Haunted Hospitality

This week's episode isn't for the faint of heart. Zoey brings us the bloody history of The Sloss Furnaces, a national historic landmark in Birmingham, Alabama that once produced iron. The town of Birmingham was built almost overnight when Colonel James Withers Sloss, a merchant and railroad man, convinced he L&N Railroad company to merge the North and South lines through Jones Valley.

Jones Valley was selected as the home for Birmingham because it had all the raw ingredients needed to make iron within a 30 mile radius, including iron ore, coal, limestone, dolomite, and clay. The time period was after the Civil War when the need for iron, and later steel was at an all time high. So company's like James Sloss' Sloss Furnace Company grew very quickly.

However, they didn't care too much about their employee's safety. Around 60 men died while the Furnaces were in operation, and about 47 of them were under the watch of the night manager who was known as Slag. Slag mistreated the employees more than anyone else, and he, too, found his death at the property. People, including Zoey, believe that Slag refused to leave the factory.

There are more ghosts, though, and a visit from our favorite paranormal investigation team. But first, Robin brings us a Something Spooky to talk about the Megalodon shark.

Sources: https://hauntedhospitality.wordpress.com/2024/01/23/ep-146-the-gruesome-sloss-furnaces

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The Grand Galvez (also known as the Queen of the Gulf) has stood by the Galveston, Texas shore for over one hundred years, hosting weddings, swimsuit contests, and tourists visiting the Gulf of Mexico. During that time, ghost stories have collected around the building, with some calling it the most haunted hotel in the state.

In this episode, we dive into the ghost stories surrounding the Queen of the Gulf — from Audra, the "Love-lorn Lady" who believed her fiancé died at sea, to Sister Katherine, the protective nun who watches for the coming storm. We also discuss more recent paranormal experiences at the hotel, including slamming doors, a malfunctioning elevator, the smell of gardenias, and a ghost girl who" slept in a guest's bed for a night.

But first, Zoey is here with her Something Spooky: twin flames!

CW: suicide

Sources: https://hauntedhospitality.wordpress.com/2024/01/16/ep-145-the-queen-of-the-gulf

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Zoey decided to go big for their first episode of the new year, and they're covering The Bigfoot! It's about damn time, as Robin says. Bigfoot, or Sasquatch is a big, hairy, stinky man who has a foot that spans 24 inches. To put that into prospective, since Zoey did the math, Bigfoot would wear a men's size 50 to 56 shoe.

In this episode, Zoey dives deep into what the Bigfoot is, how he came to be, and what are some sciencey reasons for Bigfoot to exist. To quote Robin, "We're trying to science so hard." That's right, Zoey does their best to deep dive into things like the Bering Land Bridge, evolution, and anthropology. Somehow, it actually makes sense.

To round off the episode, Zoey then brings some stories from Southern Bigfoot Stories.

First YouTube Video with the audio of Bigfeet calls: https://youtu.be/rvFvzaKmVkY

Second YouTube Video that showed the Bigfoot: https://youtu.be/xb9YcIlkl_c?si=Owq7z2p-HdzC-p4a

But first, Robin brings a Something Spooky where she gives Zoey a Tarot Card reading for the New Year!

Sources: https://hauntedhospitality.wordpress.com/2024/01/09/ep-144-did-grandpa-make-the-bigfoot

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You may know it as the Witching Hour, the Devil's Hour, or simply 3 a.m. No matter which you call it, the hour between 3 and 4 o'clock in the morning is known for being a time when things go bump in the night. There's a wide range of theories for this phenomenon: from this being when the veil is thinnest, to the idea that demonic forces are at play, to a straightforward case of natural hallucinations from our sleep cycles.

In this episode, we explore these theories and talk about creepy, potentially supernatural experiences people have had from 3 to 4 a.m., including: a shadow figure sighting, claw marks, and two instances of *something* impersonating a mother.

Special thanks to friends-of-the-pod Rachael and Lindsey for sharing their stories with us!

But first, Zoey is here with her Something (Future? Spooky? Southern?): New Year's Resolutions!

Sources: https://hauntedhospitality.wordpress.com/2024/01/02/ep-143-the-witching-hour

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Robin and Zoey are celebrating the end of the year with booze, presents, and a deep dive into the conspiracy theory of the Men In Black! You may know them from the movie, Men in Black, starring Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith that came out in 1997, the same year as your hosts. These are men who wear all black, and usually sunglasses, whose raison d'être is to prevent the common person from knowing about aliens.

Zoey dives into the reason the Men in Black theory came to be, including the first few stories of them, and shares a few more stories of encounters with the mysterious Men in Black. MIBs, as we attempted to call them, are theorized to either be government spies or aliens attempting to look like humans. Zoey believes they're aliens, and Robin doesn't believe they exist.

