Thoughts On Another Ghost Hunt Plus Other Ohio Stuff

[Judy in Texas 150]

Joyce and I spent 8/11-8/18 in Lancaster, Ohio visiting my family, points of interest, and spending the night ghost hunting at the Mansfield Reformatory. Unfortunately the SD card in my point and shoot camera was corrupted and I've lost most of the pictures. :banghead: I blame it on the ghosts! I have the few I took on my cell phone and those my daughter Sara put on a flash drive for me.

We spent most of Saturday and Sunday afternoons visiting with my family.

The Sunday morning Point of Interest was the New Straitsville area. We stopped by the cemetery in Maxville (population < 800) where my father and his parents/siblings are buried. On the way back to Lancaster, Joyce wanted to see if we could find evidence of the coal mine fires in New Straitsville. When I was in elementary school visiting the area in the winter with my father, I remember seeing smoke/steam rising from holes that had burned through the road's blacktop. http://ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=521

In 1884, tensions broke out between the New Straitsville Mining Company's management and its workers over wages. The miners proceeded to strike. After several months, a small group of union members decided to sabotage the mines. They put timbers in coal cars, soaked the wood with oil, set the lumber on fire, and then pushed the cars into the mine. The fire quickly spread to the coal seam underground. Reportedly, the coal seam was fourteen feet across and extended an undetermined distance into the Earth. It purportedly took several days for the fire to be discovered. By that point, it was too late to stop the fire's spread. As a result of the fire, the mine closed.

The New Straitsville mine fire has raged ever since 1884. It is estimated that more than two hundred square miles of coal has burned. During the late 1800s, nearby residents used water from their wells to brew instant coffee because it was so hot from the fire. In 2003, smoke began to emerge from the soil of the Wayne National Forest, 119 years after the fire began.

Monday had several Points on Interest. We were up early and headed down to the Ohio River and to Point Pleasant WV, home of the Mothman Prophecies made famous by the John Keel book and the Richard Gere movie. Strange activities started 11/15/67 and culminated with the collapse of the Silver Bridge in 1967 that killed 46 people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothman

Our first stop was in Pomeroy Ohio at the McDonalds for a pitstop. Nice location with a dock right on the river.

[Katman1356...Jason 1,140]

I'm in!

[photogal06...Sommer 10]

Oooh, fun! I've never done anything but drive straight through OH, so I'm interested to see what you did there!

[Judy in Texas 150]

Thanks Jason and Sommer!

As we continue with Monday, we crossed over the bridge in the background of the picture above to the WV side of the river and headed to Point Pleasant.

The Mothman Museum is just a little store front but interesting. They were playing a fairly current documentary which looks back at all the Mothman activities. It alone was worth the $3 price of admission.

Nice downtown area:

We sat by the Ohio River for a while and watched the barges go by. A 30 something year old lady was there waving at a tugboat as it went by. She said her husband is the pilot and she comes down to wave at him when she can.

The town is separated from the river by flood barrier.

There's a very nice mural on the river side of it:

Here is the memorial to the people who lost their lives in the collapse of the Silver Bridge:

The Mothman Memorial:

We then tried to find the old TNT factory where the Mothman activities were first reported. We had to park and walk about 1/4 of a mile:

Lots of coal burning power plants along the Ohio River:

[Lou... 3,118]

I'm in for the Ohio stuff, but I'll pass on the ghost hunting, I'm still way too busy looking for Big Foot.

[Judy in Texas 150]

Having trouble saving posts. Bummer.

[Judy in Texas 150]

Or the Yeti, Lou?

We headed north east toward Racine to see if we could watch barges go through the locks. We found a dirt road named "Old Lock 24 Road" and decided it sounded interesting. At the end where it dead ended into the river as a neat, small campgound named after to road. Most of the folks look to be seasonal. I thought it looked like a nice place to sit and watch the barges float by or unload coal at the power plant on the other side of the river.

