South Pass City sits along a valley in the banks of Willow Creek in Wyoming. It’s about ten miles north of the Oregon Trail and was once a prominent gold mining town. The settlers had to post lookout towers on the outskirts of town. Indian attacks were quite frequent. In 1868, the city had around two hundred and fifty buildings and over a couple thousand residents. Unfortunately, this town didn’t last long. By 1872, the town only housed a couple hundred people. The gold mining turned out to be to costly for the miners and most of them went belly up. They abandoned the town and moved on to the next. In 1873, about fifty people were left in the city and that’s when tragedy struck. The Indians learned that there weren’t very many people left in South Pass City. This was there time to ride in and take out the rest of the residents. If they had to kill some people then that’s what they had to do. The white settlers took over their land and gold. Now it was their turn.

The Willmers’ bought the town in the early 1900’s after it had completely shut down. During their time of owning it a fair amount of strange occurrences had taken place. It soon became to much to handle and they sold the town to the state of Wyoming. The state bought it for less than the Willmers had paid, but that didn’t bother them. This family just wanted it off of their hands and given to someone else. Maybe a different family would have better luck with it. Every couple of years the state would put it up for auction and every time it went unsold. That was until the late 1980’s. A family by the name of the Johnsons went to the state auction and purchased the town for a steal. They heard the rumors of ghosts or hauntings. The Johnsons paid no mind to that nonsense. Tom and Nancy Johnson knew that there was still gold throughout that town. If there was money to be made they were going to get it.

(image:amanda’simaginarium/flickr)

The Johnsons had owned the town for roughly three years but hadn’t made much progress. They had some other projects going on and South Pass City had been put on the back burner for the time being. It was 1991, and the Johnsons finally returned back to South Pass City. They knew before they could get to gold mining that they would have to get to the bottom of this ghost nonsense. Well they would need to find out if the tales and rumors had any truth behind them. Wyoming is known for quite a few of their ghost towns. Tom and Nancy knew there had to be a well respected ghost hunting group in the area. They made a few calls and found two friends who had a paranormal activity business as their side job. Ned and Steve were their names. The ghost hunting business they owned was called Midwest Paranormal Researchers. They had been in the business for about six years. During that time they had encountered almost every sort of ghost and paranormal event you could think of. Everything from apparitions, to voices and even families presenting themselves. They preferred to investigate ghost towns. There was more to explore and better chances of catching something. Usually, it required more gear to set up but it was worth it in the end.

Ned and Steve went to college in different universities. They did however follow the same Internet forum that was strictly about paranormal research. They became email buddies and soon after that were putting ideas together about forming a business. They had seen the shady work that came out of most of the research places and knew they could do better. Both of them had a feeling that there wasn’t meant to be more in this business. They finished college and eventually moved to the same town. They used their high paying jobs to save up cash to start up their true love, ghost hunting.

After years of saving money they finally had enough put aside to buy the gear needed to collect some hard evidence. The first couple jobs seemed almost like hoaxes. It was kooks, thinking their houses were haunted and having the two men try to bring out the ghosts. There were not ghosts. You’d be surprised that a majority of the time there are no hauntings. There are no ghosts roaming through the walls and making strange sounds. Most of the time it’s just the house itself. It ranges anywhere from old pipes, to wooden floors and broken window seals. Howling noises are just wind and talking ghosts are old pipes heating up during the winter. It’s funny how you can attribute such far fetched occurrences with simple solutions. These two were the masters at debunking. It’s not that they didn’t want to believe, or find ghosts, but they were smart enough to prove fact from fiction.

When Ned and Steve received the call from the Johnsons they were quite thrilled. They had read magazine articles and had seen history books that contained the story of South Pass City. None of the articles or books really told the story of what happened when the Indians attacked the town for the last time. They knew that there was a house that was burnt down in the city. If there was any place to start looking that would be a prime location. Ned was curious if any of the Indians had died during their battle and if their ghosts were there. It was obvious that many of the townsfolk had died and that’s how the town ended. How many had died though? How had they died? This was what they needed to find out.

