With its abandoned mining towns and frontier history, Nevada claims some of the liveliest spirits of the West. Tales of ghost hauntings rattle the Biggest Little City and its environs. Just ask professional ghost hunter, teacher and historian Janice Oberding.
"We've had a lot of violent deaths and suicides going back to the old days of the Comstock," she said. "And many residents died well before their time, so there's still unrest here and the spirits continue to roam where they once lived."
Oberding, a local author of "Haunted Nevada" and "Ghost Hunters Guide to Virginia City," cites Reno's mining, gambling and prostitution for its turbulent past. Now, she and her ghost conference group unravel Reno's own supernatural sightings and stories. Halloween week may be the best time to explore the area's ghostly encounters. Here are a few places to look.
Virginia Street Bridge, downtown Reno
An execution took place here in 1891. Louis Ortiz, a rowdy gunslinger, was charged with gunning down a sheriff after he was ordered to leave town for good. He was tried for murder at the courthouse and lynched on the Virginia Street Bridge. The legend goes that Ortiz never really left the old bridge -- at least not in spirit.
Washoe County Courthouse, Virginia Street, downtown Reno.
In 1878, Joseph Rover, a Comstock miner was convicted of being an ax murder. After his conviction he pleaded innocent, but to no avail. He was tried and put to death in the courtyard. About 20 years later someone else confessed to the crime and replied "Reno hanged an innocent man." Does Rover's ghost still haunt the old courthouse (the current 1909 building sits on the former courtyard)? Oberding said she once toured the old jail cell that was locked up for many years. "It was very nauseating, dark and musty with a strong energy of something or someone," she said.
John Beck's skull
John Beck lived in a boarding house on Center Street during the 1870s. A fire struck and his wife was killed.
"The story goes that he walked through downtown the rest of his life carrying his wife's skull inside his coat pocket and telling everyone, 'Here's my wife!'" Oberding said.
University of Nevada, Reno
The university's ghostly tale depicts former student James Champagne, who shot himself with a revolver in 1906. Reports later surfaced by classmates who cringed after witnessing a "bright, ghostly patch of fog" hovering upstairs in the windows of his room in Lincoln Hall. Some also believe that another apparition, "The Woman in White," resides in Morrill Hall. According to archive reports, Lincoln Hall was built near a graveyard overlooking Manzanita Lake in 1896.
St. Mary's Art Center:
This large brick building (not to be confused with the church of the same name) was once an asylum during the Comstock Era. Tragedy struck when it caught fire. The story mentions a diseased resident, "The Nun Dressed in White." The caretakers say she continues to watch over everyone. Some guests revealed seeing a peaceful apparition on the center's front porch and near the upstairs windows late at night. During the fire, many believe that the mysterious nun tried frantically to save as many lives as possible. Still, many patients perished, and today the dwelling radiates an uncanny feeling.
"At night it was dark and creepy," said Retta Dermody, who toured the old hospital grounds with the ghost conference group last year. "They told me to touch the door upstairs "" it was ice cold! It gave me goose bumps. I thought this must be the place where they locked up the insane. Later someone said: "This is the room where autopsies were performed. It made me scream!"
Piper's Opera House
Mark Twain and other notables loved watching shows at this popular hub during the 1880s. In fact, many are convinced that spirits of dead entertainers continue performing. Maureen Hepner, director of the historic opera house, recalls a few ghostly encounters: eerie sounds of cowboy boots circling near the opera box, needle hooks flying across the center stage and the smell of cigars from the late John Piper. She also mentioned an incident during a recent play of Shakespeare's "Macbeth:"
"Out of nowhere, a flock of bats came swarming into the upper balcony. Everyone screamed! Some even thought this was part of the act, but it wasn't."
Gold Hill Hotel
Former housekeeper Vicki Miller dabbled with the occult one morning while making a bed.
"It was a ghost of a dark-haired man with a mustache, black hat, button collar and a dark vest. I saw the apparition passing from room 8 to room 1. When I screamed, he was gone."
Miller named the ghost William. Oberding and her ghost conference members also describe another ghost whom they call Rosy, because of her rose cologne scent. Melody Reynolds, who oversees the historic hotel built in 1859, explains her theory:
"I think there's a lot of spirits here that were trapped in time "" now they're lost and wandering," she said. "Most of this ghostly energy stems from the Yellow Jacket Fire of 1869. The tragedy took the lives of many miners who were burned to death."
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