I tried to find a website but it doesn't look they have one. Here is an overhead view courtesy of Google Maps (let me know if this isn't allowed):

They had the neatest chair on river side of the main building:

On up the river were the active Racine locks. The dam pic is first followed by the locks. No boats today.

A boat ramp on the upriver side of the dam. I wouldn't want to try backing down to launch a boat!

Here is another overhead, also courtesy of Google maps:

We had supper at Texas Roadhouse and then dropped supper off for my daughter Sara who was working a swingshift. She and her husband Brian started exercising and running this last January. Between them they have lost >140 pounds!

When we got back to the hotel I noticed a tick crawling on my neck. Eeeewwww! Time to wash the clothes we had on. While waiting for the wash to finish, I sat on a tall wood barstool in the laundry room. As soon as I sat down, the legs gave way and I crashed to the ground, right on my tailbone. I was more startled than anything; however, it is still tender a week+ later if I sit just so. I told the night manager who picked up the stool's pieces and she noted the incident in the log. I thought the hotel manager would have followed up the next day but I thought wrong. They never said a word.

[wdwpoohbear...Jennifer 40]

I'm in! Can't wait to read about the ghost hunting! Wish I had known about the ghosts at the Mansfield Reformatory when I was going to college in the next town over from Mansfield because I would have gone to do some ghost hunting when I was there.

[DaveInTN 3,247]

This has to be one of the creepiest yet fascinating trip reports in Fiend history. Ghosts, Mothman, bridge collapses, stool collapses...what's next? A beer shortage??

[Judy in Texas 150]

There's never a shortage of beer with my brother around. He brews his own!

Tuesday Point of Interest... Ohio Amish country.

Joyce and I picked up my brother Bob and his wife Cindy (they are in Naples right now getting ready for meet Isaac) and headed toward Millersburg, OH to meet Joyce's sister and brother-in-law for lunch (Linda and Bill just started full time Rving). It's a 2 1/2 hour drive through farm country. Nice.

For those of you familiar with Longaberger baskets, here is their corporate office building. It looks they aren't doing very well right now. The Homestead barn and shopping area were closed and there is a state highway sign at their entrance traffic light which says it is being studied for removal. My brother and sister-in-law said they were closed the entire month of December 2011 which seems to me to be one of their prime shopping times.

Nice red barn:

My brother takes us by www.ageofsteamroundhouse.com just south of Sugarcreek

Long-time steam locomotive

aficionado

, Jerry Jacobson, who was CEO and Chairman of the Board of the Ohio Central Railroad System (OCRS), decided to retire from the railroad industry. Effective as of October 1, 2008, Jerry sold his entire freight railroad interest in OCRS to Genesee & Wyoming, Inc. Included in that transfer were the ten, separate and individual railroads that comprised the greater OCRS, all track, property, modern diesel locomotives, freight cars, the Morgan Run Shop, and all other depots and structures.

Needing a place to safely store and restore his fleet of railroad old-timers, Jerry acquired 34 acres of farm land located immediately adjacent to the Ohio Central Railroad main line track, and right alongside a road named Smokey Lane (how appropriate!). Located just 2-1/2 miles south of the village of Sugarcreek (notice that the village spells its name with one word), the Age of Steam Roundhouse site is surrounded by picturesque Amish farms with their horse-drawn buggies, plows and reapers. What a beautiful sight it will be for draft horses and their iron brethren to labor and cavort in juxtaposed pastures.

On this land Jerry and his staff are overseeing the construction of storage tracks, a store house, coal dock, wood water tank, ash pit, back shop and the jewel of the site, a complete, working, 18-stall, brick roundhouse surrounding a 115-foot turntable and turntable pit. Other than a few, small roundhouses recently built for railroad museums, we believe that this will be the first full-sized, working roundhouse built in the U.S. since 1951 (NKP in Calumet, Illinois).

The roundhouse has 18 bays for full sized engines. You can see through the windows that some have their coal tenders,also.

