Witches Castle

Welcome to the "Witches Castle" in Northwest Portland. It is located about one mile up the main trail in Macleay Park on 29th and Upshur. Supposedly the site of Oregon's first legal hanging when the property owner evaded capture for killing his young daughter's husband in 1859. Legend states there are supernatural gang rumbles at midnight on certain nights, so we thought we'd head out for a little hike and look for some evidence...



What other city has this, virtually downtown? Wildwood trail covers most of the West Hills...


Here it is, just shy of a mile up trail. Supposedly it was a trading post, but it is actually an abandoned public bathroom built as a WPA project in the 1930's. Lore grows with time, and local Goths and self proclaimed witches love to rewrite the past. Amazingly this was built for people using Balch Creek Road, of which there was zero evidence...



There certainly was no evidence of nightly warfare, just lots of mud, moss and hikers. There was the occasional "Wicken" with a walking stick and the wondering musician.

It hasn't been totally abandoned by the city, as there is a relatively new railing up on the top level. Basically it was just a really nice walk with again, no evidence to support any ghostly happenings. Portland has several of these cut rock public bathrooms, one on Burnside and several in parks in Northwest Portland. The same style of building is used for the water resevoir out in Southeast Portland.

Pittock Mansion

So Kevin wanted to do a couple more "mini-vestigations" today. Basically anything we can do that doesn't require overnight equipment and planning. So this morning we found ourselves at the supposedly haunted Pittock Mansion...

Kevin of course first interviewed the staff members about if they had seen any ghosts. He points out certain areas to the staff that are more likely to be used by ghosts in the house.

A long walk through of the house turned up no significant evidence until...Kevin decided to break the rules and play the piano to stir the spirits. But this piano made no noise...

An no spirits were stirred, until we went downstairs. We then heard five or six notes played on that very piano! We rushed back up to the third floor and the piano sat, no one else around. Kevin again tried to play it, and it again made no sound...

Kevin decided that there was evidence showing that this house was loved very much and possibly there are spirits here who just don't want to leave. He felt that they were likely to be very happy here.

Kevin hopes to return during one of the "Behind the Scenes" tours of the Mansion you don't normally get to see.

Train Tunnel

So we decided to go investigate this train tunnel that has been a party spot for high school kids as long as I can remember, but local legend says it's haunted by the angry ghost of a Vietnam Vet who used to live in a service room midway through the tunnel.

Things have changed over the last 20 years. Apparently the railroad got tired of all the graffiti and beer bottles. We saw no cameras, and there were plenty of fresh bottles around. We decided to continue, for the sake of science of course.

There it is, right where I'd left it!

Kevin eager to investigate!

He isn't scared of anything so off we go, with him on point.

I didn't think he'd go all the way through, but he's a trooper. We didn't find anything but a lot of graffiti, a lot of rotting timbers and a lot of bottles.

Kevin and I both agree that this tunnel is probably not haunted. But he does want to go back at night to perform a thorough investigation...