GHOSTS IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
INTRODUCTION
In mapping ghost stories across the Pacific Northwest I found results that largely meshed with what I anticipated. The concentration of ghost stories was highest in densely populated areas like Portland or Seattle and their suburbs, though some fairly remote locations also produced their clustures of ghosts, including a grouping around Ashland in Southern Oregon. However, it is important to note that due to my methodology, which relied on already collected accounts primarily from books or anthologies, there may be some collection bias present in the data. Nonetheless, it seems fair to say that ghost stories tend to collect around more populated areas. More surprising findings included the range of types of locations that ghost stories came from. A number of Pacific Northwest theaters claim resident spirits, as do a number of colleges.
Abandoned Western State Hospital building. Photograph courtesy of cranialbleeding.
A startling number of ghosts were also identified with specific personages or historical events that did or supposedly did happen in Washington's history, such as the Portland ghosts connected to a more sordid past.
Ghosts also popped up in historical sites that had a cultural memory of some traumatic event, like the ghosts said to haunt the Western State Hospital, a former mental hospital, and other now abandoned sanitariums. Ghosts connected to the murders of Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgeway, and Linda Hazzard all appeared in Washington folklore.
Against this, however, I noted that most of the testimony from residents with ghosts in their homes found the presence friendly or benevolent. Generally, the stories were of peaceful coexistence or at most nuisance ghosts; at least two stories spoke of ghosts warning their house owners or saving them from a burglary.
I hoped to get a sense for the type of stories told in the Pacific Northwest about the restless dead, and I feel I have more of an idea of the kind of stories that are told, and where. With more time, I would like to have collected more accounts. I would have liked to do more digging through newspaper archives. Investigating the veracity of the stories told (like the suicide in Port Townsend's Manresa Castle) were also beyond the scope of my research, and I would be curious how much of the ghost folklore of the Pacific Northwest is based on fact or vague memory, distorted by storytelling. I would also be curious to see how the ghosts of this area compare with more densely populated areas, or areas with a longer history. One of the books I referenced included mentions of a study on the folklore of ghosts in New York City, and a comparison study of the spatial aspects of that area would be potentially interesting to see.