The story behind the building of the water tower is on the website:

This story about the saving of a Morehead & North Fork 0-6-0 #12 is particularly interesting. Anyone who enjoys trains will find the website fascinating.

http://www.ageofstea...m/Album_63.html

We are having lunch at Der Dutchman in Berlin (burlun) and this is the view from their parking lot:

View from the restaurant's from porch:

Horse and wagon in the field:

We stop by Lehman's non-electical hardware store that caters to the Amish community. It's huge! http://www.lehmans.com/

This is a view from their parking lot:

Horse and buggies everywhere:

I like the bulk food stores:

On the way home we stop by the Prospect Place Estate. It was not open for tours that day.

[Disneyzombie-Brenda 10]

Judy I'm in, even though this is all in my back door, I haven't seen any ghosts in Ohio! I need to know where they are!

[Judy in Texas 150]

Judy I'm in, even though this is all in my back door, I haven't seen any ghosts in Ohio! I need to know where they are!

There's a app for that! Check out Ghost Hunters Haunted House Finder.

Wednesday Point of Interest... Ghose hunt day!

Joyce wants to take the back roads so we leave at 2:30 and head toward Mansfield. I've seen Mailpouch ads on barns but not on buildings:

Parts of Mansfield have see better days:

When we pull into the Reformatory's parking lot, we get a hint of what the evening's going to be like:

Here's we are... 10 of the 12 of us. Two more folks arrive shortly. Two in this pic decided after the initial tour that they'd had enough.

We start off with a few minutes to tour the museum:

One room of the museum is dedicated to the movies that were made here. The two biggies are Shawshank Redemption and Air Force One. I lost those pictures on the SD card. :gaah:

Scott and Brian were the volunteers who spent the night with us. They took us on a 90 minute tour that hit the highlights. We found out very quickly that most all the building is in disrepair:

Pausing a moment for slow system response.

[Judy in Texas 150]

I forgot to post this pic and link in the previous entry. The Reformatory is open most weekends for public ghost hunts but they are sold out through the end of the year.

http://www.mrps.org/

Pictures from the initial tour:

If you saw Shawshank Redemption, you might recognize this:

The chapel:

I wonder why the piece of chain is hanging from the ceiling:

You can see by the paint where the chapel balcony used to be. According to volunteer Scott, people from town were allowd to attend services here. They sat in the balcony:

Mansfield has the world's tallest freestanding cellblock - 6 two-sided tiers with 600 cells. The outside wall is on the right with the cells on the left. When you are there in person you can see the remains of fireplaces that were used to heat the area. It must have been miserably cold in the winter and hot in the summer.

At the end of the tour, we put our "stuff" in the modern break room, say Bye to the couple who decided they didn't want to stay, and divided up into groups. We had 2 groups of 3 and 2 groups of 2. The only areas off limits were the museum, a few storage rooms and anyplaces deemed unsafe. We each took an area to investigate for 90 minutes and then met back in the break room to discuss what had been going on. Then we switched areas.

Joyce and I head to the East cell block right as Scott the volunteer turns all the lights out. We walked around the cell block on the first, second and third levels, sat a bit in the infirmary. Here's Sara's pic of when her group was there:

We then sat on the main level for about 30 minutes, watching, listening, and then finally trying to get one fo the entities to interact with the flashlights. We heard what sounded like two cell doors closing; but, the flash lights were quiet. Joyce said something touched her arm and when we met back at the break room, she had a red mark on it. I was on the other side of her so it wasn't me.

One of the hallways. It's surprising how well the areas show up with a flash considering there are no lights on.

Fireplace in the Warden's quarters:

Pictures outside the break room left over from Air Force One:

Joyce has one video 45 minutes long that towards the end shows her camera's full spectrum light reflecting in a window and then something blocking it out. If we can figure out how to edit it down to a sensible size, I'll try to post it.

The young nurses reported that they placed their K2 meter on the floor and started asking quesions to see if they could get a response. They all swear that it stood on end. I can't wait to see if someone caught a picture of it.

Since the building has quite a few windows missing, bats are now calling it home. One lady left early because she didn't like them swooping at her headlamp. She could take the ghosts but not the bats

We could have stayed until 5:00 AM; however, come 4:00 AM those of us left were drooping. Since we had a 2+ hour drive back to Lancaster, we decided to call it a night.

