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A bone-chilling night terror and a tale of one of Wheeling’s most prominent citizens. Is there a connection between these two tales? You’ll have to listen and decide for yourself!
What happens when Wheeling’s history doesn’t die? Listen to Wheeling Haunts each Monday in October to find out!
Hosted by Alex Panas and Cassie Minder, Wheeling Haunts will take listeners on a journey into homes in Wheeling that have a lot of history…and a few ghost stories too!
Each week, Alex and Cassie will talk with local historians who will provide information about each home and the people who once lived there. They will also chat with current residents who will share bone-chilling stories that can quite be explained.
For more podcasts by Wheeling Heritage Media: https://weelunk.com/multimedia/podcasts/
Welcome back to the fourth episode of Wheeling Haunts. I'm Cassie.
And I'm Alex.
And each week we have been going over houses around Wheeling that have some history behind them along with some spooky encounters from the residents.
Yeah, so this week we are talking to Will Wallace, staying in the East Wheeling neighborhood. Cassie, tell us about Will.
Yes, so Will is a Wheeling native. He owns Clientele Studios, so check it out, if you haven't. He currently doesn't reside in the house that he is talking about today, but did spend a few years owning it and had some cool encounters while he was there.
Yeah, it's definitely our spookiest story to date, I would say...
Yeah, definitely.
...So, we're really excited for our listeners to hear that, and then we're kind of switching up the script this time. We run a tight ship around here at Wheeling Heritage and have some tight timelines. And unfortunately, our expert for this week's episode came down with bronchitis which is quite possibly the worst thing you could come down with when you need to be on a podcast.
Exactly.
So we were gonna bring Taylor Abbott back, but we will be stepping in to read over some of the notes that Taylor was able to provide us on some of the history of Will's home, particularly an interesting character that once lived there.
Before we get into our first interview, here's a message from our friends at the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra.
The Wheeling Symphony Orchestra's Sound Bite Series presents "American Voices," October 29th, at the Scottish Rite Cathedral. This performance includes partner performances with chorus, Bow Chase Elise and a catered dinner before the show. Tickets are available at wheelingsymphony.com.
Welcome Will, to the Wheeling Haunts Podcast. What's up?
What's going on, Alex? What's up with me? Life, liberty, everything. Things are going great. Hey, Cassie.
Hey, thanks for being here. We appreciate it.
Absolutely. It was just a brisk walk from the house from work, so I figured I'd swing by.
So today we're talking to ghosts. And apparently you have had a ghostly encounter at a house you previously lived in. So...
Yes.
...let's start with, tell us about the house. Where is it? When did you live there? Give us all the details.
Yes. So the house in question is 33 15th Street, across the street from the old Elks Lodge, which is now a law office. I bought the building in 2014. It was turned into an apartment building in the 30s, I believe. And I lived there as a tenant for... I lived there for about three, geez, three or four years? It all runs together. Several years, maybe half a decade? Let's not get crazy. But yeah, I moved out last year.
What attracted you to the house? What made you want to buy it? Were you just out looking for a house, and you were just like, 'Yes, that one" or?
Well, I had been looking for a house for about a year or so. I went to WVU for college with the sole intent of getting a degree and never coming back. About my junior year I got an internship with a local company. They offered me a full time job and I figured I'd live with my parents for a year, work there, get money, and then roll. They offered me a promotion. I thought it'd be good for my resume. I decided to look for a house until then. Couldn't find anything. Wheeling has a lot of beautiful, old houses. I wanted an old house. Woodsdale is full of five bedrooms, four bathrooms for $300,000, and I was a single guy looking for maybe 1000 square feet. My realtor, shout out Terry Cunningham at the time, very good person, was very patient with me. We looked at a lot of places, and then finally she was like "My realtor friend has an apartment building, he's about to put it up for sale, and you should look at it." This is around the same time I got involved with the Wheeling Young Preservationists. I saw the building, fell in love with it, and that was that.
