A Night at the Famous Klondike Hotel in Manila Iowa! Haunted or not?You decide!

I have an amazing group of girlfriends whom I've been friends with for years. One of these friends, the fabulous M, has a fascination with ghost stories and places that are haunted. So she did a Google search of them and came across one that was within a reasonable driving distance from where we live! So she called them and asked about tours and whatnot... Then the woman who she spoke with mentioned that a paranormal team was scheduled to be there for the weekend and they were renting out the place for their work. Intrigued, my amazing friend asked "So you can rent the place out?" The answer was yes, the price was right and she decided we needed to go stay there overnight. All of us, together.

I am not much of a ghost story person. I mean, I loved the thrill of fear from them as a child. Now I no longer find them scary but rather sad. How horrible it would be to be a ghost! So lonely and you can't even eat chocolate! Honestly, I've been open minded to the idea that they could exist but never really gave it too much thought. I guess I've thought that since I believe in a soul and the spiritual realm and I know that in nature there are sometimes, rarely, but sometimes really freak aberrations that happen (like a two headed calf for instance). Given those two variables I guess I thought it isn't too far a stretch to think that freak aberrations happen in the spiritual world too. Perhaps souls gets lost or aren't ready to move on, who knows? Like I say though, I am not close minded to the idea it could happen.

This is the Klondike! It's so pretty, all restored to its original glory by a historical society in town. There is a rich history to this building. It started out a hotel, then became a brothel, then a hotel again, then a boarding house, then a private home and it's now owned by the historical society.

Here are some photos of it in it's heyday. I love that there are woman in the photo above are standing up on the roof in their long dresses. 

These photos are of the dining room in it's heyday (above) and now (below). My beautiful friend S agreed to model as a current customer in the dining room. Thanks S! I wanted to try and get the same perspective as the original photo. 

In the dining room they have this clever sign to welcome you to the Klondike! As you can see, they have convenient Ghostbuster Service cards hanging right there, just in case. Hmmm...

Below is the room I stayed in, Room six. It was so cute and pretty. You're probably wondering about the Christmas trees. It is February after all. Apparently they'd meant to get them down earlier in the week but the plans fell through. I thought it was kind of fun, like going back in time and going back a season too! Merry Christmas!

Each room came with it's own convenient chamber pot and fire escape rope too! Here are the ones from my room. All the comforts of home! I am kidding, I thought it was very cool actually. They had one in every room. 

Next is the room my dear daughter slept in, room eight. It's sweetly decorated, like all the others. I was amazed that they'd let us stay in what felt like an amazing museum but I didn't question it and just enjoyed every moment. Some things are just so original and outside of anything you thought you might ever get to do, you just go with them when they do and enjoy them!

These two rooms have also been the sighting of ghosts several times in the form of a woman putting her head out side one of the doors and saying something and then disappearing. I'll tell you a little bit more of that when we get to the hallway photos below.

Before I get any further into the rooms and the stories the innkeeper told me about them, let me apologize for them not being in numerical order. I am pretty Type-A and it about killed me not to back and 'fix' it after I just uploaded them in the order I photographed them. However, in the interest of ever getting this blog posted, I decided we would just have to go out of order! With that said, on with the tour and the ghost stories!

Below is room twelve and there is a story associated with this room. There have been sightings of a couple who leave this room and walk down the hallway as if checking rooms. Former innkeepers perhaps?  

Next is room ten, No stories that I recall in here. I want to show you all the rooms though because they are so cleverly decorated with such care and precision. You can tell that the people who put this together really love this place. 

Below is room five and from what the innkeeper said, there have been connections with the spirit of a military man in this room. 

Below is room seven, which as you can see has a doorway to the adjacent room. 

Here is the adjacent room. No stories that I know of in these rooms. That being said, the innkeeper also told us that the known entities at the house often times show up in any given room, Henry especially... But we'll get to him later. You save the best for last after all, right? 

The next room is room number one. It is considered the room of a former owner who's photo you can see hanging on the wall. Her name was Mary Oberding.

From what I understand, she ran a boarding house in the building for about twenty years. She had quite a few children. It was one of her daughters that had regular sightings of a man in the dining room as she did her homework there in her childhood. She is in her 90's now, that little daughter, so it's apparently been home to wayward spirits for quite some time. 

Next we have room number two. From what I am told, room is home to a couple of child entities who like to jump on the bed and make mischief. 

Then we have the room that my daughter thought was 'creepy' because of all the dolls. Which is funny because we both love dolls. It's room number four. 

Last, we have the prettiest room of all of them, in my opinion. It's room number three. I love all the beautiful embroidered doilies and whatnot they have on the bed. 

This is the beautiful chest in that room. Isn't it fantastic?

Which leads us to the hall way and a little girl ghost named Rosella, who goes by Ella. They suspect she was an innkeepers child because while she plays there where the dolls are, she mutters to herself about how she 'must stay out of peoples way' a lot. Then another, wholly different, apparition (her mother?) is the one that pops her head out of room six or eight, seemingly scolding her and then they both disappear. 

Here is my room door and the stove and baby doll bed from another angle. 

Next we have this chest at end of the hallway upstairs by the doorway that leads to the roof. The same roof where the long dress clad ladies were standing in the antique photo. The innkeeper said that this is home to a little boy who often will, if you stand there by that chest, move your hair like there is a breeze. It didn't happen to me but I also didn't stand there waiting either.

This is just adorable. It's the way they made the bathroom. The toilet is in this little tiny room. 

Then the bathtub and sink are in a separate room right next to it. Clever actually. Someone can bathe and not tie up the most essential component of the wash room. 

Again, I was blown away by their amazing attention to detail! Note the hair crimper and curling iron just in case we want to fix our hair!

