- [Narrator] They're out there, somewhere, somewhere between true history and historical myth, somewhere between life and death.

Somewhere between dark and light, you'll find the plains spirits.

(eerie music) Formerly, at governor's mansion, and now, a current day fraternity house, more than just college students are hanging out at the Stubbs mansion.

- So we're here at the former governor's mansion of Kansas, which is now our fraternity, Governor Stubbs.

The story behind the house is that there used to be a mistress that the governor was basically cheating on his wife with, Virginia, and so the wife found out about this story and basically said, "You have to choose between her or myself."

As a political figure, the governor obviously chose his wife, and so the next evening, the governor found the mistress, Virginia, hanging in the ballroom, and the wife was sitting next to the mistress hanging and she was sitting in a rocking chair and kind of had a blank stare on her face.

- All right, so right now, we are right above the rafters where Virginia hung herself, and a lot of guys have had real interesting experiences in here.

Just coming up here, it's kind of a...

It's always been a place that people don't particularly like to stay.

- So it's debated whether it is a suicide or a murder case.

- But a lot of our alumni back in the early eighties and the seventies just told us about how they would come up here and a few of them, I think, even do like Ouija boards and stuff like that, and they had experiences.

- This is where two out of my three encounters have occurred.

The first one, basically, what I heard, is I heard the door open and shut, somebody walking in this direction, back towards my rack, and so I heard...

I heard the footsteps coming towards my rack, and then I heard the sheet lifting up.

And basically, I reached out real quick and looked to see who was there, and nobody was there.

Not even a few weeks later, same thing happened, I heard footsteps coming towards my rack, and this time, somebody grabbed my foot, and so same time, I reached out real quick, and no, again, nobody was there.

- I was completely alone here, it was over summer vacation, everyone else had gone home from recruitment, I asked our president if I could stay in the house for an extra night before I drove home, and I thought everything would be fine.

So I climbed up into this bunk and went to bed, fell asleep, perfectly fine.

It was about...

I don't know what time it was, sometime, middle of the night, I was dead asleep, and I woke up.

I popped up in my bed and I was looking across the entire room.

And mind you, there were no sheets hanging from the ceiling, nothing like that, it was just me in here, nothing else.

And the light from the parking lot was shutting in, and I saw Virginia walking in between the racks over there, and she was just looking at me, and I said, "Virginia, is that you?"

And she stared over at me and just smiled, and kept walking back and forth.

And it wasn't like she was a spirit or anything, she was... She was a real person, I can...

I could draw it for you right now, she had the navy blue dress on, farmers dress with floral print, lace, everything, and she just stared at me and smiled, it was the most crazy thing, and I just went back to bed, and said, "You have to be imagining this, this can't be real."

And so I went back to sleep, woke up the next morning, and I got out of here.

That was it, drove home.

(eerie music) - As I look on this side, I see a woman standing next to my bed looking directly at me.

And she was like... She had like this stern look on her face, and she was... Had her arms crossed and was just looking down on me, and I didn't really know how to react to it, so I just basically pulled my blankets over my head just saying like, "This is not happening."

I poked my head through again and she was still there, like... And it looked like she was just a good three feet away from me, just standing there, like staring at me.

And I pulled my sheets over my head again, kept telling myself, "This is not happening," "I'm seeing things," and when I finally pulled my sheets down, she was gone.

- This fireplace is where people think Virginia's ashes are actually placed, with this plaque in front of them, which has, "The world of strife shut out, and the world of love shut in."

So this is kind of a... For everyone here at the house, this is kind of an area that people kind of respect, stay away from, it's kind of understood that this is...

This is Virginia's part of the house, nobody else's.

(eerie music) (upbeat music) - [Narrator] The historic Eldridge Hotel in downtown Lawrence, Kansas, has accommodated guests and spirits since the Civil War.

(orchestral music) - There seem to be spirits in the hotel, and we think that the presence in the hotel is actually Colonel Eldridge.

