Thursday, May 10, 2012

Calico Ghost Town

Haunted Calico Ghost Town!
Calico Ghost Town is one of  the most haunted locations in California, with many types of ghosts & paranormal phenomenon. Calico has Shadow people, orbs, full bodied apparitions, ghost lights & more. 

                           Quick history
 In 1881, three men, Charlie Meacham, Johnny McBride, and Larry Silvia discovered silver in the Calico Mountains. Miners from all around came to work the mines. The town of Calico sprang up, and at one time reached a population of 3,500, not including an additional 1,500 in the greater Calico Mining District. All the silver from Calico was sent to San Francisco to make coins. By 1900, the price of silver dropped half of its value, and most of the silver had been mined out. Miners left to find other fortunes and the town died.


                Ghosts of Calico

One of the most often sighted spirits is that of Lucy Bell King Lane, a woman who spent nearly seventy years of her life in Calico. When Lucy was just ten years old, she moved with her parents, two brothers, and a sister to nearby Bismarck, which overlooked the town of Calico. To get to school, Lucy would have to slide down the steep slope in the morning and make the long tiring hike up the hill afterwards. When she was 18 years old, she married John Robert Lane and the two opened a general store that provided not only provisions to the mining population, but also cloth, nails, and hardware. They prospered briefly but when the silver market began to decline, the couple left Calico in 1899. However, the couple returned in 1916, making their old store their home. Four years later, they moved into the old courthouse and post office building. Her husband John died in 1934, but Lucy would continue to live a long life, staying in the same house until she died in 1967 at the age of 93.
 
Today, their old home has become a museum, that exhibits the life the Lanes lived, as well as a collection of mining materials, photographs, and Native American displays from the times before Calico's silver deposits were discovered. 

Though Lucy died four decades ago, she is evidently fond of her old home town as she is frequently still sighted there. Most often she has been seen walking between their old store and the home that she lived in until her death. When she is spied, she is described as wearing a long black dress, most likely the very lace one that she was buried in. Her favorite rocking chair has also been said to rock of its own accord and often pictures are taken off the wall at night, only to found the next morning in a neat pile on the floor. At Lane’s old store, clerks have often heard unexplainable noises and catch movement out of the corners of their eyes, which they also attribute to Lucy. The Lane house was the longest occupied original structure in Calico.
But, favorite resident Lucy Lane is not the only phantom that lurks in Calico. At that very same school house sitting atop the hill in Calico, a number of people have reported seeing a little girl about 11 or 12 years, most often old smiling through a window. Sometimes she even leans out and waves at passers by.
 
Others have allegedly seen phantom school teachers and another small child who has been known to grab people’s legs or pinch their ankles. Some visitors have also reported seeing a floating red light inside the school. Also a shadow person has been seen on the roof of the school house.

Though the hills surrounding Calico once held dozens of mines, and the many pits and ruins continue to attest to this, Calico features the Maggie Mine, that once produced some $13 million in silver ore, and now its tunnels can be explored by visitors. In the 1,000 feet of tunnels that are open to the public, it should come as no surprise that many believe that spirits lurk within the mine’s depths.
A number of visitors have reported extreme cold spots throughout the mine and feelings of "one's hair standing up" in various places, but most particularly where two miners known as the Mulcahey Brothers made their home in the mine. Though portions of the mine are blocked off behind grates, macabre mannequins add to the spooky feeling in the mine.

Near the Maggie’s Mine is Hank’s Hotel, which once belonged to an angry old cowboy whose spirit allegedly once punched a man in the leg who was standing on his fence. But more commonly, people have reported something tugging on their wrists, hands and clothing along the boardwalk in front of the hotel. These antics; however, are not generally blamed on the angry cowboy, but rather on a 4-5 year old child who has been seen roaming the boardwalk and the surrounding area.  


Also said to haunt Calico's boardwalks on Main Street is that of its last marshal, Tumbleweed Harris. A number of visitors have described seeing a big man with a white beard which fits the description of the man who kept the peace in Calico for seven years.
 