With such a busy schedule Steve and Ned were unable to come to South Pass City until 1993. They arrived in town around late March. When they got there the Johnsons had been running late. Ned and Steve decided to take a tour around town. There was a giant Gold Mining Mill that was located up on a hill on the north side of town. They had planned that to be their last stop. Most of the town had worked there. If ghosts were present than that was certainly going to be the hot spot. The two men slowly moved through the town. Taking in every building and every street. Trying to pinpoint which spots would be best and which they would be better off avoiding. The Johnsons finally showed up, close to an hour late, they apologized profusely for being late. Ned and Steve didn’t mind at all. They were too busy gathering up clues and things to look for during tonight’s investigation. The Johnsons came over to them and told them to please find out what was going on in this town. Whether it be real or fake was of no concern. Just as long as the problem was taken care of. There was too much gold and money left untouched in this town that they were hoping to tap in on. The boys understood what their client was looking for and moved on with their investigation.

(image:SandraJungling/flickr)

They went to sleep that night and woke up early the next morning, setting up cameras all over the town, for tonight’s investigation. The main street had a couple old shops on it and there were two streets that branched off that. Those streets were full of homes that a good portion of the town lived in. Steve set up on camera facing down mainstreet. Ned went into, what was the grocery store at one point in time, and put a camera in the front and back of the store. They each then moved towards the housing area and picked a couple houses they thought looked unique to set up devices in. This took up most of the day and nighttime was slowly creeping in. The men went back to the house they were staying in and cooked up a small meal before they began their adventure. Dinner was over and they both grabbed a backpack with a few EMF meters, flash lights and infared recorders.

There were no street lights in the town which made everything completely dark. The only light sources they had were from the moon and the flashlights that they had brought with them. Steve and Ned walked slowly up and down mainstreet a couple times. They were scanning the street and a majority of the buildings that sat on the street. Steve picked up a few small light readings but nothing substantial or worth pursuing. Ned pulled out his laptop and looked over the video cameras they had set up through the town. He saw a flash, come across the screen, in one of the homes. He closed up the laptop and they both went running down the street. The burned down house, they had seen yesterday, was were the light was coming from. They walked up to the house and there wasn’t much left. All the wood was piled on top of the house and the basement wasn’t accessible. You could see downstairs and it looked like there were bullet casings and arrows. They walked around to the back when their infrared lit up and their EMF meters started picking up readings. As they came to the back of the house they heard a voice say, “run”. At first Steve thought Ned had said something to him. They moved the video recorders around the back yard and two small beings came to light. One was laying on the ground and the other was standing over it. The one standing kept striking the one laying down. A bright light came over the screen of the recorder and everything went black. The men looked up from the screen and couldn’t see anything. Suddenly, another figure appeared in the basement. They moved their cameras down there but there wasn’t anything that showed up on the screen. This figure was standing down below them, clear as day.

(image:teganB/flickr)

Things were intensifying quickly in South Pass City. Steve and Ned’s cameras were capturing things all over the city. From main street to different houses, they knew this burned down house had the most history, they needed to get to the bottom of what happened. They sat at this one house for a little over an hour and weren’t getting anymore clues. There weren’t anymore ghosts showing up on any camera’s or presenting themselves. Steve told Ned they needed to move on and leave this house. They had gathered all the evidence they were going to get. Ned agreed and they packed up their gear and moved back towards main street where they had seen quite a bit of activity going on. Just as they were walking away they heard a scream come from the house. What came next would blow every conspiracy out of the water. It wouldn’t have been believed had they not recorded it.

The house, that had been burned down, suddenly lit up in flames. They both turned around and recorded everything that was happening. Next two ghosts appeared. One was an Indian on a horse and one was a woman with a gun. She had obviously lived in this house and the Indian was part of the tribe that had attacked the town. Ned and Steve both saw the Indian, toss what appeared to be a log on fire into the woman’s home. It hit the floor and went up in flames. The woman shot at the Indian with a single shot gun. The woman and the Indian collapsed with the house and everything went tumbling in. The fire went out and everything went black. Ned and Steve just hit the mother load of paranormal activity. They couldn’t believe what they had just seen. Little did they know, this wasn’t the last of crazy things that were going to happen this evening.