The presence, if you will, seems to be on the fifth floor, and it seems to be in room 506.

And strange things have happened in room 506, and the cornerstone from the original building is embedded... Is built into the wall in 506, and we think maybe that's the reason why that seems to be the portal.

And I' tell you, I had a personal experience here, not very long ago, or maybe six months ago with 506, the housekeepers came to me and they said, "We can't get in 506 to clean the room, our key cards aren't working."

And I said, "Oh, okay, well, let me take my master key, I'll go up and open it for you."

So I went up and I put my master key in, and it wouldn't work either.

And the batteries were fine in the lock, that didn't seem to be the problem, but we couldn't get the door to unlock, and we finally figured out, in all the hotel rooms, there's a deadbolt on the inside.

Well, it turned out the deadbolt in 506 was locked from the inside, there is no way you can lock that deadbolt from anywhere other than the inside and you're on the fifth floor.

So you're not gonna lock the deadbolt and go out the window.

We had to take the door off the hinges to unlock the deadbolt.

But it's another example of the kinds of things that seem to happen.

We have a photograph at the front desk, up as a publicity photo that was taken in the 1970s, and after the photograph was developed, somebody was looking at it, and they said, "Oh my goodness, what's that?"

And at the back of the photograph, the doors to the elevator are open, the elevator is filled with smoke or steam or something, and there's a figure standing in the elevator.

(orchestral music) For many years now, Colonel Eldridge's chair has been stored in a storeroom, which is back behind this wall in the lobby, and to get to that storeroom, you've gotta go down a long, narrow corridor in the basement, and then you walk up these very narrow concrete steps, and you've gotta kind of turn and bend and climb up the steps, and Colonel Eldridge's chair sat in this little room.

Well, the room, as you can imagine, is filled with cobwebs and dust, and what one would expect, except for Colonel Eldridge's chair, it was always clean, always spotless.

And this is the room where Colonel Eldridge's chair is stored, and we've got it right here, colonel's chair.

(orchestral music) Well, several years ago, we had a new front desk clerk at the hotel, and he of course heard this story, and one day, he said, "You know what?"

"I don't believe that, I'm just gonna see for myself."

And he went down the long, narrow corridor, he walked up the narrow steps, turned the light on, turned around and looked up over the edge, and somebody was sitting in Colonel Eldridge's chair.

It was an elderly gentlemen, and he was smoking a pipe, and he looked up and he went, "Hmm."

Well, the front desk clerk freaked out, screamed, ran down the steps, ran out of the basement, never went in there again.

So we think he needed to apologize for disturbing Colonel Eldridge.

Well, we had moved the chair out of here and then came back up and we discovered this message written on the wall, and so I guess what that really tells us is that the spirits that are here do have a sense of humor, so that's good news.

But we think also that the reason why he's here is to take care of his guests, the spirits in the hotel have never done anything negative.

We think they're just looking out for the best interests of the guests.

(eerie music) (air whooshing) - [Narrator] The Santa Fe Depot in Leavenworth, Kansas, used to be an epicenter for travelers coming and going, but some passengers never left the station.

- I turn this light on first because it's the least creepy.

(eerie music) This is the second series of lights I do because it's obviously dark and creepy in here.

Every single day that I open, no matter what, I always feel unnerved in the middle of this hallway.

Then I never go in here, just flip, and then the men's bathroom lights stays off until someone else comes to do it because I don't go in there by myself in the dark.

- I usually come in at 5:30 and open in the mornings, and I'd walk into the men's bathroom and check to make sure everything was okay, and the door would slam on me, just gives you chills all the way through.

- Last Monday, I was cutting some onions for a prep for a morning, and I was the only one here, it felt like somebody had actually touched me and I reacted and I actually cut my finger.

- Since I've worked here, I've definitely started to become more of a believer, because you just can feel it.

