Debbie Johnson, an amateur paranormal investigator from Paranormal Investigation in Puyallup, uses an electronic meter to detect the potential presence of paranormal activity in the Olympic Club Hotel during a recent downtown Centralia ghost tour.
Daniel Daigle, of Paranormal Investigation of Puyallup, and Tanya Routt, of Puget Sound Ghost Hunters of Federal Way, take readings of potential paranormal energy in the Olympic Club Hotel during the Downtown Centralia Festival Association’s Supernatural and Historical Folley Tour Saturday.
Shady Lady owner and Downtown Centralia Festival Association member Holly Phelps served as the tour guide for the first-ever Supernatural and Historical Folley Tour Saturday night. Phelps dressed in period costume and told stories of the paranormal activity that has been reported at several stops throughout downtown Centralia.
Ayala Brothers Furniture Co. is located at 305 N. Tower Ave. in Centralia.
Anderson Book Co. is located at 106 W. Pine St. in Centralia.
Centralia City Hall is located at 118 W. Maple St. in Centralia.
Listen for the sounds of coughing from a long-forgotten grave at the corner of Tower and Main. Keep your eyes peeled at Anderson’s Books for a regular customer who may already be on the other side. And if you feel like you’re being watched at the Fox Theatre, chances are you might be.
These were just some of the stories of paranormal activity during Downtown Centralia Festival Association’s Supernatural and Historical Folley Tour, which took place Saturday.
The event was sponsored by the Centralia Downtown Festival Association, which was founded almost one year ago. Member Lauri O’Brien, of Help At Home senior services, said its members are united by a desire to see their community thrive and hopefully see fewer empty storefronts in the downtown core.
“The (Centralia Downtown Association) isn’t about events, they’re about main street projects,” O’Brien explained. “We’re about viable, enriching, engaging events that bring people to the historic downtown core, which hopefully encourages more traffic for merchants downtown.”
The downtown festival association is in charge of Antique Fest in July and its accompanying children’s market and the Open House and Christmas Market in December. O’Brien explained that the idea to add a ghost tour to the lineup came from association members Holly Phelps, of the Shady Lady, and Barb Salewsky, of Salewsky’s Jewelry, who over their many years in business downtown had heard numerous stories about downtown areas purported to be haunted.
Fashioned after similar tours in larger areas such as New Orleans, the supernatural tour was part historical downtown tour and part boots-on-the-ground experience in some locations. Dressed in period costume, Phelps led groups through the downtown area, giving history of buildings and relaying stories about some of the activity reported at different stops. In some cases, tour members were able to actually enter the buildings and see where paranormal events have occurred.
Members of the volunteer group Puget Sound Ghost Hunters of Federal Way had conducted paranormal investigations at a few of the locations the previous night and were able to talk a little bit about their experiences. Among the high-tech equipment on hand, the group used a spirit box, which uses radio frequency to pick up sounds, some of which have been interpreted as coming from paranormal activity. They also used an ovilus, which converts environmental readings into words, as well as video and film recordings.
“We don’t know when they’re going to show up … but there was some activity here. It was really cool,” said Ken Arnold, who owns Puget Sound Ghost Hunters with his wife, Donna.
The first stop on the tour was the historic Fox Theatre, where long-time volunteer Konrad Lawrence relayed some of the spooky experiences there. Mysterious sounds, feelings of being watched and a light bulb that will not die are just some of the many reports coming from that location, Lawrence said.
“Time after time people will tell me they were standing in the theater and someone threw something at them, sometimes heavy things. That’s poltergeist,” Lawrence said.
A perhaps lesser-known haunting is at the corner of Tower Avenue and Main Street, Phelps said. The sidewalk next to Edward Jones is the site where three men perished in 1891 after falling into a well and succumbing to the toxic gasses at the bottom. The men’s bodies were reportedly left where they died and the well was later sealed. Modern-day passersby have reported hearing the sounds of coughing near that location with no immediate indication where the sound came from.
A far more heartwarming apparition is rumored to make frequent appearances at the 1907 Stahl building, which today houses Anderson Book Company. Formerly, when the corner shop was a florist, the owners reported a pleasant woman who became a regular customer and would often stop in and chat. Once, when the woman arrived for one of her visits, another visitor to the shop admitted they could not see who the owners were talking to. They were later shown a photo of the woman they had been visiting with, who turned out to be Mayme Cunningham, who was the wife of one of the attorneys who had their offices upstairs in the early 1900s.
“She’s in and out. A lot of people have seen her and she’s probably one of the sweetest ghosts we have here,” Phelps said.
But some of the stops on the tour had much darker pasts. The tour included both the Ayala Brothers building and the Centralia City Hall, which both played parts in the 1919 Centralia Tragedy as the sites where the mob assembled and the jail where Wesley Everest was housed before his murder.
Because of the incredible amount of paranormal activity reported at the Ayala Brothers, the former site of the Elks Lodge where the “kangaroo court” was held for Wesley Everest, Phelps said it was decided not to take the group into the building.
“We have the craziest weird photo bombers on the third floor of this building,” she said. “It’s just really a paranormal chatterbox for people who are sensitive to that.”
Phelps noted there may be upcoming historical tours surrounding the Centralia tragedy in the future.
The tour garnered visitors who ranged from the curious and skeptical to true believers. Besides the team from Puget Sound Ghost Hunters, the tour also attracted paranormal podcasters as well as other paranormal investigation groups.
A small group from Paranormal Investigations of Puyallup was on hand Saturday night, bringing with them their own recording devices and noted they got “hits” on some sort of energy in both the Fox Theatre and the Olympic Club Hotel.
“It’s just intriguing, this world of the unknown,” said member Paige Fromm. “It makes you want to get your own experience in it.”
“I love it with the kids coming out and learning local history, they’re in a classroom and they don’t even notice,” added Debbie Johnson, an amateur paranormal investigator. “Some of these small towns have lots of stories to tell.”
O’Brien said members of the Centralia Downtown Festival Association considered the tour a success. All 75 tickets offered for the paranormal tour sold out just two weeks after being announced, with several people requesting extra tour times be added.
“I don’t want to give anything away just yet but we have some really cool things planned for this time next year,” O’Brien said.
