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Cathedral Park - Portland, Oregon

This is a peek at a chapter from the Greater Portland Area in Ghosthunting Oregon.  If you like this, click the link at the bottom to pre-order the book (due out in September) to read the whole chapter!

Today, Cathedral Park in north Portland provides a breathtaking view of the towering St. John’s Bridge, nature, and the east shore of the Willamette River. It is not uncommon to see families picnicking there on sunny afternoons or the occasional wedding held beneath the statuesque bridge and the smell of trees and wildflowers add to the picture-perfect location. It is, indeed, a site one could spend hours at, taking pictures and contemplating how little the scene has changed since the construction of the bridge in 1931. But times have changed and most of the people who walked through Cathedral Park have faded into the past and are all but forgotten. All, perhaps, except for 15-year-old Thelma Taylor, who also thought the park was beautiful. Until August 5, 1949, and since then the park has been haunted by stories of ghostly screams and shadowy figures. 

 

.....Leland held Thelma near the river bank throughout the night, well hidden in an area of thick underbrush. But when morning came, Thelma could hear the workers switching cars on a nearby railroad track, and her first instinct was to scream for help. It was then, to avoid detection and certain arrest, that Leland struck Thelma in head repeatedly with a steel bar. And then, to make sure she could not possibly scream for help again, he stabbed her, silencing her forever on that bank nearly eight blocks from Cathedral Park. Leland then threw the steel pipe and the knife into the river, hoping that the current would carry them far away, wiped his fingerprints from Thelma’s lunch pail, gathered his cigarette butts, and buried Thelma in a shallow grave underneath a pile of driftwood on the riverbank.

You can purchase Ghosthunting Oregon at this link - Ghosthunting Oregon on Amazon

 

Oaks Amusement Park in Portland

Did you know that The Oaks is the oldest continually running amusement park in the US?  Opened on May 30th, 1905, it is still one of Oregon's better kept secrets!  It is worth the visit!  You may even encounter the ghost of the little girl who wanders the grounds!

The view looking down the Avenue at The Oaks.  Around 1906.

                                          

Table of Contents for Ghosthunting Oregon

While everything I do in life is subject to change, I feel pretty confident that after many changes thus far this will hopefully reflect the final version on the contents to be included in Ghosthunting Oregon.  I am very excited about finishing this book and looking forward to the feedback from readers once it is done.  In the meantime, this is what you will be reading about.

GREATER PORTLAND AREA

• Shanghai Tunnels
• Cathedral Park
• The Witch's Castle
• White Eagle Tavern
• Hollywood Theater
• The Heathman Hotel
• Oaks Park
• Villa St. Rose School for Girls
• Stark Street
• The Benson Hotel
• ComedySportz
• The Monkey King
• The Bagdad Theater

THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY

• Woodland Park (Eugene)
• The Bush House Museum (Salem)
• Elsinore Theater (Salem)

OREGON COAST

• Marshfield Cemetery (Coos Bay)
• Yaquina Bay Lighthouse (Newport)
• Heceta Head Lighthouse (Florence)
• WWII Lookout Bunker (Charleston)
• Old Wheeler Hotel (Wheeler)

SOUTHERN OREGON

• The Rogue Theater (Grants Pass)
• The Schmidt House (Grants Pass)
• Oregon Vortex (Gold Hill)
• Darkwing Manor (Medford)

CENTRAL OREGON

• Congress House (Bend)
• The Redmond Hotel (Redmond)
• O'Kane Building (Bend)

MOUNT HOOD/THE GORGE

• Mount Hood National Forest - Little Crater Lake (Mount Hood)
• Columbia Gorge Hotel (Hood River)
• The Edgefield Manor (Troutdale)

EASTERN OREGON

• Pioneer Park (Pendleton)
• Ye Olde Castle Restaurant (Burns)
• Malheur Butte (Ontario)

The past month or so has been a busy one, traveling to different locations and deciphering my notes to get them into chapters and to my editor.  One thing I have realized is that we are at no loss for lighthouse in Oregon, even more than I realized.  And, of course, with lighthouses generally come ghost stories.  A few of the places I have visited this past month are Heceta Head Lighthouse, which I wrote about earlier, and Yaquina Bay Lighthouse, now a wonderful public museum.  Many get confused between Yaquina Bay Lighthouse and Yaquina Head Lighthouse, and I was one of them for a long time.  But there is a big difference between the two, with Yaquina Bay Lighthouse having a more tragic story involving the building itself.  In the end, however, it pulled through and stands exactly where it did when it was built in 1871 by architect Ben Simpson.

An interesting fact about Yaquina Bay Lighthouse is that it went through a number of occupants - Lightkeepers and their families and various groups and organizations.  One of the groups that occupied the quarters in 1906 was the U.S. Lifesaving Service, which later merged with the Revenue Cutter Service in 1915 to become the U.S. Coast Guard.

After decades of talk of demolition, the little lighthouse pulled through, and on December 7th, 1996, the guiding light was relit.  The Yaquina Bay Lighthouse is now operated by the Oregon State Parks Department with the assistance of Friends of Yaquina Lighthouses, and  offer year-round tours of the lighthouse and quarters.  If you are in the Newport, Oregon area, and have a desire to step back in time a bit, I would highly suggest visiting Yaquina Bay Lighthouse.  Enjoy the scenery and maybe even see a ghost or two!

Heceta Head Lighthouse

No book of hauntings in Oregon would be complete with the inclusion of Heceta Head Lighthouse and Lightkeepr's House in Yachats, Oregon.

My team, PSI of Oregon, had the privilege to investigate this historic location back in 2009, and the data we collected was astounding.  The stories of "Rue", we learned, we more accurate than even we expected.  Along with Rue, we met a few other spirits who found the location as enchanting as we did.

A road trip is coming up to go a bit more in depth with Heceta Head, with interviews with the Lightkeeper, a refresher tour and photographs; all which will be included in my upcoming book, Ghosthunting Oregon.

I will leave you with a video of the Heceta Head Lightkeeper's House attic, where Rue is reportedly seen often, and an original score by our friend James Beal.

WWII Lookout Bunker

A day was spent in the sunshine and shade of towering pine trees as we hiked a well-traveled trail on Cape Arago Highway to the site of a deserted World War II Lookout Bunker.  Men stood guard in this bunker during the war, keeping a close eye on the Oregon coastline for the threat of enemy invasion.  And, although roofless now, this sturdy concrete three room structure stand tall and proud, all wall intact and the smokestacks standing against the backdrop of the forest, very much the same as it did in WWII.

Rumors of this location being haunted have been whispered about for decades.  And, after hearing some of the EVP I recorded there, I must concur that there is something "other worldly" that remains within the concrete confines of the bunker.

However, whether you believe it or not, the hike it beautiful and invigorating, and a quite, historic location to stop for lunch before continuing on the 2.5 mile hike that leads you to 400 feet above sea level.