By Lonna Upton
Chamber of Commerce will host tours of the city’s most haunted buildings
Apparitions and their activities may startle and astound brave ghost hunters during the first ever Wetumpka Haunted History Tours Oct. 26 through Oct. 29 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. in downtown Wetumpka. Hosted by the Wetumpka Area Chamber of Commerce and Central Alabama Paranormal Investigations (CAPI), the walking tours will provide inside information gleaned from tour guides and building owners about suspected ghostly activities and the histories and mysteries surrounding the architecture of the city’s downtown area.
For the truly courageous, an extended tour package will include an actual investigation with CAPI, a Christian non-profit organization. CAPI representatives will use hand-held monitoring equipment, an electro-magnetic field meter and electronic voice monitoring to detect paranormal activity.
Chamber Associate Director Jamie Young, who has worked in the chamber headquarters for four years, said the building is considered one of the most active in Wetumpka for paranormal incidences. Several strange occurrences have been reported at the chamber building, which originally was the Bank of Wetumpka.
“I have heard footsteps on the stairs, sometimes heavy, like boots, and sometimes light footsteps. I don’t stay in the building after dark by myself because there is always shuffling in the hallway, and no one else is in the building except me,” she explained.
Young also said that a Halloween scarecrow decoration has moved, without explanation, from window to window on the third floor of the building. Construction crews working on the recent renovation of the offices expressed frustration that the scarecrow and a large table on the same floor had been moved to different places in the room. She said those men were definitely spooked.
Some of the occurrences began after the mortuary, which had once been next door to the chamber, was torn down, Young said.
The old Lancaster Hotel also is on the tour, Young said. According to legend, the Lancaster Hotel, which was built in the early 1900s, also served as a brothel and was the setting for two deaths, which some folks believe might explain paranormal activity there.
In its heyday, the Lancaster Hotel hosted weddings. Legend has it that a bride tripped on her veil as she came down the staircase for the nuptials, breaking her neck in the fall and dying at the bottom of the stairs. Paranormal believers say the bride is still present in the hotel since her life was cut short on such an important day.
In another story, the second cousin of a dentist in town was interested in the dentist’s wife. The love triangle and subsequent feud led to a shootout on the street between the chamber building and the hotel, leaving bullet holes in both buildings. Because the two men were from a prominent family, no one bore witness to the fact that the cousin killed the dentist. Stories passed down through the years suggest the killer threw the gun in the river and got away with the murder. Believers say the dentist cannot rest since no one was held responsible for his death.
The Lancaster tales were not written into the books chronicling city history; however, at least one Wetumpka resident claims to have been a child witness to the shootout, Young said. Investigation through the years cannot prove either story, but the questions encourage speculation of paranormal activity.
After investigating the chamber building in August, CAPI founder Johnny Rushing, who has been testing for paranormal activity for 32 years, said the chamber building is the first building he has ever ruled as haunted, a designation he considers extremely rare.
An investigator on his team there saw the shadow of a man in a top hat and tails at the top of a staircase in the recently renovated section of the building.
The same shadow in top hat and tails also had been seen by a previous chamber director years before the section was renovated, Young said.
CAPI will investigate further the first bank built in Wetumpka in 1905, which now houses River Perk and Vault Variety. River Perk partners Larry Oates and Savannah Dart have no doubt that spirits inhabit the building.
Dart said she watched as Oates climbed to only the second rung of a ladder that was firmly on the floor and had no wobbling at all.
“All of a sudden, the ladder fell backwards. There was no reason for it to do that,” she said.
Oates was under the ladder and a picture frame had been knocked onto the floor, which they returned to its shelf. The next morning, after the building had been locked up tight for the night, that picture frame was on the floor, along with several other knick-knacks, but none of the items were broken. They have other stories of items having been moved to different locations or actually moving in front of them.
“I wasn’t ever big into ghosts, but now I have a little more respect for people who are. Everybody has things that happen that they can’t explain,” Oates said.
He thinks paranormal activities could be the explanation to the strange occurrences.
River Perk will be included on the walking tour, along with the Elmore County Museum, Scent Wizards, Austin Flowers, the big white house that was used in the Big Fish movie and others.
Hotspots for the extended tour include the second and third floors, plus the basement, of the Chamber of Commerce building, where noises and shadows have been part of the environment for years.
The tours are open only to guests over the age of 12 years, due to the three-hour length and the subject matter. Parental guidance is strongly advised.
Guests are encouraged to bring cameras, digital voice recorders and hand-held investigation equipment; however, no videos may be taken inside the buildings, and no videos of the tour guides may be made during the tours.
For those who want to know more about paranormal investigations, CAPI offers a class for adults and junior investigators aged 13-18 years.
For more information, visit the haunted tours page on the Wetumpka Chamber website at www.wetumpkachamber.com/haunted-history-tours-of-wetumpka.
