CHAPTER 26 Cobb Estate and White City Resort Altadena
SANTA BARBARA, VENTURA, AND SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTIES
CHAPTER 27 Rancho Camulos Piru
CHAPTER 28 Glen Tavern Inn Santa Paula
CHAPTER 29 Mission Park Jail Santa Barbara
CHAPTER 30 James Dean Memorial Junction Cholame
Spotlight On: Mediums and Psychics
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A GREAT DEAL OF THANKS goes out to Marie D. Jones, who didn’t have time to write this book and suggested that America’s Haunted Road Trip series editor John B. Kachuba contact me to write it. The rest is history. And a special thank-you to Molly Merkle, chief operating officer at Keen Communications, for straightening out the details. Thanks, John and Molly, for bringing me into the Clerisy stable of writers. Also BIG thank-yous go out to editor Donna Poehner, graphic designer Scott McGrew, and cartographer Steve Jones. This has been a fabulous book to write—filled with adventures, meeting new people, and getting to know the people I already knew so much better. Thanks to the members of Roadside Paranormal and Ghosts Happen: Jennifer Donohue, Anne Marie, Eugenia Swingle, Leo Aréchiga, Megan Meadows, Michelle Myers, Kim, and all of the others who took part in these investigations—and to those who didn’t make it into the book. Alex Boese—your healthy skepticism is always greatly appreciated. Thank you to the hundreds of people who participated in the investigations in this book. And thanks to Jodi Carmichael—the one person I have in mind every time I write one of these stories and hear my inner writer saying, “Would Jodi want me to leave this in or out?”
Thanks to my parents, who taught me that communication with anyone or anything is a good thing.
Here’s to all of the spirits who bothered to answer my calls in the dark to them—especially the ones who had meaningful conversations … even if many of those conversations were in languages I do not know.
Last but not least—a HUGE bouquet of appreciation to all of you readers. I hope you enjoy the book!
WELCOME TO AMERICA’S HAUNTED ROAD TRIP
DO YOU BELIEVE IN GHOSTS?
If you are like 52 percent of Americans (according to a recent Harris Poll), you do believe that ghosts walk among us. Perhaps you have heard your name called in a dark and empty house. It could be that you have awakened to the sound of footsteps outside your bedroom door, only to find no one there. It is possible that you saw your grandmother sitting in her favorite rocker chair, the same grandmother who had passed away several years before. Maybe you took a photo of a crumbling, deserted farmhouse and discovered strange mists and orbs in the photo, anomalies that were not visible to your naked eye.
If you have experienced similar paranormal events, then you know that ghosts exist. Even if you have not yet experienced these things, you are curious about the paranormal world, the spirit realm. If you weren’t, you would not now be reading this preface to the latest book in the America’s Haunted Road Trip series from Clerisy Press.
Over the last several years, I have investigated haunted locations across the country and with each new site, I found myself becoming more fascinated with ghosts. What are they? How do they manifest themselves? Why are they here? These are just a few of the questions I have been asking. No doubt you have been asking the same questions.
The books in the America’s Haunted Road Trip series can help you find the answers to your questions about ghosts. We’ve gathered together some of America’s top ghost writers (no pun intended) and researchers and asked them to write about their states’ favorite haunts. Each location that they write about is open to the public so that you can visit it for yourself and try out your ghosthunting skills. In addition to telling you about their often hair-raising adventures, the writers have included maps and travel directions so that you can take your own haunted road trip.
People may think that Southern California is nothing more than desert, blue skies, and sandy beaches populated by starlets, surfers, and sun-worshippers, but Sally Richards’s Ghosthunting Southern California proves that the deserts are home to shadowy entities that are seen only for an instant before disappearing in the haze, as well as spirits that frequent old, weathered buildings in real “ghost towns.” The book is a spine-tingling trip through the southern counties of the Golden State, with stops at resorts and hotels, Wild West jails and stagecoach stations, old ships, historic Spanish and Native American sites and cemeteries—all of them haunted.
Ride shotgun with Sally as she seeks out the ghosts of dearly departed sailors aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach and the Star of India in San Diego. Travel with her to Coronado, where the sorrowful ghost of Kate Morgan can be seen walking the grounds of the Hotel del Coronado, the place in which she was found mysteriously shot, or sit for a spell in the old jail at Julian and listen for the laments of long-gone cowboy inmates. And who is that ghostly man in boots and a large hat seen on the stairs of the Whaley House in Old Town, San Diego? Hang on tight: Ghosthunting Southern California is a scary ride.
But once you’ve finished reading this book, don’t unbuckle your seatbelt. There are still forty-nine states left for your haunted road trip! See you on the road!
John Kachuba
Editor, America’s Haunted Road Trip
Introduction
What Came Before, What Comes After
I WAS BORN INTO A REALM that many cannot see. My earliest memories were before I was a toddler, seeing my parents reach down in the playpen for me, halos of brightly colored light swirling around them and my grandmothers holding me closely in their arms. And always, the silent women behind them whom I didn’t know but whose warm smiles comforted me. I would see them from time to time when my grandmothers weren’t visiting; as I became older, they became more scarce. I didn’t know those women’s names, and no one ever seemed to know whom I was speaking about when I referenced them. Soon they became only outlines of beings filled with less bright lights—my mother says I called them falling stars. I would most often see the starlights, as I later began to call them, walking with people, guiding them on their way and away from harm. Everyone had at least one of these beings, though older people’s were more of an opaque shade and barely visible.
For some reason, when I was five, I became curious about our young newspaper boy, interacting with him at every opportunity. He was ten and as reliable as jeweled clockwork when he dropped off the weekly paper. He always rolled his bike up to the porch to toss me the paper to catch. He’d kill a few minutes of time telling me some silly joke that would leave me roaring
