Lewiston, Idaho, once an important port for miners traveling in search of gold, is now a town of about 30,000 people. Few of the people who live in the Lewis-Clark Valley speak of its over one hundred year history. However, there are still parts of the community where one can explore and see the age of the town. Downtown Lewiston is one of a few areas where people can go exploring. They wander the streets, admiring the buildings that stand proudly above them. One building in particular ties a unique history into the downtown area. Morgan’s Alley stands at the corner of Main Street and D Street, overlooking the cars and people passing by. On the outside, it looks like an ordinary, older building. On the inside, it holds secrets of the past and possibly a ghost.
Lewiston’s downtown buildings were created in direct reaction to two things; in 1899 the Snake River Bridge was built and Lewiston became a port. The city of Lewiston was an important port for miners who were traveling to find work. Where there is gold mining, there are men, and where there are men there are women. At the turn of the century, prostitution was not uncommon nor was it illegal. Many of the buildings in downtown Lewiston were bordellos for men to ‘unwind’. Some of the buildings that make up Morgan’s Alley were those bordellos. A teller’s box still sits at one of the entrances to the building. It is from the 1900s and if men wanted to go and see the ‘upstairs girls’ they would have to pay there. There was always a guard on duty so there would be no customers that got sex for free. After paying, they would travel up the grand staircase, that is still there today, and go have sex (Bush). Prostitution stayed legal in Lewiston until the 1940s. Not...
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...buildings they make. Those walls hold stories that are unique and they cannot be repeated. Taking care of those buildings helps humans to preserve the lives and stories of the people who lived in them earlier.
Works Cited
Branting, Steven. Historic Firsts of Lewiston Idaho: Unintended Greatness. San Francisco: The
History Press, 2013.
Bush, Garry. Email Interview. 25 March 2014.
“Historic Downtown Lewiston Walking Tour.” 6 October 2009. 15 May 2014
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Powell, Mike. “A Spooky Tour of Old Lewiston.” 3 October 2012
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Ross, Vikky. Email Interview. 27 March 2014.
“Staircase.” Lewiston. Personal Photograph by Author. 3 March 2014.
“Third Floor.” Lewiston. Personal Photograph by Author. 3 March 2014.
Approximately forty-five miles east of Sacramento, California, is the friendly town of Placerville, which marks a major “Gold Rush” historical landmark in the United States. In the early days of this small gold mining boomtown, Placerville was known as “Hangtown.” If you come into town, you will see the sign of Placerville, and underneath it you will see its nickname reading, “Old Hangtown.” Nooses can be seen all over town, on police cars, on historical landmark signs – even at the firehouse and on the Placerville City Seal. Placerville has a great deal of history behind its name. Many people who pass through the town, or even those that live there, don’t realize the history behind the town.
... increased, men became more involved in the sex industry. From the case of Helen Jewett and Robert P. Robinson, a new image of prostitution was created, as well as the new sporting man culture. Prostitution was not unique to women, for subcultures of male prostitutes and homosexuals existed. In the sex community, women formed support networks with one another, creating sisterhoods. As the years progressed, sex became more integrated into popular culture and public space, accessible to all classes of New Yorkers. Police and politics were often ineffective with handling prostitution, and often time’s police officers were handsomely paid off by well-known establishments; vigilantism was a result of this inadequate policing. Finally, in the late 1900s, Charles Henry Parkhurst led the most popular anti-prostitution campaign, resulting in the decline in the sex industry.
The University of Maryland has a rich history dating back to its founding in 1856 as the Maryland Agricultural College. Built between 1804 and 1812, The Rossborough Inn is the oldest building on campus today (Ghost Tour, 2). With its history, it is no surprise that the Inn has been a hotspot for ghost activity. Knowing that there have been numerous reports of ghosts at Rossborough, I visited the Inn to ask current employees at the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism, located in Rossborough Inn, if they themselves had experienced anything bizarre or if they had known others who had. I entered the small office where three women were talking and with their permission asked about their experiences with ghosts at Rossborough. Upon asking my question, all three smiled, although shaking their head, they indicated they had not. However, they all had heard of the stories, and one of the women replied and told me to speak with the University Archivist. She told me that she has spoken with the archivist, and upon learning the stories, she said that she “got freaked out and really wanted to go home.”
This ghost story was told by a nineteen-year-old Caucasian student at the University of Maryland. She is from the Baltimore Metro Area and lives with her mother and younger sister. I decided to approach her since she is a notorious lover of ghost stories and folklore. While we were hanging out with friends, I asked her to tell me a ghost story. As soon as I asked, her eyes lit up and she took me to the side, out of earshot of our friends. With great energy and enthusiastic facial expressions, she proceeded to tell me the following story about the Civil War site of the Battle of Gettysburg:
...struction. I really love the architecture of these buildings and wish that we had more resources to be able to preserve this piece of American history.
