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Yahoo!The Santa Barbara Trolley Company, long famous for taking loads of revelers on loud forays down State Street and for showing tourists the sights, has just announced a new, quieter type of journey: a ghost tour. Beginning next Friday, October 10, the trolleys will be taking groups of brave adventurers on a full spectral peregrination of Santa Barbara, hitting the Lobero Theatre, the Ogle House, and the Mission cemetery, among other terrifying locales.
The 90-minute tours will be narrated by a guide, with several stops made for a more detailed look at haunted sites. While parts of the tour will doubtless cause shivers, not all of the ghost stories told on the tour will be frightening or unpleasant. The Victorian house belonging to George Ogle, a Santa Barbaran who supposedly has a ghostly roommate named Lord Harry, is one of the friendlier stops: Lord Harry’s a helpful kind of ghost, finding lost items and assisting with renovations.
The Santa Barbara Mission, another stop, is better known than the Ogle House, although perhaps less fun — the ghosts there aren’t famous for their good nature. The Mission building itself is said to be haunted, in addition to any spooks hanging around the graveyard. Some visitors to the Mission have taken photographs in which they claim to have captured ghosts on the prowl.
The Lobero Theatre houses another eerie but non-threatening haunting. Harry Podea, a stagehand who lived on-site at the Lobero until his death in 1977, habitually got out of bed around three every morning to go down the hall to the bathroom. A source at the Lobero said that theatre employees sometimes hear his footsteps late at night, moving between Podea’s former bedroom and the bathroom, or experience a sensation of cold as his shade passes them by. Not all employees of the Lobero have seen or heard the backstage specter, but many have at least reported experiencing an unsettled feeling when moving around the building at night.
The tours will run only in the evenings, to create the correct ambiance; some ghosts may not be out and about during the tour hours, but the atmosphere will certainly be present. While parts of the tour will be entertaining and even somewhat humorous, the Santa Barbara Trolley Company recommends the tour for adults and children over the age of 10, as some of the stops may be too creepy for youngsters.
Of course, even adults should exercise caution: ghosts who stomp down the hall to the bathroom in the middle of the night aren’t for the faint of heart.
The Santa Barbara Trolley Company will run Haunted Santa Barbara tours seven days a week beginning on October 10, at 7 and 8:30 p.m. each night. Tours depart from 101 State St. For more information, call 965-0353 or visit sbtrolley.com.
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Seen anything strange lately? Elena loves weird things! Tell her all about it at weirdsb@gmail.com.
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