Walking back to town, still both in shock, not sure how or what just happened. Once they came to the center of town Ned flipped open the laptop to go over all of the camera’s again. He saw that on the camera pointing down the road there was a flicker of light off in the distance. It was in the same general direction that the Gold Mine was located. Ned turned the screen so that Steve could see it. They decided to walk towards the mine and see if they could find out what was going on in there.

The building that was on top of the Mine was huge. It was built up of three floors. The first floor was where they hauled all of the gold up. There were small amounts of gold still left around in the dirt, on the floor, if you looked hard enough you could find some pieces. The second floor was the where they sifted through all of the gold. Gold was broke down away from the dirt and then melted to form bars. After the bars were made everything was sent up to the third floor to be inspected and went over for a final time. After the bars were approved they were sent out to the banks to be sold.

Steven and Ned came up to the building and were in awe. How amazing this building was and the history that had been made here. It was a work of art and had been a real working Gold Mine at one point in time. Gold, the stuff that makes this country go around, from rags to riches. Of course this town had gone from rags to riches and back to rags again. They opened the door to the entrance and walked in. They saw old wheelbarrows and carts that were once used to transport the gold around. There were small train tracks that led down into the mine shafts that made it easier for them to push the carts up and down. They pulled out their LED flash lights and moved forward.

(image:JamesWheeler/flickr)

There was a scratching sound that came from the far side of the room. They panned their flashlights and cameras over that way but nothing was being picked up. A piece of wood came crashing down from the second flood and landed on one of the carts that was sitting about twenty feet behind them. Both men jumped about five feet in the air and let out a yell. “What in the world was that?!” they both screamed. Steve was moving his infrared camera around when a light popped up on it. That light turned into a figure and then into an actual human on his video recorder. The light came charging at him, and even though being a ghost, Steve jumped out of the way and fell down on some tracks. Ned yelled over to him and asked if he was okay. Steve told him that he was a little startled but nothing that couldn’t be fixed. Just as Steve said those words a cart came barreling down the tracks at him. He stood up but not in time. The cart slammed against his back and he went flying onto the dirt and was knocked unconscious.

Ned was pushing on Steve trying to wake him up. Ten minutes of worrying and valiantly trying to wake his friend, Steve’s eyes opened up. He grimaced in pain. Ned said, “Steve you went down like a sack of potatoes.” Steve had a small grin. He slowly made his way up, with Ned’s help and they both walked up to the second floor. It seemed a little too dangerous for anymore exploring on the first level. Once they were up to the second level something strange happen. A light lit up on the third floor and beams shined through the wooden boards on to them. When the light came down tiny specs of gold that were lying on the floor radiated around the room.

A ghost went walking through the room carrying what looked like a bucket. The ghost vanished and the light that was shining down from the third floor disappeared. Ned and Steve got everything on tape. They changed out the batteries in their camera’s and walked up to the third floor. Steve opened the door and stepped into the top room. There were benches lined up along the far walls. On each bench had little weigh scales. In the far corner, on a small table, sat a little gold bar. Ned nudged Steve and pointed to the table. They went over but stopped before picking it up. Was this a trap? Countless other people had searched this town and certainly this building. Why hadn’t any of them picked it up. Or had they grabbed it and something terrible happened? Steve scanned it over with his recorder not picking up any heat signals and he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary with it. Ned kept staring at it. It was hard for him to take his eyes off of the gold. Yes, it was worth a fair amount of money but it shouldn’t of been enough to completely mesmerize him. Ned told Steve, “Maybe we should just grab it together. What’s the worst that could happen?” Steve hesitantly agreed. They both reached their hands out and grabbed the bar. Screams echoed through the top floor. A burst of light erupted out of the gold bar and went right through Steve and Ned’s bodies. They both fell back onto the floor. A curse had been put on the town and the gold by the Indians before the war was over. They said anyone who comes to the town will be haunted. Anyone who touches the gold…will die…

The End.