The “Big Event” for 2008:
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Dr. Hopper’s House of Horror
This year’s big haunted house is Dr. Hopper’s House of Horror. The brand new enterprise is located in the old Hunter Steakhouse building on Cleveland Ave., right when you get off the Mendocino off-ramp from the 101. Click here for details about Dr. Hopper’s House of Horror.
Old-Fashioned, Homegrown Fun:
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No Chance Ranch Haunted House
What started off as a husband and wife trying to entertain their grandkids with a spooky Halloween haunted house has grown into a favorite fright for locals.
Past Haunts…R.I.P…
- Deadwood Depot, which was held at the old railroad depot in Kenwood last year, is no more. But organizers are now involved with the Hopper House.
- Dr. Evil’s House of Horror, which was at the old J’s Amusement Park in Guerneville, will not take place this year due to illness of one of the organizers. But, they plan on coming back next year in full force. See the Press Democrat video from last year’s event.
- The folks at Dragon’s Head Inn had been putting on some pretty extravagant haunts in Sonoma and Rohnert Park (in 2006), but it seems they’re not doing one this year and I haven’t heard if they have anything planned for the future.
Of course, some haunts cannot be contained in one house alone…
Halloween Haunted Places:
- The Healdsburg Ghost Walk Tour is taking place this Halloween season (but actually, it takes place year-round). Everyone takes a nice, nighttime walk through the old part of town, while the leader shares local history, stories and folklore of the paranormal sort.
- The Petaluma Home Halloween House Tour is now taking place every other year instead of every year. And, wouldn’t you know it, this is the first year that it’s not going on.
- If your interest in haunted places is more than just a Halloween thing, check out the Sonoma County Paranormal Institute which organizes a number of ghost tours, including a ghost hunt scheduled for Halloween night. Email them for more information.
More Haunts:
- Sonoma has a lot of history, so, it’s little surprise that it has a reputation for having a lot of ghosts. Check out this video on Haunted Sonoma.
- There’s a lot of lore about the Bartholomew Park Winery in Sonoma being haunted. The author of the new book Ghost Hunter's Guide to California's Wine Country explores the winery on his website.
- Of course, Bartholomew Park isn’t the only winery that can boast a ghost. Buena Vista Carneros and Hop Kiln are rumored to host spirtits as well.
- Supposedly there’s a ghostly former resident of Healdsburg’s Madrona Manor who would like everyone to know she really likes what the new owners have done with the place. If you look around on the Internet, you’ll also find several websites mentioning ghosts in Room 101 and in the dining room.
- And there are plenty of websites that refer to the ghost of a young girl and other hauntings at the Sebastiani Theater in Sonoma.
- For Santa Rosa locals, the most haunted spot is the Lynching Tree at the Rural Cemetery on Franklin Ave. The tree was used by a vigilante group to hang three men accused of killing a San Francisco police officer around 1920. (Read more.) It was cut down a long time ago, but there are always spooky stories of it reappearing or casting a shadow. Perhaps more eerie than the ghost stories is the fact that a postcard was made out of a photograph of the lynching scene. Scroll down a little on this page to read about it. It should also be noted that the entire graveyard has the reputation of being one of the creepiest cemeteries anywhere. (Personally, I find it charming and lovely albeit somewhat wild and mysterious.)
- Some consider the Sonoma Developmental Center to be haunted by the ghosts of tortured souls who were committed there 50 years ago. I can’t say whether or not that’s true, but I do know that a period of its history is definitely heartbreaking. The television news show 60 Minutes reported on how young children were subjected to extremely painful medical experiments there during 1955-1960.