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So you want a good haunted house? Well, for all you “Grave Encounters” fans, Spring City, in Pennsylvania, throws one of the most famous in a real abandoned asylum. The 13th Gate, in Baton Rouge, LA, is known for intertwining voodoo into its fright-night. And in Austin, TX, there is “The House of Torment.” I probably don’t need to explain that one.
But how about a haunted mine? It’s deep, dark, and no one would ever find you…
It’s something of the overlooked Old West story: Mining. When we think of America push to the Pacific, the image of cowboys, bandits, and the Native Americans the preceded both spring to mind. The great gold rushes of the late 1800s tend not to get as much press, even though they were the biggest lures.
So pull out your handy map of Nevada and look for Virginia City. A bump on a log about 45 minutes southeast of Reno (day trip!), there was a time when this was the place to be. Which isn’t a surprise when you learn that the town sits over its own weight in silver. Back in the 1860s, this town was the center of the Universe, and had everything from the lowest of “thirst parlors” and cathouses to the lofty Millionaire’s Club for the lucky few.
Imagine a ghost town, and then put people in it and voila! You have Virginia City. Thanks to a scalding hot water table, the mines could only go so far down and the silver petered out in the early 1900s. C Street, the main drag of town, is a timewarp back to the Gilded Age, and many of the saloons look as they did 150 years ago. It’s all very charming…and also a little eerie.
And I’m not the only one to say so: the “Ghost Hunters” TV show has been here no less than three times, for Virginia City — the whole bloody town — is saturated with the supernatural. Who needs a faked haunted house when everything within the city limits, houses, mines, churches, saloons, and cemeteries, have legit creepy-crawlies?
And mines have always had a “thing” about them. Even today, workers talk of spirits in the rock that warn of impending disaster. And if ghosts are born from violent deaths, “VC” has plenty. It was the testing ground for the very first pneumatic drills, whose construction was so slapdash they earned the epithet of the Windowmakers. Throw in falls, train accidents, and dynamite explosions and the restless dead have plenty of excuses to get all up in your business.
If you believe in that sort of thing, of course.
For more information, go to visitvirginiacitynv.com or contact Steele Luxury Travel to arrange your next trip: [email protected]