High Plains Hauntings Wyoming abounds in ghost stories and other weird tales By Julie Fanselow
Wyoming State Penitentiary, Rawlins
Our little tour group walked somberly down the steps from the forlorn Death Row building at the Wyoming Frontier Prison in Rawlins. “This place is much worse than Alcatraz,” said a British man who had recently visited the famous California jail. At least the gas chamber we’d just glimpsed was a bit more humane than the Julien gallows – the prison’s earlier contraption that forced inmates to hang themselves.
For travelers who crave being creeped out, Wyoming is full of morbid must-see sites. Here on a once-harsh frontier, people often met early and sometimes violent deaths, and the restless ghosts of pioneers and outlaws are said to mingle with the souls of the living.
The Frontier Prison makes an ideal pit stop for motorists traveling across Wyoming on Interstate 80. The “Old Pen” housed inmates from 1901 through 1981, then it was used as the location for a feature film called Prison. “We’ve officially been declared haunted,” says site director Tina Hill. Several paranormal investigating teams have visited to document reports of ghostly orbs, footsteps and other odd phenomena. Intrigued? In addition to regular daytime tours (daily in summer and by appointment the rest of the year), once each July the prison welcomes a small corps of overnight guests for a “Locked Down” night spent in your very own cell. Call for dates and details.
If spending a night in jail sounds too scary, consider bunking at one of Wyoming’s historic (and possibly haunted) hotels or bed and breakfast inns. William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody built the Irma Hotel in his namesake town and named it for his daughter. Several staff members who’ve worked in the hotel for a quarter-century or more say they’ve seen ghosts. The rocking chair in Room 16 – once Irma’s room – sometimes rocks on its own, and people report seeing the ghost of a man in a Confederate uniform in Room 35.
In Casper, the Ivy House Inn Bed & Breakfast reportedly is haunted by its first owners, Frank and Rhea White, and their cats. Every year in May, current owners Tom and Kathy Jackson and their teenage
Irma Hotel
son Eric throw a gala party on the night Rhea died, and they also have haunted slumber parties each October. In a town named Casper, you might imagine there’d be some ghosts – friendly or otherwise – on the prowl. Tom and Eric lead tours on summer evenings to the city’s most haunted sites.
In Wyoming’s capital, the Cheyenne Street Railway Trolley typically offers two tours per night for several days leading up to Halloween. One popular story told on the tour involves a newlywed couple staying at the Plains Hotel. It seems the bride caught her new husband with a prostitute and shot them both before turning the gun on herself. Rosie, the bitter bride, allegedly wanders the hotel’s second floor in a blue gown. “The tour changes yearly with new stories that our drivers discover and investigate,” says Darren Rudloff of the Cheyenne Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, which runs the trolley. “Many times we learn of new stories from our passengers themselves.”
Travelers planning a trek through America’s first national park may want to pick up a copy of “Death in Yellowstone” by park historian Lee H. Whittlesey. Although not a book of ghost stories, this sobering look at “accidents and foolhardiness” offers details of several hundred folks who met grisly ends in Yellowstone. Murders, bear maulings, falls into hot springs – they’re all here.
We’ll end this tale of Haunted Wyoming where we began, in Rawlins, because the old prison town has another sordid claim to fame. It was here in 1881 that “Big George” Parrot was hung for his cattle-rustling, train-robbing, deputy-murdering ways. Once the outlaw’s body was cold, Dr. John Osborne – a local surgeon who later served as mayor of Rawlins, governor of Wyoming, and a U.S. Congressman – peeled the skin from Parrot’s chest, then had it tanned and made into a pair of shoes. You can see the frightful footwear at Rawlins’ Carbon County Museum. Let it serve as a reminder to “always watch your step.”
Julie Fanselow is a frequent visitor to Wyoming and has written about the state for magazines including American Heritage and Westways.
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