So, you said it's an apartment building. Did anyone else live there since it was kind of set up in an apartment style or was it just you living there?
No, there was more or less been full since I've had it. We've had some some notable guests living in there, I guess you could say. Jake Daugherty and Smith, Amber Daugherty. Jake being former executive director of this establishment lived there for a while. Yeah, I don't think I should mention anybody else because it's probably a breach of privacy.
Yeah. So, you said that you were involved in the Wheeling Young Preservationists, you were obviously interested in buying an older home of some sort. So did you know very much about the house's history when you moved in? And if so, would you care to share some of that with us?
I did not know any of it going into the house, going into the purchase. My knowledge of architectural timelines is not the greatest, and I just kind of thought it looked cool and like went to Central Wheeling. You know what I mean? I had some people come through and help me kind of date some things. Becca Corellas went through, a few other people, and I did some research on my own. But nothing major. I kind of pinned the building down to like the 1890s, being built. That's honestly about it.
Okay.
Yeah, I have some knowledge, but not much.
Alright. Well, in the time that you spent in the house, did you ever feel uneasy or uncomfortable to make you think that it was haunted?
Yes and no. I'm a pretty brutish individual, especially when it comes to like reading rooms and doing things. So I never really would have... if there was a spirit or any kind of presence, anything you want to call like that, I probably would have been too dumb and blunt to acknowledge it. But the building definitely fought me for several years during the rehabilitations. There was a lot of things hidden behind the walls. There was a lot of things that just didn't work out well. So yeah, I do think the house wants to kill me, but that's neither here nor there.
So, tell us about your haunted experience. When did it happen?
Yeah, okay. So, it was winter of 2020 into 2021 so two years ago, just under two years ago now. And my apartment is on the first floor and the front half of the building, which is on the 15th Street side. I guess I've got to kind of describe the lay of the land on the building. It faces 15th Street, and there's a little alleyway between my building, 33, and 31. And you walk through that alleyway, on the side of it is the main entrance into the lobby, which is where all the tenants would go to their respective apartments. If you were to walk in that building, or in that lobby, the apartment I'm talking about in question would have been on the front side facing obviously, like I said, 15 Street. This would have been the front room because the front door was also on this like the front living room and like a parlor. Then you would go to the staircase, which was in the lobby, and then bedrooms and kitchens and stuff would be on the backside and above. In the parlor room is where I had my bedroom set up. And with the head of my bed facing towards 15th Street, on my right side would be the entrance into the bedroom, and on the left side was a bay window which looked at this alleyway. And since this alleyway is how everyone gets into the building, it's kind of usually trafficked. And, you know, I've got really good neighbors, and you know, people my age are tenants rather and you know, and so they would go out the same time we would go out come back when we would go out which is usually late. So that was used to dealing with traffic. So one night in winter sometime, I was sleeping and I woke up around three in the morning. And I usually sleep on my side, facing this bedroom door on my right. And as I'm laying there, just kind of lamenting being awake, I see what I can only describe is like, if you were in like a dark room and you had a flashlight, and you quickly like shook it from side to side or like you moved from side to side, you would see that trail of light. Imagine that trail of light, but instead of being brighter than the shadow, it's darker than the rest of the room, it was just a black moving thing. And it was enough to catch my attention. I just assumed somebody was walking down the alleyway. And you know, coming home from a late night, so I rolled to my back and move my head to the side to see who was walking by if they were, you know, supposed to be there, not supposed to be there, if they would keep bothering me or not, you know, the usual stuff. A couple seconds passed by and I started to feel like the comforter tightening around my foot. And I don't think much of it. So I kind of moved my foot, had my covers pulled up close to my head, it was very cold. So my covers are up, my foots kind of getting pulled down by the comforter. So I shake my left foot, and I'm looking like down my feet, and I just like feel the