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About 150 people
attended a presentation on Wisconsin’s
haunted places April 21 at the Kilbourn
Public Library. Chad Lewis, a ghost
researcher for
Unexplained Research, LLC who has
penned several books on the spirit world
and earned a master’s degree in
psychology from the University of
Wisconsin-Stout, presented his findings.
He said he’s been
researching ghosts and the bizarre for
14 years, including vampires and
unidentified flying objects.
“If it’s weird, I’ve
traveled the world in search of it,”
Lewis told his audience.
Lewis and his
co-author, Terry Fisk, have documented
the stories about the haunted places in
the state in a 2004 book, “The
Wisconsin Road Guide to Haunted
Locations,” on which his
presentation was based. He said he’s
been to all of the places he’s written
about and has never had a paranormal
experience himself. He joked with the
audience by saying if someone is afraid
of ghosts, go with a ghost researcher
because they never see anything.
Lewis spoke about
cemeteries, bridges, hotels and bars
across Wisconsin, each place with a bit
of lore surrounding it. He’s
investigated the claims for haunted
locations at Nelsen’s Hall in Door
County, Chicken Alley Road in Shawano,
La Belle Cemetery in Oconomowoc and
Little Bohemia Hotel in Manitowish
Waters.
He retold a tale
about the ruins of the Maribel Caves
Hotel in Maribel, a place that is said
to be haunted by the ghosts of guests
who died in a fire there. Legend has it
there is an old well made into a flower
garden that serves as a passageway to
hell. It’s a familiar claim to Lewis.
“Over the last 15
years, I’ve collected nearly half a
dozen places in Wisconsin that all claim
to be a portal to hell. I’m just waiting
for that national headline to come out:
Wisconsin, portal to hell.”
But as far as Lewis’
research has taken him, he’s found no
talk of mysterious doorways to the
underworld in the Dells area. Instead,
legend has it that at the Showboat
Saloon a girl named Molly lived on the
second floor and her spirit has been
haunting the premises. It’s been claimed
that the doors upstairs open and shut on
their own, Molly’s ghost tampers with
the appliances in the upstairs kitchen,
ghosts in early 1900s garb appear in the
mirrors in the bar, peculiar voices are
heard, there are cold spots in the
cellar, kegs are displaced and visitors
are overcome with nausea in the cellar.
The Haunted Crypt,
formally called the Dungeon of Horrors,
on Broadway used to be a gas station
where the owner took his life with a
gun. People have reported strange noises
and the sensation as if someone were
breathing over their shoulders when they
were alone.
On Highway 12 in
Baraboo numerous accounts tell of a man
dressed in a green jacket hitchhiking
along the road. Drivers would see him at
one point and see the same man reappear
out of nowhere farther down the road. It
is said the man appears to be
transparent.
It is claimed that
the ghost of a teenage girl who hung
herself from a tree haunts the small
cemetery at the end of Church Road
Cemetery in Portage, Lewis said.
Visitors say they are struck with a
feeling of illness at the cemetery that
leaves them once they are distanced from
the place. They say they hear the
creaking sound of a noose suspended from
a tree and see an apparition of the
woman hanging.
Lewis’ involvement in
researching spirits developed out of
another project, he told the Dells
Events in an interview after the
presentation.
“I started
researching UFOs, and when I went to
college, I was really interested in why
people believe or why they don’t
believe. And I started presenting my
research on that, and people would just
come up from the audience and say, ‘I
know this isn’t really what you’re
doing, but I think my home may be
haunted,’ or ‘I saw something in the
woods I couldn’t explain. Could you help
me investigate it,’” he said.
He recognized the
demand for discussion about paranormal
experiences and capitalized on it. After
his presentation, Lewis spoke with
people waiting in line to hear his
thoughts on a personal encounter with
spirits or sign a copy of his books.
Some people attending
the presentation said they really
enjoyed it.
“It was very
interesting. Everything he talked to you
could relate to really well,” said Gary
Lorbiecki of Friendship.
Lorbiecki said his
uncle lives across the way from the
Highway 66 bridge in Stevens Point that
Lewis said is supposedly haunted by a
bloody bride who died in a car accident
there years ago.
Lorbiecki and his
wife, Joan, said they want to visit some
of the places that Lewis described.
“We’ve always been
kind of interested in the paranormal,”
Joan said.
About six years ago
she said she saw the spirit of her
deceased brother pass through a door
while reading a magazine. They had kept
her brother’s ashes in an urn in the
bedroom closet, she said.
Others haven’t been
so “lucky” as to have had such an
encounter. Dells resident Cory Vodvarka
said he’s made ghost searching a hobby.
He’s been to the grave sites on Church
Road Cemetery in Portage more than once,
he said.
“I haven’t seen
anything, unfortunately. But I’ve always
wanted to go back. I’m big into the
whole ghost thing,” he said.
Lewis credits the
public for perpetuating the ghostly
mysteries.
“My favorite part of
the presentations is getting to meet all
the people and hearing their story...,”
he said. “Really these legends and
places live because of the community.
They’re the ones that keep telling it
and keep going there and having these
experiences. In order to really get to
know these legends, you have to get to
know the community as well,” he said.
The presentation was
sponsored by the Friends of the Library
and the Dells Country Historical
Society.
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