Haunted hotels, frightening forts and more of Northern Michigan’s most haunted places
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NORTHERN MICHIGAN — If you’ve ever been curious to learn the stories behind the things that go bump in the night, Chris Struble is the one to ask.
Struble, owner of Petoskey’s Arlington Jewelers and Petoskey Yesterday, is a local historian whose specialty is in Ernest Hemingway and stories of the supernatural.
“I started out in 1999 doing research on Hemingway and then I just started finding out all the history up here,” Struble said. “I just became very fascinated … we have such a diverse and rich history.”
Struble leads walking tours in the Petoskey area, highlighting historic buildings, notable residents and communities that make the area so appealing to visitors. He also leads Haunted Ghost Walks in the area for guests to learn more about “where unexplainable happenings have taken place and continue to take place.”
“I love the history that may be leading to these events as much as the events themselves,” Struble said. “That’s my passion, is history. It’s always kind of a bonus to find out that maybe other people are just as connected to this area over the last couple hundred years.”
Struble said interest in local ghost stories always spikes around Halloween, and he has shared some of his favorite stories from around Northern Michigan:
The Weathervane Restaurant in Charlevoix
This past year, Struble said he heard from a bartender at the Weathervane Restaurant in Charlevoix about a group of ghosts that cause a ruckus nearly every night.
Struble said the bartender told him he can’t stand to be inside alone and listens to music to try and ignore the entities.
“It’s like clockwork,” Struble said. “He had a good three, four or five specific entities that he’s identified in the Weathervane there.”
Struble theorizes that the Weathervane’s location is what makes it a hot spot for ghost activity. One example comes from the 1854 Battle of Pine River. The skirmish was fought between followers of “King” James Strang, the self-appointed leader of a group of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on Beaver Island, and fishermen settlers from Charlevoix.
“There’s this big volatile fight and all this trauma and drama,” Struble said. “Well that section of property there now where the Weathervane stands just keeps getting stories after stories after stories. I’ve heard stories for the last 20-30 years.”
Struble likes to try and find the concrete history behind popular local ghost stories.
“I kind of like that one just because there’s so much history that goes on in that area,” he said. “There’s all this history that just keeps building up and all this energy.”
British Landing on Mackinac Island
Struble said he has a friend who grew up on Mackinac Island and who frequently saw some strange and unexplained things.
“It just kind of became part of island life for them,” he said.
Struble recounted a story his friend told him about six or seven years ago that took place in the middle of the day during the busy summer season. His friend was working in one of the stores when she saw a group of tourists pull up in a horse-drawn taxi, and they all appeared to be agitated and frightened.
She watched them quickly head back to their hotels, and the taxi driver quit his job on the spot. A few minutes later, the group had their bags packed and were heading to the ferry to leave the island. Struble’s friend walked over to find out what happened.
The group described heading back from British Landing — where British troops landed on the island in 1812 and captured Fort Mackinac — on a quiet, winding interior road in a taxi.
“They see a young girl walking next to the side of the road,” Struble said. “The taxi slows down, they pull up next to her and she turns and looks at them and she does not have eyes.
“Everybody in the taxi just starts screaming,” Struble said. “Those taxis can only go so fast, so the guy is trying to coax the horses to go a little faster. Well it wasn’t fast enough for the little girl not to keep up with them. We’re talking about a 16-17 minute interaction with a ghost.”
Struble said he's heard the little girl is frequently seen on the island, and sometimes ghost soldiers in old British and American uniforms also try to catch a ride on the taxis.
More:Meet Petoskey's local ghosts
City Park Grill in Petoskey
The City Park Grill in downtown Petoskey was built in 1875 and has a long and storied history. Ernest Hemingway had a regular seat at the bar and the Prohibition-era basement had an underground tunnel that connected to the Cushman Hotel, which used to exist nearby.
It's frequently cited as one of Petoskey’s most haunted places.
Struble said the basement features in many people’s ghost stories, from a bartender getting locked in the cooler to a sudden scream sending an employee running for the stairs.
“It’s spooky down there. You can feel the history,” he said. “When you’re down in the basement there at City Park Grill, it happens all the time, you can kind of hear a little bit of a party going on up there.”
Struble said a little girl is often seen in the building, as well. On one of his tours in 2017, the group was passing through the Hemingway Room — a dining room built where the Prohibition-era Palm Garden open air cafe and an even older bare knuckle boxing ring once stood.
“We’re going through the Hemingway Room — weird things happen in there. I can’t tell you how many people have seen the chandeliers move. When I say chandeliers, I should say chandelier, because it’s never more than one at a time,” Struble said. “I’ve seen it happen myself where just one out of the others is just rocking and rolling. I mean I’ve seen plaster coming out of those fixtures while the other ones are all stationary.”
On that tour, Struble noticed a woman taking pictures and sending text messages in the room and she appeared upset.
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“I love the fact on these tours that people don’t always tell me what they’re seeing,” Struble said. “It may be weeks or even sometimes years before they’ll tell me about their experiences.”
The same woman came back to take the tour again a few years later, and she showed Struble the text messages she had sent that night.
“She had taken a picture of the far corner, I don’t see anything in there,” he said. “She showed me the dialogue going between her and her friend, who is also a clairvoyant on the East Coast. Well, he texted her back and said, ‘No wonder you’re uncomfortable, don’t you see the little girl hiding under the far corner table on the lefthand side?’
"And that one kind of got me. Every once in a while one of these stories will get me, too, because the people are so sincere and there’s really no way for them to be playing any tricks on me.”
Chris Struble’s top five most haunted buildings in Northern Michigan
McLaren Northern Michigan Hospital in Petoskey
Ruth Crist Hall in Bay View
Old Presque Isle Lighthouse in Presque Isle
Bowers Harbor Inn on Old Mission Peninsula
Fort Michilimackinac in Mackinaw City
Honorable mentions: Perry Hotel in Petoskey, Terrace Inn in Bay View and City Park Grill in Petoskey
— Contact Jillian Fellows at jfellows@petoskeynews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Haunted hotels, frightening forts and more of Northern Michigan’s most haunted places