bed and the like... it's hard to describe, but it felt like somebody sat there, and like without physically sitting there, like the comforter got pulled tight, the mattress depressed or felt like it depressed a little bit, my foot got pulled with it. And you know I don't see anybody, so I start freaking out, of course. You're just sitting there laying, like "Am I losing my mind? Is this a ghost? Is this a burglar or some sort of ninja?" Yeah, so I am like, petrified. And minutes past, at least what feels like minutes, it was probably a few seconds. And as I'm sitting there, I'd start to like try breathing and lower my heart rate and kind of just looking around trying to figure what's going on. I don't know what overcame me but I went from like, complete shock and like scared of being afraid to immense anger. Because I had a very busy day at work, and I went to sleep early for a specific reason for that meeting in the morning. And here I am three in the morning being woken up by maybe a ghost? Somebody, whatever it does, it doesn't respect my privacy. So I, in a fit of rage I just hardly kicked my left leg as hard as I could. And I shout, censored, "I have to work in the [expletive] morning." And that's pretty much it. As soon as I said that, like I did the movement, and then the comforter went back to normal, and I kind of fell asleep like immediately afterwards. So I woke up the next morning, and like, I don't even really remember what had happened. Like, I just wake up and I'm going about my day, but it's super hot in my apartment room, my bedroom. I'm like sweating and when you get out of bed just sweating, it's like that kind of crappy morning. You're like "Oh, why is it hot in here? What's going on?" And I looked at my bedroom door, my bedroom door was shut. And I think, "That's weird. I never shut my bedroom door." At that point in time in my life my dog was going through like advanced aging, towards his... he ended up passing away. But he would wake up like every night with "I need to go poop. I need to go pee. I need to just yell for no reason." You know...
R.I.P., Reed.
R.I.P., Reed, the real one. And the other reason I never shut my door is because in the wintertime, the furnace only returned like... the return for the furnace was in another room. So if you had the door shut, it would just keep pumping hot air into the bedroom until you started waking up and sweating. And so I'm thinking like, "Man, how'd I sleep through this whole night sweating like this? And like how did Reed not wake up?" And then I remember like, "Wait a minute. Last night you woke up and you were freezing cold." So even if everything else was like in my head, there is no reason, there is no logical reason why I would be cold in that room, going to sleep around 11 o'clock at night, at three in the morning with the furnace that I had because it just, every other time I shut that door it had been terrible by three, like sweltering hot. So that's the only like question mark on the whole thing as to how it happened. And Reed slept the whole night, so maybe Reed just was happy a good friend was there.
So prior to this experience... That's intense, first and foremost. Of all of the stories that we've listened to throughout this series, yours is definitely one of the more intense, so can you tell us is this... Did you believe in ghosts or supernatural experiences prior to having lived through this?
Um, I feel like my response is kind of, like arrogant. But like, did I... like I love the idea for... I love cryptids, I love ghosts, I love these stories where... I love conspiracy theories, because most likely the answer is usually the most obvious one. But I love the human creativity of how people, where they go to get to the same place, you know what I mean? Because most likely, the door probably shut in the middle night if we want to go through like scientific things or something, something happened, but like it probably is describable, you know what I mean? But your brain tries to figure out what's going on, and it just starts connecting things. Next thing you know, you have this whole thing. So yes, I kind of do believe in ghosts, I don't believe in this like textbook kind of like... this dude was from the 1880s, and he's still there because he forgot his hat, and once you give him his hat, he will go to heaven. But like I do, I do kind of feel that we can perceive more than what we think we can perceive. Like the visible light spectrum is only a fraction of, you know, what we call light with this energy wave, through microwaves, through infrared, and all that jazz. I feel like intense energy, whether it be from an emotional response, or a physical response, or an electrical response, can leave a lasting impact of some kind. And I feel like those kinds of things, whether they be sentient or not sentient, have an impact on how you experience them later.
Yeah.
So, that's my arrogant response to ghosts.