Before we get to that, though, Robin shares a Buzzfeed quiz for her Something Southern, Order A Southern Feast And We’ll Guess Where You Grew Up! https://www.buzzfeed.com/jesseszewczyk/southern-feast-state-quiz

Also, a reminder to everyone that Zoey's book has been published! You can order it here: https://a.co/d/5EAKzI6

Happy New Year, everyone!

Sources: https://hauntedhospitality.wordpress.com/2023/12/26/ep-142-an-introduction-to-the-men-in-black/

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People would ask Simon Warner just about anything: where they might find their lost guitar, whether or not they should divorce their husbands, if their parents might reunite. They would stare at the crystal ball in his bungalow in Shelbyville, Tennessee, give him honest answers to his questions. And, in turn, he would give his advice: determined by some combination of astrology, self-professed psychic abilities, and his own vast knowledge of how people work. 

He also had a special interest in crime prevention and claimed he could tell when a murder would happen months before it actually did. He frequently worked with the police, drawing national attention in 1941 for correctly determining where a missing woman's body could be found. But in 1957, his life came to a sudden end when a customer killed him in his home, believing Simon hexed him and caused him agonizing stomach pain.

In this episode, we discuss Simon Warner's life, death, and career as a psychic.

But first, Zoey is here with her Something Spooky: a classic dark and stormy cocktail!

Sources: https://hauntedhospitality.wordpress.com/2023/12/19/ep-141-the-life-and-death-of-simon-warner

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 It's time to go to Zoey's favorite city: New Orleans, Louisiana! We're visiting Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop in the French Quarter. While the shop did originate as a Blacksmith Shop and keeps the name, the shop is better known for the drinks that they can make you. That's right, here's another Haunted Boozy Place! 

The Blacksmith Shop wasn't just any store in it's heyday, however. It was owned by Jean Lafitte, famous pirate and privateer. He was known to smuggle his stolen goods and sell them at the blacksmith shop. Jean himself is one of the ghosts who may haunt the place, along with an unnamed woman and a demon with red eyes.

But first, Robin brings us a Something Southern and Spooky, where she talks about Doll's Head Trail in Atlanta, GA!

Sources: https://hauntedhospitality.wordpress.com/2023/12/12/ep-140-haunted-boozy-places-part-4-lafittes-blacksmith-shop/

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We're back with another episode of our Frights in the Wild series, where we discuss first-person accounts of paranormal or otherwise spooky wilderness experiences from the web! Today's stories involve: 1) a young girl trying to find her way home in the woods, when she hears footsteps following her; 2) a man about to go to sleep beside his girlfriend in her childhood home, when he suddenly hears her voice speaking outside the house; 3) an annual father-and-son trip that leads to an eerily abandoned campground; and 4) a family staying in a cabin in the mountains, when they encounter a doppelgänger, an intruder, or something else entirely.

As always, we discuss the mysteries each of these stories hold and our theories.

But first, Zoey's here with an extra special Something Spooky: video footage of a ghost, caught by her mother's security camera!

Sources: https://hauntedhospitality.wordpress.com/2023/12/05/ep-139-frights-in-the-wild-4-the-stranger-on-the-stairs

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Hello everyone!

It's been a HOT minute since Robin and Zoey have had a break from researching, recording, editing, and posting a Haunted Hospitality episode. I'm sure we'll tell you all about it in our next how's life section, but life got busy there for a while around the Thanksgiving Holiday. 

So we're taking a break this week, and we're sharing a sneak peek into our Patreon episodes. This episode came out in January 2023, and it was a Friday when it was released, so the entire episode is about Friday the 13ths and why they're considered so unlucky.

If you want to see more episodes like this, you can subscribe at patreon.com/hauntedhospitality. For only $3 a month, you get a new episode from us on the 13th, because we're spooky!

Sources: https://hauntedhospitality.wordpress.com/2023/11/28/thanksgiving-break/ 

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Cassadaga, Florida is an unincorporated community in Volusia County, which is on the east coast of Florida. Cassadaga was founded by well known "Seer of Spiritualism" George P Colby. George was a trance medium, meaning he would conduct seances with the dead by going into a trance and allowing a spirit to speak through his body. He formed relationships and bonds of trust with a few special spirits, who became his spirit guides and would communicate through him to the human realm on behalf of other spirits.

One of these spirit guides was a Native American man named Seneca, who told George that he was destined to be instrumental in founding a Spiritualist community in the south. Seneca gave George a vision of his future home, and George left Cassadaga, NY to find Cassadaga, FL. 

The land that is known as Cassadaga, FL hosts The Southern Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association, where like minded people attend meetings, seances, and lectures on all things Spiritual. 

In today's episode, Zoey goes deeper into the lore of the town and shares the three biggest draws: the vortexes, the Devil's Chair, and the ghosts of the Cassadaga Hotel.

But first, Robin shares her something spooky: Krampus!

Sources: https://hauntedhospitality.wordpress.com/2023/11/21/ep-138-the-psychic-capital-of-the-world/

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