Things That Go Bump in the Night

Written by Charlie Durgin

Tales of ghoulish apparitions, creaky houses, and floating spirits are about as prevalent during the month of October as chocolate is on Valentine’s Day. After all, people like to be spooked—that rush of adrenaline is addictive. It’s the reason we watch scary movies and go into the “house of horror” at the county fair. But we don’t really believe in any of the things we see within those supposedly haunted walls or on the big screen.

We are just caught up in the season. Or are we? If you stop and ask someone on the street if they believe in ghosts, they’ll probably tell you they don’t. However, if you ask them about any downtown Bakersfield ghost stories, they’ll be able to tell you any number of stories that have circulated through the years. And none of those stories have anything to do with Halloween.

Our oral history is filled with hearsay about incidents in which respectable people claim to have been haunted or stumbled upon a ghost. We’re predisposed to believe in ghosts because of our belief in souls—our belief that inside each person is something that has nothing to do with their corporeal body. When we die, where does that go? It’s plagued scholars and, yes, fans of the supernatural for years. Ghosts are a part of our culture. Think about Shakespearean plays like Hamlet and Macbeth in which characters are haunted by the ghosts of the recently deceased; the Headless Horseman in Washington Irving’s classic spooky tale; Casper.

Here in Bakersfield, we have our own ghost stories and haunted houses that have somewhat survived the modern, cynical, technology-dependent age we live in now. Haunted hospital wings, office buildings, you name it. In fact, later this month, Bakersfield College is putting on what will undoubtedly be a fun and frightening tour of some of Bakersfield’s biggest haunts in celebration of the “spooky season.”

With the help of a file marked “Paranormal” in Beale Memorial Library’s Jack Maguire Local History Room, we could do some ghost hunting. But in assembling a history of the Ghosts of Bakersfield, a discernible pattern develops: most of the ghost sightings are in central Bakersfield, and most of the legendary ones occurred prior to World War II.

1. Central Park at 21st and R streets: While it’s had a huge facelift as part of the Mill Creek Project, this park is home to a haunting that dates back almost a hundred years and repeatedly shows up in oral histories and different texts on Bakersfield hauntings. A woman is allegedly seen walking the park in a flowing robe. The scary part? Years ago, a woman’s bullet-riddled skeletal remains were found buried in a foundry that was across the street from the park.

2. In The Californian building: Over the years, numerous people have reported seeing the ghost of newspaper publisher Alfred Harrell, as well as the ghost of a German Shepherd.

3. A house in the 2300 block of 18th Street: A woman’s face is reportedly seen in an upstairs window. A psychic who visited the home claims the apparition does not like male energy.

4. W.W. Kelly Home: This house was supposed to be full of nasty spirits and apparitions. It was originally at 1305 Eye Street, but was later moved to 231 South Real Road where it was damaged by fire.

5. 20th and Oak: Ghosts of children who died of scarlet fever (or another now extinct illness depending on the source) have been seen here. It was once the location of a hospital.

6. K Street: Otherworldly firefighters from the past have been seen crossing K Street where, legend has it, a brothel burned to the ground and firefighters may have perished while rescuing the madams.

7. 700 Block of Niles Street: A house where Methias B. Warren, father of the late Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Earl Warren was bludgeoned to death in 1938 with a piece of pipe. The murder was never solved. A psychic claimed to have seen the image of the senior Warren chewing on his pipe and rocking in a chair. The psychic later learned she was at the wrong address and claimed to have heard the house moved.

8. Union Cemetery: This 135-year-old cemetery is the home of numerous stories from the beyond. It’s the final resting place of Col. Thomas Baker, and the spook factor is very high.

9. Father Garces Statue in Garces Circle: It is said that the statue mumbles prayers or moves its hands before deadly accidents.

10. The Haberfelde Building: Over the years tenants have claimed to hear windows open, people laughing when the building was empty, and many other tales that don’t involve actually seeing ghosts, but hearing things that shouldn’t be heard.

What do these stories have in common? Plenty. Most of them occurred within a few miles of each other, and they had their birth in a different time when people lived in an entirely different manner.

The Haberfelde Building is essentially a hub for paranormal activity.

John Sarad has owned the Haberfelde Building for 19 years, and he’s heard every ghost story told about his building in that time, and he’s also well-read in the history of downtown Bakersfield.

The Haberfelde Building was the place to be for professionals in 1927. Many prominent doctors and lawyers called it home, and the Tejon Pharmacy was down on the corner.

By Sarad’s account, it was quite a wild place.

“The building is oozing with the juices of life, and the life people lived then was much more...colorful! We’ve got too many laws, rules, and regulations now that didn’t exist in the past. They enjoyed life, and they drank a lot. There were a lot of brothels downtown, and there were money lenders, and when the laborers would come into town from the hills, things would get lively,” Sarad said.

And it was in this era that many of the best ghost stories were born.

Before 1936, pharmacies and drug stores sold “patent medicines” over the counter and without a prescription that you’d have a hard time getting WITH a prescription today. Common ingredients were coca (the raw ingredient in cocaine) and morphine (the base of heroin) to name a few, and those ingredients came in cures for everything from bad breath to menstrual cramps, and they were taken liberally by many. If you couple that with the high consumption of alcohol that was the norm in that era, throw in a touch of the Tule Fog, it becomes quite clear how they could’ve seen so many ghosts. They were literally and metaphorically in a ghostly fog. Of course, that’s only one theory.

People are prone to suggestion, after all. The famed illusionist “The Amazing Kreskin” said this is why people cry when watching a sad film even though they know “it’s only a movie.”

Sarad suggested this idea himself when he said, “If you bring these [stories] up, people will start thinking they are seeing them again,” especially with the girl whose body was found buried in the foundry across from Central Park.

It might be for these reasons that most ghost stories are old. They very well may be a relic of an age past. Today’s teens don’t gather around the campfire to tell ghost stories, instead they gather in movie theaters and internet chatrooms to obsess over good-looking immortal vampires and their seemingly indestructible werewolf counterparts. If you don’t put yourself in the frame of mind to see them as the old residents of the Haberfelde did in the drafty antique building, or go for late night walks in dark foggy parks, you may never see a ghost. That doesn’t mean you can’t still believe.

It’s, as they say, a sign of the times. There’s nothing like hearing a good ghost story, laughing it off as an old legend of Bakersfield, and then sleeping with the light on and your head under the covers.

candles©istockphoto.com/pixelfit/gigishots

Article appeared in our 28-4 Issue - October 2011