Results: The entities were drawn to the 20-30 something nurses and not to the 60 something year old ladies. It's really a place you need to spend multiple nights and have all the techy equipment that allows you to set up cameras on tripods.

[Judy in Texas 150]

We are listening to our digital voice recordings this evening. Note to self: Next time, voice recorder sessions should be more controlled. Everyone sits down. The recorders should be away from everyone since they pick up every little noise. Breathing can sound like King Kong is sitting there! Try to pick a time when the HVAC isn't running.

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Creepy place!!! I'm not I would spend the night in a place like that. Would spook me too much.

[doodlebug....Cherie 461]

I'm a little late to the ghost hunt but I'm here now!! Great TR, Judy!!

[stefa70 205]

Yes, I am green with envy again! I love your ghost adventures.

I don't see anything wrong with the picture of you in the big lawn chair. That's pretty much how I look in a regular sized one. :hah:

Good job on your DD and hubby losing 140 lbs!

I would love to see Joyce's video!!!

Edited to add : Did anything happen that made the two people opt out of the tour, or did they just freak themselves out?

[SCTigerCock 171]

Love the TR. :heart:

[Judy in Texas 150]

Yes, I am green with envy again! I love your ghost adventures.

I don't see anything wrong with the picture of you in the big lawn chair. That's pretty much how I look in a regular sized one. :hah:

Good job on your DD and hubby losing 140 lbs!

I would love to see Joyce's video!!!

Edited to add : Did anything happen that made the two people opt out of the tour, or did they just freak themselves out?

The wife of the couple freaked out at the stories of what other people had experienced... especially the one about someone getting punched in the ribs. Better to leave then than to really freak out later and risk getting hurt. The area is definitely not OSHA approved.

My DD and DSIL used the WDW Expedition Everest 5k scavenger hunt in April 2012 as a motivation to start their exercise program. They had so much fun they signed up for the Tinkerbell Half Marathon at Disneyland in January 2013. They hope then to run the WDW Food and Wine Half Marathon next fall.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Judy-

Thanks for taking the time to write this report!

It's amazing to me that there are places like this that people can go and visit.

Thanks for the photos of the historical markers. These are something that I always take photos of. I am amazed at some of the things that have historical markers. I especially liked the Mothman one.

As for your SD card, I'm sorry I didn't post when you had an earlier thread mentioning this. I had a problem with an SD card a while back, after a lot of research, I ended up buying a program from this company: http://www.sdcardrecover.com/ . It ended up finding my lost photos. The total cost was $58.90, as they had some little unadvertised extra cost that they added on to the advertised price of $49.95. But it did work for me, and supposedly I have it available for future use.

TCD

[Judy in Texas 150]

TCD: I tried several of the photo recovery applications available for free online with no luck. I then took the SD card to a local camera shop to see if they could help. They tried 3 different programs with no luck. They told me I could reformat the card and keep using it; but, I can't get the camera to move passed the error message when the card is installed and my computer won't format it either. Time to buy a new SD card.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

TCD: I tried several of the photo recovery applications available for free online with no luck. I then took the SD card to a local camera shop to see if they could help. They tried 3 different programs with no luck. They told me I could reformat the card and keep using it; but, I can't get the camera to move passed the error message when the card is installed and my computer won't format it either. Time to buy a new SD card.

Man, that stinks. It sounds like you had a problem much worse than mine. I think mine was the result of an accidental erasure, either because of an error on my camera or and error by the camera operator, but, fortunately, the photos were still on the card and had not been written over.

It sounds like you definitely need to toss that card.

TCD

[Nicki aka Rebelstand 272]

The ghosties messed up Judy's card.....

[DaveInTN 3,247]

I think mine was the result of an accidental erasure, either because of an error on my camera or and error by the camera operator,

My money is on the latter.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

My money is on the latter.

Mine too. Especially since it hasn't happened again, and I have been more diligent in reading the on screen prompts.

TCD