As the air chills and Halloween nears, Minneapolis leans into its haunted history through paranormal stories and places crawling with opportunity to catch a glimpse of the supernatural.
Shadowy hallways and movie dens at the 300 Clifton Bed and Breakfast. A flashlight tour, sharing ghost files dating back decades. A Minneapolis ghost tour with a guide who swaps secrets with spirits. First Avenue’s annual Halloween party, where the spookiest thing isn’t the costumes.
These are just a few of the eerie experiences found around Minneapolis this Halloween season.
The 300 Clifton
Late one night at 300 Clifton, a 19th-century Minneapolis mansion turned bed and breakfast, manager Norman Kulba was alone in the dining room.
“I don’t see things. I either hear them or feel them,” Kulba said. ”I had a really, really dark presence around me in the dining room pantry area. Then I heard a noise.”
From the next room, a shuffling, then clinking of silverware and glasses. When he pushed the door open, the room was empty. The mansion is rumored to be haunted by Gertrude, a chambermaid who died in the basement during a fire in 1911.
The mansion was built in 1887, and later bought by Eugene J. Carpenter who helped found the Minneapolis Institute of Art, according to the Clifton’s website. It is now the only Minneapolis bed and breakfast, Kulba said.
Embracing its haunted nature, it offers a chance for guests to descend into the basement and rent out Gertrude’s video lounge, a former coal room turned movie den. Gertrude is not the only spirit on the property, Kulba said.
Guests have reported seeing a family in the carriage house, an empty rocking chair swaying back and forth and a chambermaid with long blonde hair, Kulba said. The property offers ornate rooms where guests can experience the history of the mansion, and perhaps catch a glimpse of spirits wandering the hallways.
First Avenue’s annual costume party
First Avenue is hosting its annual Halloween Party and Costume Contest on Halloween night, and attendees should be on the lookout for shadowy shapes dancing under the lights of the mainroom.
In 1937, a Greyhound Bus Depot opened in downtown Minneapolis in the building that is now First Avenue, according to the Minneapolis Neighborhood Association. Years and several buses later, the depot closed. The iconic venue played its first show in 1970.
Though the building’s purpose has changed throughout the years, the people who have passed through it linger, reported FOX9 News. Employees and visitors have heard unexplained voices and seen dancing figures with no legs.
The most common sighting is the girlfriend of a World War II soldier who never returned home. She is reported to have died by suicide in the bathroom of the old depot, according to FOX9 News. Witnesses report hearing her crying and seeing her under the venue’s colorful lights between concert attendees.
The American Swedish Institute’s candlelight tour
The American Swedish Institute is dimming its lights and lighting its candles for a Flashlight Tour of the Turnblad mansion this Wednesday and Friday. The tour is over 21 years old.
Stories from the institute’s internal ghost files will be shared, said Erin Stromgren, director of exhibitions at ASI for eight years.
The mansion, built between 1904 and 1908, has operated as a museum and cultural center since 1929, she said.
“That’s almost 100 years of history and visitors,” Stromgren said. “There are many tales that perhaps the mansion is a little bit haunted.”
The ghost files detail employees’ paranormal experiences dating back to when a caretaker lived on site in the 1970s, Stromgren said. There are stories from the 1990s, 2000s and even an experience Stromgren had a few years ago, which is only shared on the tour.
“I spend a lot of time in the mansion, a lot of time in the evening when it starts to get dark,” Stromgren said. “That is maybe when you start to sense the presence of others.”
Stromgren said she encourages guests to come feel the mansion’s atmosphere for themselves.
“When you step into the mansion, it really feels like you’re kind of in a different time and a different place,” Stromgren said. “We’re keeping a historic space alive and relevant whether we’re talking about the living, or perhaps the dead.”
American Ghost Walks
Linda Lee, who leads the Minneapolis chapter of the nationwide American Ghost Walks, said she had one of her first paranormal encounters while photographing a funeral years ago.
Now, Lee devotes her life to uncovering the histories and spirits behind the city’s most haunted places. Lee takes tour attendees around the city to several reportedly haunted spots year-round.
“I am passionate and meticulous about my research,” Lee said.” I’m not just going around telling the same old story that everybody’s been telling. I’m actually digging for the real story.”
Lee’s research focuses on people who died in or were connected emotionally to a place, especially those with unfinished business, unresolved emotional conflict or sudden or unexpected deaths.
Each tour begins with a question: Has anyone ever had a haunted experience?
As new stories surface, the tour evolves, Lee said.
“I love all of my stops, all of my stories and the spirits that inhabit them,” Lee said. “But the Foshay Tower is one that I particularly love.”
Legend has it that Wilbur Foshay, the businessman who built the tower in 1929, haunts the building after his passing, Lee said. However, Foshay did not die in the tower, he died in a senior citizens facility of a stroke, according to the Minneapolis Historical Society.
In the early 1930s Foshay was tried and convicted of running a pyramid scheme, the New York Times reported. Lee believes the spirit haunting the tower is Genevieve Clark, the sole juror who maintained Foshay was not guilty, according to the Salida Museum.
Clark failed to disclose that she previously worked for the Foshay enterprises, according to the Times’ article. Clark was convicted of contempt of court, and days before she was to serve six months in jail, she and her family died, the article read.
“That, to me, is much more of an unresolved emotional conflict associated with that building,” Lee said. “That’s who I think is haunting the building.”
Uncovering and telling people’s stories, that’s what Lee really loves about the tour, she said. She finds interacting and communicating with the spirit world addicting.
“All spirits have secrets,” Lee said. “The most important one being that you never die.”
Whether or not one believes in the paranormal, these tours and places connect Minneapolis to its past — whether through legend, unexplained noises or slinking shadows in the dark.
