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| True Alaska Ghost Stories
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Gakona Lodge
Gakona, Alaska
Known as one of the only remaining original roadhouses left in Alaska, it is surrounded by beauty. Located next to a National Park in the Copper River valley, it maintains its purpose of providing the community with great services. Established in 1904 for travelers looking for a meal and a bed during their travels, it expanded its services to locals and eventually people started to travel to the lodge from outside Alaska. The lodge is rumored to be haunted by a poltergeist with a sense of humor. Doors will open, close and lock on their own, stereos begin to play and many other pranks have been recorded. Visitors have seen what looked like impressions on their beds from someone jumping on it just seconds before they enter the room. Tobacco smoke can be smelt along with voices and footsteps heard in the hallway. Many investigators claim in could be coming from Natives that first settled on the land and enjoy the visitors so much they are trying to have fun with them. However, it has never been proven who or what is haunting the lodge, just that it has a great history of ghosts and you are sure to see something in one of the 9 rooms or cabins they have.
Jesse Lee Home for Children
Seward, Alaska
What started out as an orphanage for any child who needed a place to live due to abandonment or unsafe home conditions, turned into a grand 120 room home. Agnes Soule took in any child who needed help and rarely turned anyone away. Eventually her good deeds became more of a job, and she soon realized that she would need some help to build a bigger and better home for the children she had brought in. Through correspondence with her father who was a Methodist bishop in Maine, she was able to obtain funding and raised enough money to build a two building orphanage which started out in Unalaska. She named the home the Jesse Lee Home for Children, after a man who was also a Methodist preacher of the colonial northeastern United States. Eventually Miss Soule married and became Mrs. Newell, together her and her husband ran the orphanage. The home was shut down once in the early 1920’s due to the Spanish influenza that wiped out the entire Alaskan native town of the coast. The home now became a refuge for all men, women and children to get better. The expense was too high to provide care for everyone and shutting it down seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Eventually the home was emptied and children were the only residents who remained. No records exist on the names of the children that graced the doors, but there were considered to be over 120 at any given time in a year. Eventually children left, some were adopted, some grew up and left and some died from tuberculosis. In 1964 a massive earthquake rocked south central Alaska and caused disastrous results, one of the halls in the building was heavily damaged and eventually condemned and demolished. The building wasn’t the only thing the community lost. A lot of children died that day because of the buildings destruction. The Methodist church decided to close the doors. The building itself has been abandoned for over 40 yrs. It is said today that many children haunt the home, not realizing they are dead, looking for Mrs. Newell. Often, giggling and singing can be heard. The building appears to be abandoned on the outside but is full of afterlife on the inside.
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