Nancy Bradley
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Image Credit: Nancy Bradley I was invited once again a few months ago to investigate the Historic Ione Hotel in Northern California, this time for exploring ghosts and spirits for a national television series. I had been there many times before, investigating for my book Incredible World of Gold Rush Ghosts. This visit we not only were to look for new ghosts and spirits, we wanted to reacquaint with those that have stayed around through time. This visit we were surprised to find the town of Ione rather quiet and sad, the majority of the stores on the strip were gone, leaving only their vacant buildings, obviously a sign of the economy. Still standing regal among the run downs however, was the ever present Ione Hotel. The gruesome state of the town made the investigation even more spooky. It would be interesting to see what would transpire this visit. The Hotel had changes hands again too, since our other visits. New owners, Mahmood & Editha Ghani were gracious and happy to welcome us. They wanted to share their stories. My visit had been written up in the local newsletter and many town-folks were waiting for our arrival. Mahmood immediately took me by the hand and led me to a woman in need of my psychic assistance in her personal life. I led her to our assigned room for the night and after hearing her story, was able to help her on her path. As night came upon us, we knew it was time to get cameras set up and equipment ready to record the paranormal activity in the place. Everything was leading to a rollicking good investigation.
I could not help but reflect on our past visits. There is a lot of gold rush history in the town of Ione. During the Gold Rush days, it is said that the Sacramento stage route, passing through Ione, carried more than $270 million in gold bullion. One of these stops was made at the Q. Ranch to the northwest of Ione. Ione however, has not gone down in history as a mining camp, but as an agricultural metropolis. Strategically located 40 miles east of Sacramento on Hwy 104, it supplied fruits and vegetables to the miners among (we hear) other things.
During its camp days, Ione was nicknamed Bedbug and then Freezeout. That was perhaps imaginative, but embarrassing in its implication. Townsfolk soon settled on the name Ione, a better idea. The Q. Ranch of yesterday is long gone, but this town still refuses to give up her ghosts. Phantom stages we have heard over the years appear in the streets. Women of the night walk those same streets.
As for the Ione Hotel, it is known that a man staggers into Room 13. He is not very tall, a bit stocky, and what remaining hair he has is gray around the edges. He looks annoyed as he pulls the covers from your bed, his voice deep and harsh. “You cannot sleep here,” he tells the guests bluntly.
It is the middle of the night and most guests are annoyed and/or frightened. They had made a reservation and paid in full for this room. Not to be intimidated, some say they pull the remaining sheet up over their heads and yell at him to get out of their room. They find the stranger does not particularly like men. He looked at one woman’s husband lying beside her and picked up a water pitcher, one remembered from spirit memory, walked to the other side of the bed, and poured the phantom water on her companion. With a mischievous smirk, he then opened the door. Both she and her husband could clearly see out into the hall. They noticed the intruder left through that door. Your husband jumped out of bed to follow where the man had gone only to crash into the door which was closed in front of him, still locked from the inside. One has to wonder if they stayed in the room. Some guests to that room have been known to leave in the middle of the night.
Welcome to Room 13. If it were you, you would have just had an unofficial visit from Gregarious George, one of the strongest spirits of the Ione Hotel. In his defense, he just wants you out of his room. He’s harboring a hangover and needs the bed. Circumstances being different, he probably would let you stay.
Ah, George! Those who knew him in life insist he was friendly and outgoing. After work each day, he would scout the local bars to drink with his friends and eventually would end up with a nightcap at the hotel. Unfortunately, back in those days if one of his intoxicated friends was sloshed before him, they would ‘borrow’ his room until he showed up. George would come up the stairs, enter his room, remove the covers, and drop them to the floor to get the uninvited guest out of his bed. After all, an inebriated man in need of his bed does not have much tact. George died here at the hotel and still stays around, because, well, it is much more pleasant than going home drunk. Unless he has invited you in to play cards, he figures anyone in his room is taking advantage of his hospitality.
Ole’ George is more gracious with women. More than likely, if he had seen you there alone, he would tiptoe out of the room to sleep down the hall. Women in Room 13 rarely have to worry about George. Unless you are there with some guy…
On our visit in 2005, Milly Jones, a delightful, yet no nonsense type of person talked of when she purchased the hotel in 1977. Soon after taking possession (pun intended), she saw what appeared to be smoke in the dining room. She watched as a floating cloud formed above her into a pyramid shape. “The hair on my arms went up,” she said, “and I couldn’t imagine what it was.”