- We had owned this business for 12 years, and there seems to be a lot of paranormal activity going on in this building.

Our first investigation that we had, we had a psychic from Topeka, and we were all in this room in here, and she was telling about some of the things that she was seeing.

She kept looking at that table all the time.

And so when we were done, she pulled me aside and she said, "I have to tell you, there was a man sitting out here at this table, dressed in a suit, and he was smoking a cigar the whole time."

I've had customers that have come in here and they'll tell me at the end, after they're done eating, that they smelled cigar smoke and that they had this man standing by them smoking a cigar.

There's a room above here and the only way you can get here... To that room is up through the ceiling.

We've had some of our help that have come to work early in the morning, there'll be lights on up in that room.

We have a glass dormer going in this room, and then we have one going into the hallway.

And ever since we've been open, we would have these little... Like hand prints that would be on the windows.

And we would clean the window glass and they would come right back on.

(eerie music) The night that the psychic came in, she said that there was a little boy, and he was out crying at the side of the building that he wanted his mother.

That night, we did the circle of prayer, and since then, the little boy, and we have not had his hand prints up there.

- Well, the worst and most scary of all, would have be...

When no one was here to open with me, so I was completely alone.

I was actually back in the kitchen, and the radio clipped on loud as could be right next to me.

(eerie music) - We had satellite music in here, and when we'd leave at the end of the day, we'd always have...

The music was all the same throughout the building, and when I come in the mornings, a lot of times, the music was really loud, right in this area.

We've had several people that have went into the ticket room, and they said that they get physically sick when they're in there, but... And then some of the waitresses will say, "Well, do you want to move to another room?"

And they said, "No."

"No, we're okay," and they'll stay there, and I've had some customers that have experienced maybe like cold spells in the building.

- You don't have to be sensitive to spirits here at all because they will let you know they're here.

(eerie music) (air whooshing) (light rapping) - [Narrator] In the oldest city in Kansas, Leavenworth, there's a whole other side to the city underground.

(eerie music) - Hi, I'm the candle queen in Leavenworth, Kansas, and my building is 150 years old, it was built in 1860.

And not everything's pretty and pink as you can see, follow us down to the underground, and you'll see what I mean?

(eerie music) We have the underground tunnel downstairs, and I have a lot of people inquire to do ghost hunting down there, and I say, "No," 'cause I'd rather not awake the spirits.

So follow me on down.

(eerie music) The building was built in 1860, and it was originally built as a saloon.

And over the years, we've had lots of different things, but this is the most intriguing part downstairs.

And here's the underground tunnel, and it runs alongside of our building, which is 150 years old.

Don't be scared.

(upbeat music) Ironically, Abraham Lincoln announced his presidency just a few steps away from our building.

And one of the theories is that the underground here was used for the Underground Railroad, because Missouri is just a stone's throw away from Kansas, and when the slaves would come over here, this was their first free ground, but the people of Leavenworth didn't want them here, so they made them shop in the underground down below.

So that's one theory of what these shops were used for.

Another theory is that it was a Polish immigrant that built this building 150 years ago, and over in Poland, they would make a tunnel alongside their building where they would dump the coal down and then they would go ahead and wheelbarrow it into each room, and you can see down here, we have rooms underneath each store up front, so that is a possible theory.

(upbeat music) Now, this tunnel runs the length of our building, which is a block long, and they're found all over Leavenworth, there's undergrounds, and they even say some of the undergrounds go all the way to the Missouri river, and end up as caves.

Now, you can see underneath each store, there is a storefront, and then there's windows on each side.

So here's one, and it...

There's three of them, there's three sets of old storefronts underneath half of our building.

(eerie music) And here's one of the more creepy things down here, these old mannequins, and they've been published in several magazines and books about ghost hunting in Leavenworth, I don't think I'll be using them anytime soon in my store.

(upbeat music) We had an urban archeologist out of California come down here one time, and he explained a lot of questions that we'd been wondering about.