No, I really appreciate that because that's kind of where I fall on the spectrum. If you're... if you want to find a logical explanation, you can likely find it, but it's fun to let yourself go there and imagine like, if you know, if these things that we know that are real weren't a possibility, like what else could it be? And like even thinking like before we knew what we knew now, like, no wonder there's all these crazy stories from like the 1800s and even beyond through time, because they didn't know. They're just like, I don't know, I don't know where I'm going with that... But thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Next we'll be talking to Taylor Abbott, who will be telling us a little bit about the history of your home, and maybe we'll find out who this mysterious person is who visited you and Reed a couple years ago.
Yeah, he owes me a night’s sleep.
Yeah.
Shout out Taylor.
Yeah, alright. So Will, you're a man about town. Where can people find you and what do you want them to know about what you have going on this Halloween season?
Oh, absolutely. So what do people need to know about Will Wallace? I own an art gallery in historic East Wheeling, West Virginia. A mere half block from the building in question, called Clientele Art Studio.
People can walk by the building where it all happened and then go check out some cool art.
We currently have an installation up through the Halloween season, called Monster Mash. Chad Fullerton was the guy who curated it, and it's culminating in a costume party the 29th of the month. It's going to be awesome. We have some crazy decorations up, some really good art from a wide range of people, and we have some other events happening, and I don't remember when they are.
Well where can people find out?
They can go to clientele.art.studio on the Instagrams. They can go to Facebook and Clientele art studio or our website... here's the curveball, clientelestudio.com. And all that good stuff is on there from now and into perpetuity.
Great, and we'll link all that in our show notes. And before we part ways, what are you dressing up for Halloween? What's your costume?
It's not set in stone right now.
It's a secret?
No, it's not. My lovely girlfriend is kicking around the idea of going as a ghost.
Okay.
And so my logical thing was, because... When I go, I go for comfort. So my plan is to, right now, dress up as I usually do. And then on my shirt, have a text conversation where I'm interacting with somebody who just stops talking back to me. So Jenna will be the ghost. And I got ghosted.
Wow.
Alright.
That's clever.
Is it?
Yeah, I like it.
So, who knows? I'll probably cop out, just not do anything. We'll see, I'll put a wig on.
Yeah. So you have to go to Clientele Art Studio to find out.
Yes yes, please do.
Yeah, well thank you, Will. We appreciate you sharing your ghost story.
No doubt. Thank you guys for having me.
So long.
Bye.
Kick off your Halloween weekend festivities by going to River City restaurant's annual Halloween costume party. The fun begins at eight o'clock on Friday, October 28th, and there will be prizes awarded in several categories, leading up to the grand prize: a three-night trip to Nashville, Tennessee. Follow River City on Facebook or visit rivercitybanquets.com to learn more.
So Alex, you mentioned an interesting character that used to live in Will's house. So he went by the name, Alonzo Loring. He was born about 1820 to about 1898.
Yeah. So, Alonso is the previous owner... one of the previous owners of this home and who Taylor was able to dig up the most information on. So what we're going to do is just read through some of the notes that Taylor was able to provide us and really, I believe Jeanne mentioned this during Betsy's episode that, at the time, the Wheeling newspaper was really able to provide some interesting information in the obituaries that contain so much more information than they do now. So...
Yeah, very descriptive when people pass. So, and that's very interesting how things have changed over time. And...
Yeah, absolutely. So what we know about Alonzo is, as you said, he was born at about 1820. He was originally from New York and eventually settled in Wheeling.
So this is what we have learned about Alonzo so far. He married Mary Caldwell Chaplain Peterson, December 17th of 1861, actually, in Wheeling, West Virginia. So he was already here by that point. And then, as mentioned, he died around 1898, and that would have been the age of 78. Which, thinking about that time, I feel like that's, that's super old.
And according to Alonso's obituary, his...
[END PART 1]
[START PART 2]
…wife was actually a widow. So this would have been her second marriage at the time. And she was actually living in Belmont County. So across the river, and the family to which she was married to before Alonzo was one of the oldest and most prominent in eastern Ohio. So you know, he was marrying up, I would say.