The cloud continued to float in mid-air, and refused to move. Curious, she waited for it to dissipate, but it hovered, quivering slightly, but staying in the same spot. Walking over to it, she puckered her lips to blow as hard as she could. They mysterious smoke moved and broke up into small pieces, but then reformed and came back to the same spot. It began to vibrate.
Jones called her dishwasher, working in the adjacent room.
“What is that?” she asked the boy.
He looked up and shrugged his shoulders. Certainly not anything he had ever seen before. He tried to make sense of it. “Well, I don’t know” he told her. “It must be cigarette smoke or maybe smoke from the kitchen,” he reasoned. It did not look like either, and he knew neither explanation was adequate or accurate. Jones, as I said, is a no-nonsense kind of gal. She took what he said and examined the possibilities. “Well” she replied, “There are no smokers in here, and nothing is burning in the kitchen.”
The boy reached behind him for a wet dishtowel. With the bravery of a young man he waved the towel into the pyramid of fog-like smoke. Again it scattered as it had before, broke up, and then re-formed into the same shape and back to the same place.
Jones and the boy looked at each other. The unknown substance was certainly persistent. Both she and her young companion said at the same time; “GHOST!”
Enough was enough! They ran for the kitchen. From the secure environment of the next room, they watched as the apparition slowly moved to the left side of the room, shrunk, and disappeared. In memory, they later said it was as if it had been sucked up through a vacuum. Of course this was before they became accustomed to strange things going on at the hotel. It was to be the start of many encounters of the unknown and spooky kind.
Over the years Jones recorded many seemingly paranormal events. “We had ‘gifts’ come our way” she shared with us. “One day, a silk lady’s shoelace appeared out of the blue, landing on one of the dinner tables. Another time, a bartender saw something on the bar before opening in the morning. It turned out to be a grease cap from a Model T Car. We learned to be polite and say ‘thank you’ to whoever was sending these things to us.”
She soon learned she only had to ask for things and they would be given to her. Obviously, the spirits at the Ione Hotel took a liking to her. “Once we needed 72 steaks to get us through the weekend and the freezer was empty. The person in charge of ordering had forgotten them. We could not get a supplier to deliver at this late date. I said openly into the air, “What will we do, we need those steaks?!” Next time we opened the freezer, the steaks were there. I was never billed for them.” Another time she took a liking to six clear, fluted, carnival glass bowls in the cupboard that had belonged to the former owner. She wished she could have a complete set. “Soon each time I opened the cupboard there was another dish to add to the collection. At the end of our ownership, we had 30 plates” she told us, more than a complete set.
The Ione Hotel is a nineteenth-century Gold Star Hotel, restaurant and bar. Originally built in the early 1850s, there are 14 antique guest rooms, a balcony overlooking the ageold Main Street, and another balcony from which you can see the near-by town of Sutter Creek. Beseeched with fires that plagued most buildings in the Gold Rush days of California, it suffered its share of damage, but as a survivor, it was consistently rebuild to its former specifications.
Unfortunately, in this century, the Ione Hotel was almost completely destroyed by fire once more. It happened in 1988, just as new owners Tom and Dorothy Shone were taking possession of the building. With sheer determination, they rolled up their sleeves, and painstakingly set making the structure even more beautiful than ever before. Salvaging all they could from the original hotel, when finished, the rooms were filled with enough antiques to still remind you of yesteryear. They graciously allowed Gold Rush Ghosts Paranormal Investigations to explore the building in 1998. At that investigation I smelled smoke at the top of the stairs, and felt the identifiable presence of ghosts and spirits. I was drawn to Room 6. Through spirit communication I was able to confirm that a child had died in that room in a fire. On EVP we were able to capture the voice of a woman identifying herself as the grandmother of the toddler. “Granddaughter died in the fire” the voice states. Together again in spirit, the grandmother, mother and child are quite composed. They left us through the wall, not the door. We were later to confirm the place they exited from was where the door had been ‘way back when’. Upon investigation, it was confirmed the incident happened in 1884. Sensitively, the name given was Mary Phelps. This was confirmed when a woman came into the hotel. “I understand you have identified a Mary Phelps as being an entity in the hotel” she stated. “I thought you might want to know that my grandmother’s name was Mary Phelps, and she and my great-grandmother stayed at the hotel.”
News of the ghostly imprints and spirits at the hotel has spread over the years. “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” came to check it out. The television show “That’s Incredible” featured the Ione Hotel for its viewers as well.
