Ghost stories from close to home

All around us in the Gunnison Valley, history reveals itself in the form of old fence posts, log cabins, mine tailings, arrowheads, railroad beds and even ghost stories.

The hitchhiker 

One ghost has been seen on numerous occasions late at night near the Crested Butte Cemetery needing a ride to Gothic. Henrietta Raines, an energy cleanser and long-time valley local, told the Times about a few sightings residents have shared with her about this lonesome hitchhiker.

On a cold night some decades ago, a man Raines knew was driving up to Mt. Crested Butte from Crested Butte.

“He passed the cemetery and saw a guy walking late at night. He pulled over, leaned over and opened the door and said, ‘Get in! I’ll give you a ride!’

The guy got in, and he said he looked at the dashboard in wonder. He was dirty, and he smelled of B.O. He said, “‘What do you call this wagon?’He referred to the car as a wagon. [The hitchhiker] said he lived at Irwin, but he was going to Gothic to see his brother.”

Raines said once the driver let the hitchhiker out at the end of the road and drove away he realized the hitchhiker was a ghost. A few years would pass before she heard about him again.

In addition to being an energy cleanser, Raines cut hair for 20 years. She said her and her clients would regularly tell each other ghost stories. One day, a “kid in his twenties” with shaggy hair sat in her chair and began telling her a story about when he, his friend and a dog headed up to Mt. Crested Butte from Crested Butte late at night in a small pickup truck. They passed the cemetery where they saw a man walking in the cold. They pulled over to let him inside.

Raines knew immediately the twenty-something had seen the hitchhiking ghost. He said something was off with the hitchhiker, who was dirty and smelled. The dog in the truck crawled between the driver and the door and cried.

“He tells them that he lived at Irwin and was going to Gothic. They drove up to the end of the road, and they were afraid of him by then. They were nervous, and they let him out. When they shut the door, he said, ‘We turned off the lights, and we drove away!’”

“Why?” Raines asked.

He said, “We were scared!”

And then they heard a laugh as they drove off.

Many years later, and not so long ago, Raines’ friend, a bus driver, told her she had picked up a mysterious passenger on the late bus.

“She’s going by the cemetery. She sees a guy walking. She pulls over and lets him in, and he stayed toward the front of the bus by her. I think she said the same thing, that he was dirty, and he smelled. She talked to him a little bit, and then suddenly, he was gone.”

None of the passengers saw where the man went. The driver stopped the bus, got out and looked around outside. 

He was gone.

Raines chuckled to herself and said, “I get a kick out of it … it’s still happening.” 

Allegedly, the hitchhiker still walks the road late at night looking for a ride to Gothic.

A miner returns 

Ghosts stories like these are heard all across mountain towns in Colorado. Gunnison woodworker Ellen Patten told a story to the Times she had heard from her mother, Dana. 

The first house Dana bought was located in Boulder. Almost immediately, strange things began happening in the house. A friend passing through town stayed the night in the guest bedroom. The next morning he told Dana he had the strangest dream about the room he was sleeping in.

“When he looked around the room all of the furniture was different,” she said. “The bed he was laying in was still there, but everything else had changed. In the doorway stood a man. The man was dressed in work clothes, he looked like an old miner, kind of covered in black soot and clothes torn up.” 

He said the man looked confused as to why he was in the bedroom.

Patten’s mother wrote it off as a strange dream indeed, until a few weeks later when her sister came to visit. She slept in the guest bedroom, and the next morning, she told Dana she had a spooky dream. A man was in the bedroom she was sleeping in, but all the furniture had changed. He was an older man, wearing overalls and carrying a metal lunch pail. 

“He was just looking at her like, ‘What are you doing in my bedroom?’ My mom just turned white as a ghost, and said, ‘Oh my gosh, my friend just told me the exact same story a couple of weeks ago.’”

After some research, Patten found that a family named Keys had lived in that house from 1920 to 1940. A gas explosion at the Midwest Mine in Boulder claimed the lives of a man named J.K. Keys and his three sons in 1923. To Patten and her mother, that was enough confirmation that the Boulder house was haunted.

Places like the Gunnison Valley and across the West are rich with history. The evidence is all around us — some in the books we read, the objects left behind or the ghost stories we tell.

(Editor’s note: These stories have been transcribed from the Spooky Times podcast series which was published in 2021).