Which ends the upstairs tour and brings us downstairs. this is the dining room. Below the beautiful antique print of Jesus is a grate in the floor. The owner I talked about above, from room number one, was her mother and she would sit on that grate after school and do her home work. She said she often would see a man standing there, by the drapes, just watching her. He didn't scare her and didn't do anything but stand there and watch her. She said he was dressed 'like a mortician, all dapper and dressed up'.

Next we have the sitting room. It's very pretty and I imagine all manner of party have been held in this room!

I love the light!

The piano works!

Don't mind the modern toys, We had modern kids in our party. We decided it was probably best to bring them modern toys so they'd leave the old ones alone. Which they did. Yeah kids!!

Next is the dining room from another perspective. That window is where the man would stand but there were heavy drapes on the windows when she lived there. 

This is the kitchen, or the original one. They have a modern one so you can cook too and make coffee, because we all know how important coffee is!

This stove is very old, I meant to take better notes about it but it's a wood burning stove. The notes about it did say that it was used as recently and the 1950s!

Also in the kitchen. In case we need to iron.

Next is the office. Which almost completes our tour. I went around taking photos of historal items like menus and whatnot in this room which were fascinating!

This must've been the original rate for the rooms at the hotel. 

Because when they got fancy and had them printed, the rates went up a smidge. I love how it says ask for a towel and tells you about the fire escape rope. 

Alas, inflation. I love that they didn't bother to re-print the cards, they just hand wrote it in. Different times!

Below is a menu from the Thanksgiving dinner they served here in 1907. 

And a rubbing of the sign stating this is a Historical Place. 

Then a cute little plate someone painted of the photo from so long ago.

So I mentioned I would save the best ghost story for last. The innkeeper said they have the most contact and the most physical manifestations from a ghost they have determined must be Henry Wall. He was an owner of the hotel for a few years. They originally called him Mr Cranky because was always in a bad mood. They finally got him to give them his name and looked him up and since they've figured out who he is, he is coming out more and more. He has even, per the innkeeper, audibly said one of the names of the frequent visitors here. Her name is Beth and two people heard him utter it at the same time, down in the basement!

So the innkeeper mentioned that Henry likes to hang out in that alcove over there, see it in the wall? 

He also likes to spend time in the stairwell up to the storm doors. 

This is just a stove that was down there that I thought was neat and decided to photo. Now... Don't laugh but I, when I went down to the basement, talked, out loud, like the innkeeper says they do, to Henry. I said, essentially, "Hi Henry! I am taking photos down here because I am going to write a Blog about you and your story. Now, you probably don't know what a Blog even is, but it's kind of like a newspaper that is read all over the world. You might get famous!" Then I went over and stood in his favorite alcove. It seemed so claustrophobic and dark that I said "Henry this is depressing! If I were you, I'd hang out upstairs! Seriously!!" Then I sort of giggled to myself and walked upstairs. 

This is where the story gets interesting!!!

The VERY NEXT PHOTOS I TOOK AFTER GOING UPSTAIRS are the following three. I had planned to take photos of the beautiful light fixtures and so went up to do that, not a thought about the 'conversation' I'd just had with Henry in the basement. Take a look at them. They are totally unaltered by me. I was going through my photos to figure out which to use for this blog when I noticed the first ones in the first photo. Those little green neon looking 'C' shaped lights on the ceiling. They were not there when took photo and I take all my photos with no flash, only using the light that is there. I thought "Well, hmm... that's a fluke, what a great story! Little weird lights in a photo in a house that is supposedly haunted! What's the likelihood of that??!" I even sent the photo my amazing girlfriends and said excitedly "Look! I got ghosts in photo!!" and giggled. THEN I LOOKED AT THE NEXT TO PHOTOS.

I kid you not, this is totally unaltered. See the C shaped green spot and the sort of discoloration around it on the wallpaper? Um, yeah, wasn't there when I took photo.

My son actually saw these... I thought it was just the first two photos (I have 42 year old eyes!) until he pointed out that even in this one, on the top left is a C shape. 

Now, mind you, I have nothing to gain from embellishing this story. I didn't really think there WAS much of a story other than a few sweet ghost stories from an innkeeper who loves her hotel and it's history. Then... The weird photos. Did I catch something on photo? Do you suppose it's Henry, making himself known and wanting his photo in the 'Blog Newspaper'. Who knows? I'll let you decide. I am just a story teller and now you have this one.

========================================

Update! February 24, 2015

I spoke with the innkeeper and asked her permission to put her name in the blog and she graciously said it was fine. So the innkeepers name is Michelle Ertz. She provided the Facebook page for the Hotel too, see below. She also read through the blog and I got all the information accurate except the spelling of Henry Wahl's last name, which as you can see when I spell it here, is Wahl, not Wall. She also provided a photo of Henry from her personal collection to add here.

Here we have a photo of Henry. Or rather Henry's shadow. In this photo, the Paranormal Investigators have the little green lights set up as some sort of 'ghost image catcher' to explain what they are. In the left hand side of the photo you can see a person. She is a medium who, when she was standing there, said to the everyone with a camera "You might want to start snapping photos right now because I sense a presence right behind me." The shadow is by the wall, amoungst the bed parts against the wall. There would be no way a person of substance could stand there because of all the stuff. It appears you can see him in profile, with his hand out.

The photo was taken during one of their Paranormal Investigations Night. They have them often, the next is March 7th 2015!  Check their Facebook Profile for information! Here is linky to Facebook page:

Klondike Hotel Facebook Page

If you have any questions about the hotel or the stories, Michelle is an amazing resource and is so nice and friendly! I am sure she would welcome any questions you have. You can also leave questions in comments and I can try and find out information if you prefer. Such a neat place! So glad I got to go explore it!