On this most recent visit, patrons of the hotel, restaurant and bar were delighted to relate their stories to me. However, GRG and our crew of the television show Investigating the Unknown are only interested in proven facts. During this visit as well as others, we have learned that spirits can become bored and then mischievous. The television crew learned to cover their equipment. Rambunctious spirits become attracted to lights and use them as games to play with, turning dials and switches, as well as resetting or turning off the equipment. Equipment can be found in places where you did not leave it. We have learned our lessons well, and this visit would be no exception!
The new owner Mahmood Ghani could not be more accommodating. He told us his stories of seeing, feeling and hearing the unknown. He spoke of being confused by seeing people in the building walking around when he knew the building was empty. He spoke of things being moved around in the kitchen without hands on them. His daughter also spoke of her encounters. “Sometime when the beds are made and then you go back into the room, they are messed up” she told us.
Bob King, a head investigator with GRG was able to secure meter readings of 1-4 mg on our EMF meter in the room that Gregarious George slept in. Four investigators were able to see a male presence brush past them as we set up equipment, meeting the description of George. Orbs were filmed in abundance in the room. There is a hissing sound that is encountered on EVP. Our covers were askew after we made the bed to leave the next morning.
We decided to take interviews on the upstairs deck. While doing so, we were locked out from the inside of the building. As a bodyguard was just outside the door keeping people from invading the spot and ruining the shoot, this was impossible from today’s standards of understanding. No one was allowed through and past him to lock the door. Several spirit forms are clearly visible on the tape.
The room numbers of the bedrooms have since changed since George’s time at the Ione Hotel. Without telling where the old Room 13 is, it will be interesting in the future to see what is reported by guests in that room as old George continues to take up residence.
The Ione Hotel is located at 25 West Main Street, Ione, Ca. Stop by and see if you are lucky enough to encounter Gregarious George and his buddies. However, if you are female and get that room, are alone or with other females and without a man, chances are you will get a good nights sleep.
Copyright NANCY BRADLEY 2009, for the upcoming book: BE A GHOST BUSTER (From the Television show INVESTIGATING THE UNKNOWN) WITH GOLD RUSH GHOSTS PARANORMAL INVESTIGATIONS.
More about NANCY, her Readings and television shows is available at:
http://www.nancybradley.org and http://www.goldrushghosts.com Comments (0)
The historically haunted Ione Hotel
May 28, 2009 | 0 comments
Image Credit: Nancy Bradley I was invited once again a few months ago to investigate the Historic Ione Hotel in Northern California, this time for exploring ghosts and spirits for a national television series. I had been there many times before, investigating for my book Incredible World of Gold Rush Ghosts. This visit we not only were to look for new ghosts and spirits, we wanted to reacquaint with those that have stayed around through time. This visit we were surprised to find the town of Ione rather quiet and sad, the majority of the stores on the strip were gone, leaving only their vacant buildings, obviously a sign of the economy. Still standing regal among the run downs however, was the ever present Ione Hotel. The gruesome state of the town made the investigation even more spooky. It would be interesting to see what would transpire this visit. The Hotel had changes hands again too, since our other visits. New owners, Mahmood & Editha Ghani were gracious and happy to welcome us. They wanted to share their stories. My visit had been written up in the local newsletter and many town-folks were waiting for our arrival. Mahmood immediately took me by the hand and led me to a woman in need of my psychic assistance in her personal life. I led her to our assigned room for the night and after hearing her story, was able to help her on her path. As night came upon us, we knew it was time to get cameras set up and equipment ready to record the paranormal activity in the place. Everything was leading to a rollicking good investigation.
I could not help but reflect on our past visits. There is a lot of gold rush history in the town of Ione. During the Gold Rush days, it is said that the Sacramento stage route, passing through Ione, carried more than $270 million in gold bullion. One of these stops was made at the Q. Ranch to the northwest of Ione. Ione however, has not gone down in history as a mining camp, but as an agricultural metropolis. Strategically located 40 miles east of Sacramento on Hwy 104, it supplied fruits and vegetables to the miners among (we hear) other things.
During its camp days, Ione was nicknamed Bedbug and then Freezeout. That was perhaps imaginative, but embarrassing in its implication. Townsfolk soon settled on the name Ione, a better idea. The Q. Ranch of yesterday is long gone, but this town still refuses to give up her ghosts. Phantom stages we have heard over the years appear in the streets. Women of the night walk those same streets.