Definitely.
So he did appear to have one kid. At least one, because in one of his obituaries or a story that was written after his death, it notes that at his funeral, that was held at Monument Place in Elm Grove that, quote, "The firing squad fired regular military salute 24 rounds over the uncovered grave, and the bugler sounded taps making a very impressive ceremony. Miss Charles J. Melton of St. Louis, daughter of the late Major Loring, and his only living child was present." So that would suggest that he definitely had one living kid at the time, child, at the time of his death, and perhaps more.
Yes, so one thing that notes here is that Alonzo was part of a group called the Wheeling Fencibles, which was a militia of Wheeling West... well, technically Wheeling, Virginia at the time, in the 1850s, until Virginia succeeded from the union in 1861. And he was actually the captain of this group, who was commissioned by the state of Virginia in 1858. So that's pretty interesting that we have a different type of Captain we're talking about.
Yeah.
Here and I'm not, again, not sure if the obituary even recognizes that and what the tensions were at that time and...
Oh, yes. In his obituary, it says during his younger days, he took an active interest in politics. He was an ardent and uncompromising democrat and a southern sympathizer during the war between the sections. He was honored by his party with several positions of trust. He was a soldier in the Mexican War and was promoted for Galleon service. So as a soldier and as a civilian, he was successful in nearly everything in which he undertook. So he was clearly very respected in the circles in which he ran. Obviously, by today's standards, we don't love that he was a southern sympathizer, but outside of military and outside of politics his obituary also notes that when he was younger, his first secured employment was as a clerk at a dry goods store. And after a few years, he became very well known in several social circles. And what's interesting too, is just his impact on industry. So in 1864, Major Loring and others purchased the Benwood Iron Workers from the Kelly's and Major Loring was chosen as Secretary, a position which he occupied until 1892 when the Benwood, Belmont, and Top Mill plants were consolidated into the Wheeling Iron and Steel Company. He continued to be a director until his illness made it impossible to attend his meetings with the board. So, it's just interesting, all the different areas in Wheeling he was able to touch during his time here. He lived in the property that Will talks about, but also later in his life, he actually had purchased Monument Place, which is where the Osiris Shriners are now in Elm Grove. So that's interesting, just thinking he went from, you know, a small house in East Wheeling, that's in a really urban neighborhood to what was essentially one of Wheelings last plantations. So big, big leap from East Wheeling to Elm Grove.
That's crazy to think about that when you buy like a small house, and money was obviously a lot different back then than it is now like, what did he do that the military paid that much that he then went from like that small house to being able to afford that next step?
Yeah, I would imagine he would have made a sum of money from whenever he sold the steel business, Wheeling Steel, that had to have been a deal he made out on, and if he was so well connected, and had his hands in so many things, I would imagine he was a very prominent person at the time. And in fact, it does state in his obituary that the death of Major Loring "ends a career of activity and usefulness and removes one of the best known and most generally esteemed and most public spirited citizens of Wheeling." So, that's a little bit of history about one of the most prominent owners of that home. So let's get into sort of what we make of what we know of the history versus Will's story. Do we think that there's a connection there?
I definitely think there's something there. It kind of seems like since he was a captain, he was in charge and he was this prominent person always out in front of people. And he's going to try and be in that house, controlling what goes on, and if you know Will and if you've ever met Will you can tell he's this big, boisterous person and he's okay being loud and active and it just seems like maybe that incident that happened where the blankets tightening around his foot and like, trying to be in control, and the flashlight, maybe that was a way Caption... well, not captain, Captain Alonso was trying to control a situation and yeah...
There may have been like some power dynamics of play.
Exactly.
Yeah, very interesting. And then like thinking about it on the opposite side of things, I really appreciated the conversation we had with Will when he was just saying, like, "if you think about anything through long enough, you can find a logical explanation." So I, I do appreciate that perspective, too. Because, you know, he could have been having an intense night terror, and that's why he felt like he was being suffocated or something like that. So I think that's something that we haven't necessarily talked about enough is like, "what's the logical thing that could be happening here?" But I do like the idea of Alonzo just having some beef with Will, and trying to assert his dominance.
