The click of the strike and the thud of the balls falling quickly into their assigned targets mesmerized the other players. Right on time Dean straightened up, grabbed the money on the table's edge and said good-night to his momentarily stunned opponent.
The Winchester brothers made tracks for the nearest elevator, Sam falling into the rear position, covering his brother's back. Sam could hear the rising murmur of men waking up to the fact that they had been hustled and a quick exit was needed to avoid the pool cue to head possibility. Thank God for smooth riding elevators.
Once back in their room and locking the door, they settled again at the table to go over Sam's new information. The first thing out was Sam's Cripple Creek paper map then the laptop glowed with the picture of yet another map.
"I've found out where George Long is buried. He's in the local Mt. Pisgah Cemetery." Sam pointed at a spot on the monitor. "His grave is right here. Tracking Alice's burial is impossible. She spent the rest of her days in a state run asylum. I doubt that she is alive. She would be over a hundred if she is but there isn't even a record of her death, let along where she is buried. Since she's supposedly scratching at doors here wanting to be let out and we're going along with the dead possibility. Hopefully she'll follow daddy when he goes."
"Good job, Sam." Dean said. "A simple salt n' burn then. You want to do it tonight?"
"We have plenty of time," Sam responded. "There might be just one small problem that we should stay on top of."
"What's that?" Dean asked as he starred to change into his 'grave digger's clothes; a ratty pair of jeans he kept especially for these little forays and a long sleeved grey shirt.
Sam started his own costume change. "Like a lot of the buildings in Cripple Creek, the Mt. Pisgah Cemetery is on the National Registry of Historical Places. It might be monitored or at least there may be frequent police passes. If we're lucky the grave site won't be visible from the road. If it is we may have to re-think the whole thing. Maybe dig up the bones and take them somewhere else to burn."
Dean shrugged. "That sounds a lot like a bridge we'll have to cross when we get there. Let's keep moving."
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Later that night the Winchesters were wandering the Mt. Pisgah Cemetery looking for George Long's grave. They were carrying shovels and a can of gasoline, a hefty box of salt and a body bag. It was a full moon and they were able to easily dodge gravestones and see the carved names. Dean stopped in front of a white marker.
"Hey, Sam." he called. "You ever seen a heart shaped tombstone before?"
Sam came back to look at Dean's discovery.
Sam laughed. "Only you, big brother." You've found Pearl de Vere's tombstone."
"Who was Pearl de Vere?"
"She was a prostitute that moved to Cripple Creek from Denver in the late 1800s. She went from a prostitute to a brothel owner in a few short months and become one of Cripple Creek's most successful business owners in just a few years. She only catered to the most prosperous men and her brothel was the fanciest, cleanest and most successful in town."
"When most of Cripple Creek's business district burned to the ground in 1895 her brothel went with everything else. While her newly married husband left to work in Mexico she stayed behind and rebuilt her business. Two years later she re-opened and called the brothel 'The Old Homestead'. She held lavish parties to bring in clients and charged $250 a night for the clients to stay over. That was an enormous amount in dollars those days. "
"In the summer of 1897 she held a large party sponsored by a wealthy admirer who brought her caviar, wine and an expensive imported Parisian gown. They had a fight that evening and he stormed back to Denver. She went up to bed and was found dead the next morning. She was known to have been in the habit of taking morphine to sleep quite often and the doctor declared it an accidental overdose. "
"Although her business was successful, at the time she died she didn't have any money for a proper burial as she had spent it all on The Old Homestead. She was going to be buried in a pauper's grave but she was so popular that the townspeople started to make arrangements for the funeral procession and burial on their own."
"However her Denver admirer stepped in and paid for the most lavish funeral ever in the town's history."
Sam took a breath. "You're looking at the headstone he bought her."
"Well, it's very nice." Dean smiled at the stone which was in the shape of a heart on a plinth with carved doves. It looked like a box of Valentine chocolates.
"Come on, Dean." Sam pulled at his brother's arm. "Stop flirting with Pearl and let's look for George. Remember George?"
Dean started walking away from the white marker. "So she doesn't haunt?"
"No, Dean," Sam answered. "You're stuck with George, come on."
In a lucky break, they found George's marker on the far side of a little hill, concealed from the road. Additionally the little hill was topped by a stand of trees. They took a chance and lit George up in place and no one showed up to yell or chase them away from the burning grave. If George was manifesting in the Bar the patrons there might have seen him go up in flames but that was an unlikely scenario. If it happened they would surely hear about it either when they returned to the hotel or at breakfast in the morning.
After shoveling the dirt on the embers, filling the grave, they trudged back to the car, hoping that both George and Alice were finally allowed to rest.
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References:
The World's Most Haunted Places by Jeff Belanger, 2004
Wikipedia – Cripple Creek, Colorado and Pearl de Vere
Legends of American – Website – Ghosts of the Cripple Creek Mining District
Hauntings Website – the Imperial Hotel, the Palace Hotel
Mt. Pisgah Cemetery website