For instance, this right here, I was scared that it might be mold, he said that this is old sawdust from the about 150 years ago, that this this room was probably, most likely, a wood worker.

(upbeat music) Oh, and this newspaper over here is "The Kansas City Star," and it's dated October 23rd, 1912.

And a lot of the rooms are covered in this because this is what they used as insulation back then, was old newspapers.

(eerie music) I don't wanna awaken the spirits, I totally believe in them, and I've had lots of people say there's lots of ghosts in the underground in Leavenworth, and I don't wanna know.

(eerie music) (air whooshing) (cricket chirping) - [Narrator] From a brothel to a peanut factory, there's a lot more being served at the Pepper Mill than is on the menu.

- We own the Pepper Mill Restaurant, that's...

It's Pepper Mill & Company, that's...

This building is more known for being the river house, we've just been open since June of 2012.

We certainly share this space with Madam Lulu and the little boy and the little girl here.

In fact, we say, "Hello," every morning, greet them every morning, and we say, "Good night."

So... To keep our peace and make sure that we're friends.

Our cook, Carla, and I, we come in eight o'clock every morning, start getting ready for the day, she comes straight to the kitchen, I'm up front, closing up reports and stuff for the day before.

I'm up there, and distinctly hear chairs scooting around upstairs.

(chairs scooting) And so I holler her, I'm like, "Carla!"

"Where are you?"

So I find Carla, she's like, "No, I'm back here cooking," I'm like, "Man, there were chairs scooting around upstairs."

I went upstairs, I didn't see anything.

- I'm a wait staff manager here at Pepper Mill, and before I started working here, they were saying that there was ghostly actions here, and I never believed even after I worked here for months.

And I used to go upstairs by myself all the time, it never bothered me, and then I heard a couple things happen, and so I refuse to go upstairs by myself at all.

(eerie music) On the night that the first one happened, I was coming upstairs to check the back door to make sure that it was locked, 'cause that's what we do every night.

There was a dishwasher here, and a cook here, and they were in the kitchen doing their closing duties, and I came all the way up here, and I hit right here, and a little girl went running that way, and I fell down the stairs backwards, and I went running into the kitchen, and they said, "You look like you've just seen a ghost," and I said, "I did."

"There's a little girl up there and she's running."

And I said, "I need somebody to come upstairs with me to shut the door."

I've never been so scared in my life.

And then on the second time that it happened, I came up, I was icing the bar, like we do every night.

And then I knew I had to vacuum the rug over there, so I'm coming over here to the plugin, and I bent down, and I heard a gentleman laughing.

(man laughing) And I thought, "Oh, nobody's up here," I was looking around, and then I heard it again, and scared me, and now, I really believe, and I still don't come up here by myself.

So I gave it two chances and I'm not gonna give it a third.

(laughing) - Every now and then, the dumbwaiter goes up and down by itself, our pots and pans start rattling on the hot rack.

(woman laughing) The freezer door, there's tappings on the freezer door every now and then.

Every now and then, the oven doors come open.

It's pretty scary when it just opens by itself.

- This is where a lot of the investigations have taken place, down here in the basement.

Certainly has had lots of history down here, you can tell with all the... All the extra supports and stuff that it's...

It's 150 years old, so it's had a lot of... A lot of things go on here.

From my understanding of...

Some of the investigators that have come down here have actually...

They said that they don't care to come down here again, it's been that strong of a... Of a reading that they've had down here.

We had several contractors come through as we renovated the building that just simply refuse to come back down here again, so they don't care to be here.

So this is our downstairs dining area, it's a two level building, upstairs, is where a lot of activity has occurred, and, of course, that's where...

When it was a brothel, that, of course, that's where business transactions took place, I'd like to take you up there, if you don't mind.

This is the red light tribute to Madam Lulu, as some of you may or may not know, with a brothel, you would have the red light turned on in the window to let let people know that you were open and ready for business.