So Alex, how haunted is it?
How haunted is it?
I, you know, I'm gonna give this... I think Will has... I'm very easily influenced, if you can't tell. So I think I'm gonna give it a 5. You know, that was a spooky experience. His experience is valid, as all experiences are. But I don't, I don't feel this... I don't feel as strong of a connection as I have in our previous stories. So I'm gonna go with a 5 on this one.
I'm gonna agree with you. I, it was one of those that I didn't feel connected to as well. And I think it's just one of those things where, in my experience with any supernatural, haunted encounters, I've never felt anyone touch me or move something. So it was hard for me to relate to that story. Like it was the others, hearing things and seeing things I've never actually felt something but like you said to when, Will's, like "There could be a logical explanation." That always, you know, brings me back down to Earth sometimes.
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, before we close the book, on this episode, we want to thank you for hanging with us. Because you know, Cassie and I are comms girlies. We're not history girlies. So, if you want to learn more about Alonzo Loring that we weren't able to cover in this week's episode, we will scan all of the notes that Taylor so kindly provided to us, and you can dig in and learn more about the background of this interesting fella.
So for next week's episode, it's going to be a bit different of a format here. Instead of looking at a house, we're going to have some special guests on to talk to us. And Alex, do we want to even hint who that is? Or do we want to build it up?
Um, you know, let's leave it to be a surprise. But let's just say we have an interesting lineup of one in-person interview, one very spooky, interesting conversation that we had with someone that will be familiar to you, and some other fun surprises. But we also want to hear from you, our listeners. So Cassie, tell people how they can get ahold of us.
Yes. So in the show notes, you can get the link to leave us a voicemail about a spooky encounter you had or any questions you may have had about any of the episodes so far that we would love to answer and do some research for you for next week's episode. Or reach out to us through the voicemail or if you really need to, you can email us.
Yeah, email us, you can send us a DM on Instagram, you can leave us a voice memo through that... And, you know, obviously, we're focusing on Wheeling homes, but we're the Ohio Valley so it doesn't matter if you live across the river or in any of the neighboring areas. If you have a spooky story to tell, we want to hear it, so make sure to get ahold of us. Whatever way is most convenient for you because we want to have your voice be heard. And as a little extra treat for hanging with us this week. We have a special side story from our conversation with Will, so we will leave you with that. And until next week...
Stay spooky!
I have two stories from my time in the coal mines if you have time here them.
Yeah!
I mean, if we don't have the time we could just tease it for next year.
[singing x3] coal miner side stories.
And these are, these absolutely go under the same realm as probably easily describable away. But here we are and their fun and it's Halloween time so let's just have some fun.
Yeah.
