Columbia, California’s Haunted Fallon House & Theater

Like many old towns that are not “ghost towns” because they are still in existence, Columbia State Park, a preserved California gold rush town in the western foothills of the Sierra-Nevada mountains has its share of ghosts. This post I am going to share a bit about the Fallon House and Fallon Theater

Remaining since the days of the California Gold Rush, the Fallon Hotel was built by an Irish stone cutter in 1859. Original owner, Owen Fallon expanded the hotel in 1863 by purchasing an adjoining building and later the Gunn Saloon. These three buildings became Fallon’s Hotel. Today, visions of the Gold Rush era are often seen in this historic building. Though smoking is not allowed, guests can often smell the odor, along with that of whiskey. A female apparition is often seen in Room 9, and in the theater lights seemingly turn on and off of their own accord and shadow images are often spotted.

Visitors and guests often comment on a strong odor of smoke in different parts of the hotel, although California does not allow smoking in any of its public buildings. Many feel it is reminder that during the course of its history, the building has burned down twice. Also, its owner, Mr. Fallon was known for smoking cigars. Guests also detect the smell of whiskey even though the saloon was replaced by an ice cream parlor long ago (a must-see place to stop by for a wonderful treat, by the way). During the remodeling, a phantom youth was often seen climbing through a back window. When the construction crew rushed inside, there never was anyone around.  They came to the conclusion it was a youthful spirit searching for a sweet treat.

Guests in Room #13 are often startled by a young woman wearing a Victorian gown who disappears as quickly as she appears. She moves from room to room. Also, a little boy has been seen in Room #3 and the second-floor hallway. He likes to play and takes other children’s toys and hides them. In Rooms #1 and #6, guests have seen shadowy apparitions. Strange noises and cold spots in the halls and guest rooms have lead visiting paranormal experts to conclude the building is definitely haunted.

The hotel and the Fallon Theater are the same building, so most guests don’t take much notice of the mustachioed gentlemen seen occasionally in the upstairs halls. They assume he is in costume and part of a play. The ghost of James Fallon has been seen roaming backstage and in the halls of his theater, usually wearing a top hat and a long coat surrounded by cigar smoke.

My one and only ghost story, Haunted by Love, is set across the Sierra-Nevada Mountains in Bridgeport, California. Known as the “White Lady,” she has been spotted many times in Room 16 of what was once the Leavitt House and is now the Bridgeport Inn. There is even a historical plaque bearing record of her. No one knows who she was, or any reason why she stays. However, I have my own theory, and it is included in my book.

To read the book description and find the purchase link for Haunted by Love, please CLICK HERE.

Sources:

Williams, Nancy K.; Haunted Hotels of the California Gold Country

http://fabulousfoods.com/articles/21946/true-ghost-stories-of-tuolumne-county-california

Yuma Territorial Prison: Madora Ingalls-Prison Warden Wife & Reformer

The Yuma Territorial Prison in Arizona was often described as either a “hell hole” or a “country club.” Many of the changes that led to this prison becoming more tolerable to prisoners is due to the effort of the wife of Prison Superintendent Frank Ingalls, Madora Spauling Ingalls.

Yuma Territorial Prison was considered a hell hole by prisoners due to:

• "Insufferable heat (Yuma has two seasons: mildly warm and hotter than uno-where)
• Surrounded by rivers, quick sand and desert in all directions
• An inhuman "Snake Den" (dark cell) and Ball and Chain as standard punishment
• Tuberculosis was the #1 Killer
• "Impossible to endure, more impossible to escape."

River and desert outside Yuma Territorial Prison

However, after efforts to improve the prison, many by the above-mentioned couple, many non-inmate residents of Yuma resented the convicts enjoying amenities they didn’t have:

• Electricity
• Forced Ventilation
• Sanitation, including two bathtubs and three showers
• A library with 2,000 books, the most in the Territory at the time
• Enlightened, progressive administration
• Prison Band

 Considered one of the two best superintendents in the prison’s history, Frank Salter (F. S.) Ingalls was initially a surveyor by trade. He served as prison superintendent from June 1883-July 1886 and October 1889-September 1891.

The Yuma Prison Library was created in 1883 during the administration of superintendent F.S. Ingalls, who also opened blacksmith, carpentry, cobbler, and tailor shops to teach inmates job skills. It was under his administration that an electric dynamo was installed at the prison, one of the first generators in the West.. Electricity replaced coal oil and candles for lighting.

The following is from the Superintendent's Report, November 1, 1883. 

          “I recommend that the Legislature make a fair appropriation for a Prison Library, also to provide for a Mechanics Library of several volumes, for the special use of convict mechanics and those learning trades.

          “Every visitor to this institution pays $0.25 for the privilege of inspecting the prison. This money is set aside, and will be used towards assisting in establishing a Prison Library. The amount so far realized from this source is $78.25.” 

