Washington
The Headless Colonel of Ebey’s Landing — Coupeville, WA
On Whidbey Island, where the land narrows and rises in long, wind-combed folds above Puget Sound, the past does not feel buried…
Region · 241 stories
Pacific Coast Ghost Stories
The Pacific Coast States are Washington, Oregon, and California.
Stories from Pacific Coast Ghost Stories
Oregon
The Balch Creek Murder and Portland’s Witch’s Castle — Portland, OR
Deep in Portland’s Forest Park, where the city’s noise thins into a faraway hum and the trees close ranks like witnesses, there…
Oregon
Rue, the Gray Lady of Heceta Head — Florence, OR
On the Oregon coast north of Florence, the land rises in a dark shoulder above the Pacific, and the sea works endlessly…
California
California’s Restless Dead: 10 Places Where Prison Cells, Gold Rush Graves, and Hollywood Ghosts Refuse to Sleep
California has always sold itself as a place of sunlight. It glitters in the mind: citrus groves under a hard blue sky,…
Washington
Henry in the Basement of the Oxford Saloon — Snohomish, WA
On First Street in historic Snohomish, where the old storefronts keep their shoulders close and the past seems to gather in the…
Alaska
The Clara Nevada Dead at Eldred Rock Lighthouse — Haines, AK
In the cold reach of Lynn Canal, near Haines, there is a small island of stone and wind where Eldred Rock Lighthouse…
Alaska
Black Jack Sturgus at the Historic Anchorage Hotel — Anchorage, AK
Anchorage began, in those early years, as a place of noise. Not the settled, domestic noise of an old city—the softened wheels,…
Oregon
Thelma Taylor’s Ghost Beneath the St. Johns Bridge — Portland, OR
Cathedral Park lies in the shadow of a bridge that does not merely cross the Willamette River, but seems to brood over…
Washington
The Piano That Plays After Midnight — Port Gamble, WA
There are towns that grow old the way people do: by gathering aches, by favoring one side in the wind, by lowering…
California
The Phantom of the Golden Gate Theatre — San Francisco, CA
The Golden Gate Theatre, with its brooding majesty and neo-Romantic architectural style, has been a city landmark in San Francisco for well…
California
The Haunting Whispers of Alcatraz — San Francisco, CA
Master of horror, Stephen King, might start off this haunting tale of Alcatraz Island saying, "Sit down, let me spin you a…
California
The Haunting at Alcatraz Prison — San Francisco, CA
In my mind's cinema, I see Alcatraz, an east wind whipping through its corroded ramparts, carrying with it hushed whispers and shuddering…