So I worked underground for I think a year and a half-two years. I was an electrician in the maintenance department and eventually I went to surface mines in the corporate office, middle management kind of life for a while there. But when I was underground, yeah, there's two things that happened. The one was, as an electrician, you are in charge of all the things electrical, obviously. But that means like both working equipment that's digging up the coal and all the stuff that's supporting. And these mines are massive, you know, one mine in particular, went from Al Adonia, Ohio, all the way underneath of I-70. So you're talking like 14-15 miles of just passageway to get to where you need to go. All that needs to be monitored for carbon monoxide, methane, you know, explosive materials, things like that. And those things need to be calibrated once a month. So once a month, somebody gets picked, usually a short straw, actually it's kind of good, easy gig for the day. But you're given this and you just walk this, this belt, and every I think it's every 1000 feet, there's a CO monitor, you plug a little thing into it, you push calibrate, and it says this grade, and then you walk to the next one. And it's just a nice easy shift of lots of strolling. So I was doing that. And I was walking the East Mains Belts, the coal mine in question, and I see a light down, miles down. And since it's so dark underground, coal miners have pretty much little signals they can do on their cap when you do one motion, and it says Come closer to me, one motion says go away, and one says get away something bad's happening, more or less. So I'm walking by myself, and I look up and I see someone doing the motion to say, "Hey, come here." So I said, "Okay, probably someone needs help, something's happening." So I have stuff in my pocket, and I start walking. And you know, couple 100 feet goes to like 1000 feet, and you're still walking, and this guy is not getting any closer, and he's still doing the head motion and I'm like "What the crap's going on here?" So finally, I keep walking and the light just disappears, and I was just like "It's just some jerk being a jerk." But I knew, because I was in the electrical department, that I had access to the computer that tells you where everybody was for their shift, because that's a safety thing for the Miner Act. So I put that in my back pocket, I finish up my shift, and I got done, I walked outside for the night, walked up to the guy in charge of the computer, and I said, "I was here at this time, and somebody was messing with me, and I would like to get them back. Look on the computer and see who it was." He looks it up and says, "Oh man, nobody was there. It was just you." And I was like, "That's impossible. I saw the light." And without missing a beat the guy just casually goes, "Oh, it was probably just East Mains ghost," and goes back to working. And that was it, he never acknowledged it. Now that can be said, it could easily be a multilayer joke where he was in on it. And he messed with me. But uh, yeah, that was that. And then another one was when I was in a little bit of an accident, some power shorted out. And I was standing in one situation near where the thing that broke when it broke, and right before I was there, I kind of heard cracking next to the side, which they call a rib. And usually when you hear popping in a rib you're going to step away from it anyways, the stuff usually sloughs off and you could roll an ankle or actually get seriously hurt or killed if it's a big one. But so I'm standing there and I hear this popping and I walk away from it and go do something else. And then within two minutes, right where I was standing, the thing I want to say explodes but shorts out, makes a big noise. Big deal. And there is an old lore, coal miner lore, I think it's called Tommyknockers. Tommyknockers are from Welsh lore if I remember correctly. They either can be nefarious creatures who would lure miners to their death, or have been known, hence they got their name, to knock right before tragedies to avert people from getting hurt. So again, also a very easily describable away story, but very fun.
Yeah.
So there's my two coal mine stories.
Wow.
It's cool, because in a previous episode, we had talked about a coal mine that was in Fulton, and how that could maybe like relate to how Rachel had her haunted story. So I think it's really cool to connect the idea that coal mines probably do have a lot of haunted stories because of how far back history goes with them.
And they're just closer to hell.
Yeah, that too.
It's um, I mean, it goes back to the my idea like you know, having things tied to energy levels, but like coal mining, even on easy days, you know, there's a lot of like, when things go bad, they go really bad. You know, and there's a lot of mental energy will go out from that. And I feel like if there was a place in the ground, there's a lot of I mean, we could get into the weeds with is I'd rather not... but like I feel like these are places where things like that can exist more easily. Does that makes sense?
Yeah, you're in a place where tensions are high, you're more, I don't want to say trapped, but you're, when you're down there, you're down there, and one wrong move can, you know, make or break something. So, of course, like, it's just a high pressure situation, you're gonna, your mind is gonna go a lot of different places really quick when things aren't exactly how they're expected.
Right. And I'd like to, I was gonna say, you know, especially as you get older back in time of the 1920s-1890s, it was probably more intense. But they honestly, they probably view it just as I view it now, where it's a job and you went there and did it, but it was definitely way more intense. You know, having 12-year-old kids as fire bosses running around with a torch to burn out methane each shift is just insanity. But, you know, in the 1890s when the Benwood mine exploded, or was it the 1920s when the Benwood mine exploded? It doesn't matter. That was just life. You know, you were an immigrant family and you needed a job. So you had to work.
Yeah.
So, but yeah, coal mine stuff.
Yeah, coal mine stuff.
[singing x2] coal miner side stories.
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