The prison library was the brainchild of his wife, Madora Ingalls who was concerned about the education of prisoners. She helped raise funds to buy the library’s furniture and 2,000 books.

Madora Ingalls display at Yuma Territorial Prison Museum

Some consider it the first library in the Arizona Territory. As the prison superintendent’s wife, she also helped raised money for a prison band, nursed some of the sickest prisoners, and decorated cells, the dining room and hospital with flowers annually on "Floral Mission Day." She sometimes brought prisoners food from her own kitchen, wrote letters for those who were illiterate, and worked for prison reform to help the inmates increase their chances of leaving prison to return to a better and more meaningful life.

There is a story about her that some consider true but, others claim is legend. It is said to have taken place at a time in 1891 when Madora was not at the prison. There were no reports in the Yuma and other newspapers of the time. The first known documentation of the story occurred in 1962. It might be the stuff of fiction, but it does make for a good story.

Supposedly, there was a prison escape attempt in the prison yard in July where a crew of inmates worked under the direction of two guards. (There were many prison escapes over the history of the prison, with a total of 26 inmates leaving and not being found and returned.) One guard was stabbed with a steel spike, his gun seized and the other guard in the yard shot. As the prisoners realized what was happening, they joined in the riot to break out.

Now armed with the rifles and pistols of both guards, the prisoners stormed the gates to break free. Realizing an uprising was in progress, the guard in the tower fired on the prisoners. One of the prisoners shot and killed the tower guard. As the steam whistle blew signaling the escape attempt, other guards worked to reach the top of the tower and the Lowell Battery Gun, which was similar to the Gatlin Gun, but they were held back by inmate fire.

 

Gatlin Gun on display at Yuma Territorial Prison Musuem

Supposedly, no one knows how it happened, but Madora Ingalls, who came with her husband to the prison while in her late twenties and the mother of three children, climbed into the guard tower. She fired the Lowell, spraying the ground in front of the prison yard gates, keeping prisoners pinned inside until the remaining prison guards were able to organize and quell the riot.

Whether or not the last story is true, Madora Ingalls left a mark felt by the inmates of the Yuma Territorial Prison. She stands as one of the leaders in early prison reform in the United States.

Frank Ingalls died in Yuma, Arizona on January 19, 1927 at the age of 76. Madora Ingalls died on November 30, 1938 at the age of 83. They are both buried in the Yuma Pioneer Cemetery.

Across the Colorado River and north on the eastern side of California readers will find the Mono Basin, home to the setting for my Eastern Sierra Brides 1884 series. Book 4 in the series, Haunted by Love, takes place mostly in Bridgeport, the county seat, and includes my fictionalized tale that might explain the “Lady in White,” a ghost who has been reported sighted several times since the late 1870’s in Room 16 of the Leavitt House, now the Bridgeport Inn. Please CLICK HERE to read the book description and find the purchase link for Haunted by Love.

Sources:

Trafzer, Cliff and Steve George, Prison Centennial 1876-1976 – A Pictorial History of The Arizona Territorial Prison at Yuma; Rio Colorado Press: 1980.

http://www.yumaprison.org/interesting-stories.html

https://hillofbooks.org/2016/03/17/prisons-libraries-and-coaches-eating-bugs/

Find-a-Grave for Madora Spaulding  Ingalls and Frank Salter Ingalls

Haunted City Hotel in Columbia, California

This hotel sits on the site of what was originally a blacksmith’s shop and the Lager Beer Saloon. In 1860 it was converted to a hardware store. 

In 1865, owner George Morgan added a frame structure called Morgan’s City Hotel. He continued to add on and made space for a bar, a music hall and theater, a restaurant, Cheap John Louis’s Auction House, and Shine and Company’s Stage Line. Even when Columbia’s fires damaged his building complex, he patched it up and reopened its doors.

City Hotel dining room today

This complex of businesses was run by George Morgan’s family after his death until 1911 when it was sold. In 1947, the State of California purchased the building to become part of the new state park and the building was renovated. The hotel had no indication of paranormal activity until an ornate antique bed from the 1850-1870’s period was moved into Room #1. 

Many of the furnishings for the City Hotel renovation were originally imported from Europe to fill some of San Francisco's finest mansions. More than a century later they made their way to Columbia. One of the hotel's furniture focal points is the ornately carved bed in Room #1, for in addition to its fine craftsmanship and artistic design, it came with a tragic history. It seems a woman, who hotel guests and staff came to name Elizabeth, actually died in childbirth in the bed.

Ever since the bed was moved into Room #1, doors open and close randomly, and often a perfumed "scent of a woman" will waft through the room with no apparent cause. Lights flicker on and off. On one occasion, a child repeatedly awakened his mother to tell her he was afraid of the woman dressed in white who stood at the foot of the bed.