As for the Ione Hotel, it is known that a man staggers into Room 13. He is not very tall, a bit stocky, and what remaining hair he has is gray around the edges. He looks annoyed as he pulls the covers from your bed, his voice deep and harsh. “You cannot sleep here,” he tells the guests bluntly.
It is the middle of the night and most guests are annoyed and/or frightened. They had made a reservation and paid in full for this room. Not to be intimidated, some say they pull the remaining sheet up over their heads and yell at him to get out of their room. They find the stranger does not particularly like men. He looked at one woman’s husband lying beside her and picked up a water pitcher, one remembered from spirit memory, walked to the other side of the bed, and poured the phantom water on her companion. With a mischievous smirk, he then opened the door. Both she and her husband could clearly see out into the hall. They noticed the intruder left through that door. Your husband jumped out of bed to follow where the man had gone only to crash into the door which was closed in front of him, still locked from the inside. One has to wonder if they stayed in the room. Some guests to that room have been known to leave in the middle of the night.
Welcome to Room 13. If it were you, you would have just had an unofficial visit from Gregarious George, one of the strongest spirits of the Ione Hotel. In his defense, he just wants you out of his room. He’s harboring a hangover and needs the bed. Circumstances being different, he probably would let you stay.
Ah, George! Those who knew him in life insist he was friendly and outgoing. After work each day, he would scout the local bars to drink with his friends and eventually would end up with a nightcap at the hotel. Unfortunately, back in those days if one of his intoxicated friends was sloshed before him, they would ‘borrow’ his room until he showed up. George would come up the stairs, enter his room, remove the covers, and drop them to the floor to get the uninvited guest out of his bed. After all, an inebriated man in need of his bed does not have much tact. George died here at the hotel and still stays around, because, well, it is much more pleasant than going home drunk. Unless he has invited you in to play cards, he figures anyone in his room is taking advantage of his hospitality.
Ole’ George is more gracious with women. More than likely, if he had seen you there alone, he would tiptoe out of the room to sleep down the hall. Women in Room 13 rarely have to worry about George. Unless you are there with some guy…
On our visit in 2005, Milly Jones, a delightful, yet no nonsense type of person talked of when she purchased the hotel in 1977. Soon after taking possession (pun intended), she saw what appeared to be smoke in the dining room. She watched as a floating cloud formed above her into a pyramid shape. “The hair on my arms went up,” she said, “and I couldn’t imagine what it was.”
The cloud continued to float in mid-air, and refused to move. Curious, she waited for it to dissipate, but it hovered, quivering slightly, but staying in the same spot. Walking over to it, she puckered her lips to blow as hard as she could. They mysterious smoke moved and broke up into small pieces, but then reformed and came back to the same spot. It began to vibrate.
Jones called her dishwasher, working in the adjacent room.
“What is that?” she asked the boy.
He looked up and shrugged his shoulders. Certainly not anything he had ever seen before. He tried to make sense of it. “Well, I don’t know” he told her. “It must be cigarette smoke or maybe smoke from the kitchen,” he reasoned. It did not look like either, and he knew neither explanation was adequate or accurate. Jones, as I said, is a no-nonsense kind of gal. She took what he said and examined the possibilities. “Well” she replied, “There are no smokers in here, and nothing is burning in the kitchen.”
The boy reached behind him for a wet dishtowel. With the bravery of a young man he waved the towel into the pyramid of fog-like smoke. Again it scattered as it had before, broke up, and then re-formed into the same shape and back to the same place.
Enough was enough! They ran for the kitchen. From the secure environment of the next room, they watched as the apparition slowly moved to the left side of the room, shrunk, and disappeared. In memory, they later said it was as if it had been sucked up through a vacuum. Of course this was before they became accustomed to strange things going on at the hotel. It was to be the start of many encounters of the unknown and spooky kind.
Over the years Jones recorded many seemingly paranormal events. “We had ‘gifts’ come our way” she shared with us. “One day, a silk lady’s shoelace appeared out of the blue, landing on one of the dinner tables. Another time, a bartender saw something on the bar before opening in the morning. It turned out to be a grease cap from a Model T Car. We learned to be polite and say ‘thank you’ to whoever was sending these things to us.”
She soon learned she only had to ask for things and they would be given to her. Obviously, the spirits at the Ione Hotel took a liking to her. “Once we needed 72 steaks to get us through the weekend and the freezer was empty. The person in charge of ordering had forgotten them. We could not get a supplier to deliver at this late date. I said openly into the air, “What will we do, we need those steaks?!” Next time we opened the freezer, the steaks were there. I was never billed for them.” Another time she took a liking to six clear, fluted, carnival glass bowls in the cupboard that had belonged to the former owner. She wished she could have a complete set. “Soon each time I opened the cupboard there was another dish to add to the collection. At the end of our ownership, we had 30 plates” she told us, more than a complete set.