At the Calico Corral, a number of people have often heard the voices of crowds and celebration coming from the barn that once hosted regular Saturday night dances.  At Lil’s Saloon, one of Calico's original buildings, sounds of an old-style piano and rowdy crowds have been heard when no one was in the building. Employees have also often reported hearing the jingle of spurs and other noises that can’t be explained.  Another spectral lady in a long white dress has frequently been seen walking near the outskirts of the ghost town and at the building that once housed the town theater, which is now the R&D Fossils & Minerals Shop, a another female ghost named Esmeralda, has allegedly has taken up residence. 

Calico had another famous resident – that of Dorsey, the "mail carrying dog.” Dorsey was found in 1883 by Postmaster Jim Stacy, when the hungry and footsore black and white shepherd was lying on his porch. Stacy quickly adopted him and Dorsey became his faithful friend. In addition to his postmaster duties, Stacy also had an interest in a mine in nearby Bismarck. On one occasion, when Stacy needed to get an urgent message to his partner at the mine, he tied a note to Dorsey’s neck and sent him up there. Before long, Dorsey returned with a reply. Dorsey was soon carrying messages back and forth to the mine frequently, when Stacy had the idea to make the dog a regular mail carrier. Soon, the dog was carrying all the mail from Calico to Bismarck, bearing his load in little pouches strapped to his back. For three years, Dorsey covered the mail route between the two camps and became so valuable that Stacy was offered $500 for the dog, to which Stacy replied: "I'd rather sell a grandson." 
 
Dorsey's legend was revived in a 1972 album entitled "The Ballad of Calico” by Kenny Rogers. The song was called "Dorsey, the Mail Carrying Dog.” And, of course, in haunted Calico, he has been revived in another way – the "spectral dog." On several occasions, Dorsey has been seen as a shadow-like apparition at the cemetery and near the Print Shop that stands near the original location of the post office.
You can camp in front of the cemetery!

6 comments:

  1. I work at the restaurant here in Calico and live in the town as well. One morning before daylight I was making coffee in the restaurant and felt as if someone was standing behind me. I turned and glimpsed a man with a white beard for a split second and then he disappeared. It jumped me right out of my shoes must have been Marshall Tumbleweed

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  2. I visited Calico on Labor day weekend (September 1), 2013. I went on the evening 5:30 "ghost tour" of Maggie's Mine which was fun, but I didn't see anything paranormal in the mine. After the tour ended, I walked around town a bit after everything was closed and was probably the last tourist there along with maybe 5-6 staff people. Just for fun, I remembered that Lane's general store (one of the original structures) was supposed to be haunted, so I looked in through the front windows. I spent a few minutes looking in hoping to see something but didn't see anything. I turned and began walking away and took about three steps when I heard coming from the store what sounded exactly like the scraping sound you hear when a wooden chair is being dragged along a wooden floor. I looked back inside but didn't see anything. Is this something that anyone else has experienced?

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  3. l visited Calico Ghost town in 1961 and would enjoy going back. I didn't experience any ghostly experiences ... but would have enjoyed having one.

    Stan from Michigan

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  4. As a young girl I spent many weekends in Calico with my friends family during their Boy Scouts camping weekends My friend and I would roam the town and explore. We
    were elementary school age and not knowing the stories of Calicos ghost we probably saw them all at least we thought we did .We always felt we were followed by something I still remember all those experiences and I always want to stop when we come back from Vegas to this day I feel the connection to Calico and it's history just because of those experiences too long to list but I will remember we both felt something or somebody was trying to get our attention

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  5. I saw the lady in the white dress in 2015 while walking back to our car. I could not see her face and she glided without a step past me. I wrote about this encounter in detail in my book 'Welsh in the Old West'.

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  6. Today Oct. 31st 2018 My significant other took a picture of a mirror in Lucy Lane's house ..A very clear image of her is in seen in the photo of Lucy Lane herself wearing a long black dress reflecting from the mirror. She definitely does not want to be forgotten.

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