The staff named the ghost Elizabeth. Later they discovered a woman named Elizabeth had died during childbirth while in that bed. Either, Elisabeth was so attached to the bed, she came with it from San Francisco to Columbia. Or, she has been in the vacant hotel all along, but became active with the arrival of the bed. Several paranormal investigators who visited the hotel came to conclusion there was a some type of tragedy involving a baby, grief and an atmosphere of sadness that can still be felt in Room #1.

City Hotel and What Cheer Saloon

Carol Biederman, a ghost tour guide in Columbia, discovered through intensive research that there had been a brawl in the saloon on the first floor of the building, which was just under Room #1. Guns were drawn, shots were fired, and a stray bullet went through the room’s ceiling into Room #1 on the second floor. The bullet killed a baby in that room, which could account for the aura of sadness.

Reports of paranormal activity in other rooms in the hotel have been made. Some people claim George Morgan, who hanged himself during a period of despondency, still makes the rounds in his hotel to make sure everything is going well.

My one and only ghost story to date takes place in the Leavitt House, a hotel in Bridgeport, California on the other side of the Sierra-Nevada Mountains from Columbia. There is a ghost associated with Room #16 in the Leavitt House, however, no one knows who she is, or what causes her to stay at the hotel. The genesis of the story I wrote was based on the reports of the woman who died in childbrith at the City Hotel in Columbia.

Sources:

Williams, Nancy K.; Haunted Hotels of the California Gold Country

http://fabulousfoods.com/articles/21946/true-ghost-stories-of-tuolumne-county-california

Here is an Excerpt:

     Hazel knew she had a long day ahead of her the next morning. She decided she might as well put on her nightgown, brush out her hair and prepare for bed. She noticed when she walked toward the opposite side of the room to pick up her valise, the feeling of sadness faded. But, when she walked back toward the dressing table, it increased slightly. Her curiosity aroused, Hazel once again walked toward the side window of the room. The feeling of sorrow again intensified.

     “Go away.”

     Hazel froze in place. Someone was speaking to her. She quickly stepped back until she reached the bottom corner of the bed. The sense of sadness once again diminished. But that did not answer the question now in Hazel’s mind. A tingle of fear coursed through her as she realized she was not alone in the room.

     “Who’s there?”

     “Go away. Leave me alone.”

     Her legs trembling, Hazel clung to the post at the foot of the bed. She had heard the voice twice now. Only, it wasn’t a voice she heard. The words entered her mind as plainly as if someone stood next to her and spoke to her, but they did not come through her ears first. And, in spite of the two lamps casting their soft glow throughout the room, she could not see anyone. 

      “Who are you? I know you’re here, but I can’t see you none.”

      “Leave my room. Go away.”

      Leave her room? Hazel had heard the Leavitt’s talking about this room belonging to a Sarah. But, they said she wasn’t there. Or, was she?

      Hazel swallowed in an attempt to keep her throat from closing with fear. “Are-are you Sarah?”

     “I’m Sarah. How do you know of me?”

     “Right pleased to meet you, Sarah. Mr. Leavitt done told me about you, and he said you like stayin’ in this room, but he said he ain’t seen you for a spell.”

      “I’m here. Leave me.”

      “I don’t mean you no harm, Sarah. I done told Mr. Leavitt I didn’t want to put you out none, but he said it ain’t no problem seein’ as how there ain’t no other room I can stay in and I don’t want to share a room with Mr. Sweeney.”

      Hazel waited, but heard no response. “I can tell you’re here, Sarah, and you seem powerful sad, but I can’t see you none. Are-are you under the bed, or hidin’ in a closet?”

      Hazel gasped for breath and gripped the bedpost until her fingers ached as she witnessed what took place before her eyes. Where before there was a carpet with a red, blue and cream design next to the bed between the side window and a table at the head of the bed, she now watched as a mound of white materialized on top. A dark spot in the center which Hazel soon realized it was hair flowing down the back of a head to someone’s shoulders lifted. A face appeared beneath it. The face belonged to an attractive young woman perhaps only a few years older than she was. Hazel had no idea how the woman accomplished it, but the woman rose to her feet as if pulled up by a puppeteer’s string until she stood at her full height. The two studied each other. Hazel’s eyes never left Sarah’s face, yet with her peripheral vision Hazel could not help but notice the beautiful design of the white gown worn by the woman before her.

      Gradually, the fear Hazel felt faded. The person before her radiated sorrow, but nothing Hazel considered threatening. She began to suspect what she was seeing, but wanted to confirm it.

      “You’re a haint, ain’t you?”

You may read more about Haunted by Love by Zina Abbott by CLICKING HERE on the purchase link. The book is available for Kindle on Amazon. You may also read it with a Kindle Unlimited subscription.