The Ione Hotel is a nineteenth-century Gold Star Hotel, restaurant and bar. Originally built in the early 1850s, there are 14 antique guest rooms, a balcony overlooking the ageold Main Street, and another balcony from which you can see the near-by town of Sutter Creek. Beseeched with fires that plagued most buildings in the Gold Rush days of California, it suffered its share of damage, but as a survivor, it was consistently rebuild to its former specifications.
Unfortunately, in this century, the Ione Hotel was almost completely destroyed by fire once more. It happened in 1988, just as new owners Tom and Dorothy Shone were taking possession of the building. With sheer determination, they rolled up their sleeves, and painstakingly set making the structure even more beautiful than ever before. Salvaging all they could from the original hotel, when finished, the rooms were filled with enough antiques to still remind you of yesteryear. They graciously allowed Gold Rush Ghosts Paranormal Investigations to explore the building in 1998. At that investigation I smelled smoke at the top of the stairs, and felt the identifiable presence of ghosts and spirits. I was drawn to Room 6. Through spirit communication I was able to confirm that a child had died in that room in a fire. On EVP we were able to capture the voice of a woman identifying herself as the grandmother of the toddler. “Granddaughter died in the fire” the voice states. Together again in spirit, the grandmother, mother and child are quite composed. They left us through the wall, not the door. We were later to confirm the place they exited from was where the door had been ‘way back when’. Upon investigation, it was confirmed the incident happened in 1884. Sensitively, the name given was Mary Phelps. This was confirmed when a woman came into the hotel. “I understand you have identified a Mary Phelps as being an entity in the hotel” she stated. “I thought you might want to know that my grandmother’s name was Mary Phelps, and she and my great-grandmother stayed at the hotel.”
News of the ghostly imprints and spirits at the hotel has spread over the years. “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” came to check it out. The television show “That’s Incredible” featured the Ione Hotel for its viewers as well.
On this most recent visit, patrons of the hotel, restaurant and bar were delighted to relate their stories to me. However, GRG and our crew of the television show Investigating the Unknown are only interested in proven facts. During this visit as well as others, we have learned that spirits can become bored and then mischievous. The television crew learned to cover their equipment. Rambunctious spirits become attracted to lights and use them as games to play with, turning dials and switches, as well as resetting or turning off the equipment. Equipment can be found in places where you did not leave it. We have learned our lessons well, and this visit would be no exception!
The new owner Mahmood Ghani could not be more accommodating. He told us his stories of seeing, feeling and hearing the unknown. He spoke of being confused by seeing people in the building walking around when he knew the building was empty. He spoke of things being moved around in the kitchen without hands on them. His daughter also spoke of her encounters. “Sometime when the beds are made and then you go back into the room, they are messed up” she told us.
Bob King, a head investigator with GRG was able to secure meter readings of 1-4 mg on our EMF meter in the room that Gregarious George slept in. Four investigators were able to see a male presence brush past them as we set up equipment, meeting the description of George. Orbs were filmed in abundance in the room. There is a hissing sound that is encountered on EVP. Our covers were askew after we made the bed to leave the next morning.
We decided to take interviews on the upstairs deck. While doing so, we were locked out from the inside of the building. As a bodyguard was just outside the door keeping people from invading the spot and ruining the shoot, this was impossible from today’s standards of understanding. No one was allowed through and past him to lock the door. Several spirit forms are clearly visible on the tape.
The room numbers of the bedrooms have since changed since George’s time at the Ione Hotel. Without telling where the old Room 13 is, it will be interesting in the future to see what is reported by guests in that room as old George continues to take up residence.
The Ione Hotel is located at 25 West Main Street, Ione, Ca. Stop by and see if you are lucky enough to encounter Gregarious George and his buddies. However, if you are female and get that room, are alone or with other females and without a man, chances are you will get a good nights sleep.
Copyright NANCY BRADLEY 2009, for the upcoming book: BE A GHOST BUSTER (From the Television show INVESTIGATING THE UNKNOWN) WITH GOLD RUSH GHOSTS PARANORMAL INVESTIGATIONS.
More about NANCY, her Readings and television shows is available at:
http://www.nancybradley.org and http://www.goldrushghosts.com Comments (0)
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