Next, I'd like to take you over to what our employees like to refer to as the dungeon, we use it as a storage area here at Pepper Mill.

It's actually the adjoining building that used to be part of the Atchison Light & Power.

(orchestral music) This hallway is... We've had a lot of people say that they felt a presence in here, this is the hallway that leads to our restrooms, where we've had patrons say that they've seen a woman behind them in the mirror, in the women's restroom.

(orchestral music) This area is what they refer to as the dungeon, and we use it for storage.

We had a dinner here once, we're actually thinking about making this an area to come and have a ghostly dining experience.

Well, this particular space is not an area that people get to wander through freely, it is a space that several people have seen orbs, they have heard voices, piano music, absolutely have felt presence in here.

Again, a lot of heaviness in here, and just a lot of activity in general.

And this is a part of the building that I think could stand even some more exploring, it's pretty cool, and a lot has happened here, and I think there's a lot more that's happened here that we don't know about.

In addition to this building being a brothel, with its enormous amount of space, it's been used for a coffee mill, they processed peanuts in here, which I found extraordinary.

There was furniture being built here for a period of time.

And in fact, as we come through this doorway, on the floor, there's a stain, left from the oils of the peanut, from where there was a barrel that sat here.

And when this was renovated the first time, as they scraped all the oil off the floor, you could still smell the peanut butter almost a hundred years later.

With all the crazy history of this building, from being part of the railroad, to a brothel, to processing peanuts and coffee, to even a restaurant, there's a lot of history in this building, there's a lot of stories have been said and told, there's a whole lot more to be said.

(orchestral music) - [Narrator] People drive for miles to eat at the famous Holton House in Holton, Kansas, but there may be more to your visit than you bargained for.

Don't be chicken to try the chicken.

- Welcome to the Holton House, appreciate you guys coming to see us today.

Holton House is a big piece of history here in Holton, being one of the largest homes, one of the largest Victorian homes in Holton.

In the bed and breakfast portion of our house, which is on our second floor, is where we've seen quite a bit of paranormal activity.

In fact, one group that investigated the house actually caught an image moving from our stairwell over to the Hannah suite.

Today, we're gonna take a look at the Shea suite, it's actually the suite that we've had the most activity in.

(upbeat music) About 2005, my wife and I bought Holton House, and we started renovating the upstairs to turn it into a bed and breakfast.

(upbeat music) So Holton House was built in 1888, it was built by a merchant here in town.

He passed away around the first of the century, and in 1920, the home was turned into a funeral home.

And then in the early nineties, a family got ahold of the house and they started in renovating the downstairs, and turned it into a... What our Holton House dining room is today.

(upbeat music) It was kind of funny that when we bought the house, we didn't know that it was a funeral home to start off with, there's a huge elevator in the house, and the elevator is coffin-sized, so that's what kind of alerted us to that, started asking some questions, and sure enough, yes, it had been a funeral home.

The Shea suite is actually located directly above what would have been the embalming room in the house, back when they were doing funerals.

We had somebody tell us one time, "There's a lot of energy in the Shea suite."

We've actually had one lady and her friend, it was actually a group of sisters, but they've stayed here several times, she had an experience here where she actually felt a presence stroking her hair here in the Shea suite, and she's been back a couple of times because she... She enjoyed that experience, I guess.

One of our inhabitants, I guess, if you wanna call it that, his name is Patrick, he lives up in the attic, there's been sightings of him from out front with people driving by, as well as some of the ghost hunters getting his voice on... Actually on tape, so that's Patrick, he lives upstairs.

So Holton House, being a funeral home at one point in it's history has become a favorite among ghost hunters, if you will, we get a lot of guests, that whether it's just a couple or a group that would like to come and investigate here at the house.

- [Narrator] Somewhere, they're out there, plains spirits.

(eerie music) This is a co-production of KTWU and Outposts Worldwide.

(eerie music) (gentle chime)