By the 1840’s, Five Points had become so notorious that its name was used to describe ignorance and depravity. There is a saying that in Five Points every house is a brothel, it is without a doubt a gross exaggeration but it still gives an idea of the situation in the slum. Throughout the years the industry of prostitution had developed as sex became more and public. Still, as shunned as the Five Points slum was, gentlemen from all echelons of society would visit the brothels to seek a little pleasure. With prostitution also comes liquors, as the women continued on their business, men would hang out in bars and drink until the wee hours. “In 1851, there were at least 252 saloons and groceries in Five Points’ 22 blocks, or about a dozen per block.” In the nineteenth century, New York groceries sold liquors by the glass and always kept a barrel of beer ready for thirsty customers, they would also have pool tables to entertain them and maybe encourage them to spend a little money in the establishment. Although they looked more like bars than actual groceries those business still featured the essential goods needed by the population such as food supply, soap, tobacco and many more. However, those saloons as good a place they could be, they were also the place for fistfights and drunken crimes. Five Points was as mixing pot of different cultures and street gangs brooding in an overcrowded place, a little spark was all it took for it to make it explode and the saloons and groceries were the perfect place for it to happen as they were the places where people usually gathered to
In a small suburb, just outside of Washington, DC, the neighborhood of small tract houses was laid out neatly in rows. The homes were built backyard to backyard in the early 1960’s. Each dwelling was a different color, but mostly the same style. Nearly everyone had a metal screen door with their initial proudly displayed in swirling cursive. The postage stamp sized front...
On the morning of February 23rd, 1901, Chung Yick stood chatting with Mr. Joseph Hoffman, the proprietor of the picture frame shop on the ground floor of the Charles Street house the two men shared with several other tenants. The house wasn't much better than a tenement building, with its dirty wooden face and narrow crooked stairs. A crude sign on one side said "PICTURES" in bold letters, marking the entrance to Hoffman's store. The Yicks lived on the other side, along with the Rileys and the widow Driscoll, who were cramped up on the second floor. Still, it was a decent street to live on, with a mixture of small shops and residential homes and the Mosshassuck River creeping alongside it like an emaciated and sleepy serpent.
The Nelly Butler hauntings is referred to as the first recorded ghost story in American history (LiBrizzi 5), and possibly the most exciting hauntings to date as there are still many unsolved mysteries. The apparition appeared on more than 30 separate occasions to over 100 witnesses in Sullivan, Maine, just over fifteen years after the American Revolution (5-6). Although the Nelly Butler apparition is one of the most convincing ghosts of all time, it was subject to suspicions of fraud. These claims turn out to be groundless as the evidence reveals the ghost to be genuine.
The Haunting of Hill House written by Shirley Jackson, and Tony Burgess’ People Live Still in Cashtown Corners, are horror novels. Both evoke fear in readers in dissimilar ways. The Haunting of Hill House takes readers on an ominous journey that creates feelings of uneasiness, while Burgess’ novel has a direct approach to create fear, right from a rampant killer’s point of view. Despite the differing approaches on the classic genre, Jackson and Burgess demonstrate that horror stems from isolation. Isolation negatively affects mental health, which produces petrifying chaos and destruction of oneself and others.
a dull grey colour as if it had lost the will to live and stopped
in our everyday life. It fails to relate human life and needs to the buildings built.
Discuss the ways in which The Red Room, The Signalman and The Inexperienced Ghost create and sustain atmosphere and tension. It is clear that atmosphere and tension are of fundamental importance to the success and effectiveness of a ghostly tale. As Susan Hill, a prolific writer of ghostly tales, says ‘one thing a ghost story must have is atmosphere’. Also it is clear that ‘The Red Room’, ‘The Signallman’ and ‘The Inexperienced Ghost’ create tension and atmosphere at varying degrees. The role of the narrator is of fundamental importance when creating atmosphere and tension in the ghostly genre.
My childhood was a playground for imagination. Joyous nights were spent surrounded by family at my home in Brooklyn, NY. The constantly shaded red bricks of my family’s unattached town house located on West Street in Gravesend, a mere hop away from the beach and a short walk to the commotion of Brooklyn’s various commercial areas. In the winter, all the houses looked alike, rigid and militant, like red-faced old generals with icicles hanging from their moustaches. One townhouse after the other lined the streets in strict parallel formation, block after block, interrupted only by my home, whose fortunate zoning provided for a uniquely situa...
As Nuttgens eloquently expressed, architecture is a “vital…expression of the experience of mankind.” It is more than just buildings used for storage, housing, religious purposes, simple functionality; it is a great manifestation of the commonality of man, the great connecting factor of humankind. However, it can be argued that the ancient and classic forms or architecture are in essence more “profound…lasting… [and] inexhaustible” than those of their modern counterparts, because of some key differences in the ways ancient and modern architecture are practiced.