With Halloween less than two weeks away, the spooky season is in full swing, and the Twin Cities are set to celebrate it over the next two weekends with ghost hunts for both skeptics and aspiring paranormal investigators to take part in.
In Centralia this Friday and Saturday, the Centralia Downtown Festivals Association and The Shady Lady are hosting the annual Ghost Walk & Dark Market in Historic Downtown Centralia — exploring the Hub City’s many aged buildings and reportedly haunted locations.
Then, next weekend on Saturday, the doors of the Lewis County Historical Museum in downtown Chehalis will be open after hours for a series of ghost hunt tours led by members of the South Sound Paranormal Research Team throughout the museum — exploring the museum, which was originally a train depot built in 1912 and has now been the location of multiple documented instances of paranormal activity.
Ghost Walk & Dark Market in Historic Downtown Centralia
For those looking to explore downtown Centralia’s haunted side this weekend, the Ghost Walk & Dark Market featured local ghost guides and artisan vendors from 3 to 8 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 17, and continues from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 18, according to the event’s official Facebook page.
“Put on your bowler hat and step back into Centralia’s golden days. Local tour guides will thrill you with ghost stories, folklore, and historical morsels as you explore downtown Centralia, Washington,” the Centralia Downtown Festivals Association stated. “Wear your walking shoes, we tour downtown buildings and their rich histories & hauntings. Tours commence every hour from Lewis & Clark hotel.”
The Lewis & Clark Event Center is located at 117 W. Magnolia St. in Centralia, and ghost walks were offered from 4 to 8 p.m. on Friday and 3 to 8 p.m. on Saturday.
Tickets for the ghost walks are $20 per person and can be purchased by calling 360-736-4333, visiting The Shady Lady at 216 N. Tower Ave. or on Eventbrite at https://tinyurl.com/2f9urj9f.
Following the ghost walk, participants are invited to shop at the Dark Market back at the Lewis & Clark Event Center “to check out the witchy wares and artisan oddities.”
The Dark Market is free to attend. For more information, visit the event’s Facebook page at https://tinyurl.com/3tt4scfx.
Lewis County Historical Museum Ghost Tours
In downtown Chehalis next Saturday, Oct. 25, local ghost hunters are invited to join volunteers from the South Sound Paranormal Research Team as they lead participants throughout the museum’s main space and explore the attic, normally off-limits to museum visitors.
Tours will commence hourly at 6, 7 and 8 p.m. according to the event’s official Facebook page. Tours are Americans with Disabilities Act friendly, except for the attic portion. The Lewis County Historical museum is located at 599 NW Front St. in downtown Chehalis.
Tickets are $25 per person and can be purchased at the museum when it’s open, or on Eventbrite at https://tinyurl.com/2s3zf3ut. Attendees must be at least 13 to participate.
The South Sound Paranormal Research Team has already conducted multiple investigations at the museum for years now, as various paranormal phenomena have been reported in the old Northern Pacific Railroad Depot by both visitors and even multiple museum executive directors.
Current Lewis County Historical Museum Executive Director Jason Mattson has observed multiple instances of objects in the museum being moved when he was alone in the building — and former Executive Director Jill Kangas, who when closing up one night back in 1981, claims to have encountered a full-body apparition of a woman in Victorian-era clothing.
As Kangas prepared to go home, she entered a utility closet to shut off the museum’s lights.
“At night, you use the electrical panels to turn the lights off. I was going down the one on the left, the first one, and I got down to the fourth set of breakers, and I heard this voice right behind me say, ‘Excuse me miss,’” Kangas said in a 2024 interview with The Chronicle. “And I turned and I looked, and half the distance you and I are apart (around 2 feet) stood this about 17-year-old girl dressed in a black wool traveling suit, about 1890s. And she was holding a crocheted handbag and she had a bonnet. Her hair was brown and the bonnet was black like her outfit, tied on the side.”
She added she never heard any footsteps approaching either.
“It kind of seemed like the world stopped at that time for me. I took total account of her. She was maybe 80 pounds. She was very dainty. Her hands were like a third the size of my hands, and I would say she was about 4-foot-10 at the most,” Kangas said. “As I turned and looked at her, she said, ‘Has the train left yet?’ And she turned toward the door and she took three tiny steps, and she was in the terrazzo hallway. She turned to the right and took one more step and was beyond the door frame and I couldn’t see her.”
The woman appeared to be completely solid, too, not like Hollywood depictions of ghosts, a half-bodied translucent apparition.
To read Kangas’ full account of what she saw, along with other paranormal experiences she had during her years working at the Lewis County Historical Museum, read The Chronicle’s story at https://tinyurl.com/327w52v8.
For more information on this year’s Ghost Tours at the Lewis County Historical Museum, visit its Facebook page at https://tinyurl.com/377sbh3b.
