Charlie the friendly ghost By Jennifer Burris

The Calumet Inn was originally built in 1883, but was completely destroyed by a fire three years later in 1886. According to news clippings from The Pipestone Leader housed at the Calumet Inn, two years after that, on Thanksgiving of 1888, the hotel reopened with room for 50 guests. Over the years, 30 businesses including The First National Bank occupied part of the Calumets first floor and basement. Then in February of 1944, on Valentines Day, a kitchen fire took hold of the hotel leading to one death. The casualty, who was not found immediately, was Christopher Hershberger, a mapmaker from Rockford, Ill. He was found in the hallway just outside his room door, room 308. It is believed that he struggled with chain on his door as he died of smoke inhalation. Currently there are 41 rentable rooms at the Calumet Inn. Although most of the paranormal activity over the years has been associated with room 308, it is not the only room or area of the hotel that has had activity. The third and fourth floors along with the dining room have had several reported paranormal instances. It has been said that because of several complaints involving rattling of the chain and unlocking of the chain from various guests the chain lock was removed from room 308. Upon inspection the chain still resides, but the lock plate is gone- making it impossible to lock the door with a chain. The hotel staff affectionately nicknamed the ever-present spirit, who is assumed to be Hershberger, as Charlie. As Chuck Ness, ghost walk tour guide, said, Hes more like Casper, the friendly ghost. While not all of the Calumet staff buys into the ghost of Charlie, many have experienced unexplainable activity throughout the entire hotel. Over the years cooks have heard whistling in the kitchen and been tapped on the shoulder when they are busy multitasking. Many believe that Charlie is the one tapping them on the shoulder if hes worried about how a dish is cooking or afraid something may begin to burn. Leslee Folgers, for example, was working Thanksgiving at the front desk last fall when around 4 p.m. a knocking from inside the locked office could be heard. I called the bartender downstairs and went and waited by the dining room for him, clutching the phone, said Folgers. He came upstairs and unlocked the office door, but nobody was there, the windows were all shut, it was completely quiet. After that I just figured it was Charlie playing a joke on me.

Charlie has been described as a prankster and playful by those who have said to interact with him. The colder it is outside the more active he seems to be, said Folgers. I think it is similar temperatures from the night of the fire that bring him out. And it was frigid that night. A few months later, Kenny Thompson, another front desk employee was working the night audit shift, 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. on a Friday night. According to Thompson, the lounge and dining room were closed for the evening, but the pub downstairs was still busy. The maintenance man Mark Klinkhammer, was helping with the bar that night, and had repeatedly been coming upstairs to get quarters, ones, and liquor as Thompson worked on preparing breakfast for the next morning. I was setting up breakfast food, individually wrapping pastries and bagels and was already jumpy from Mark coming up repeatedly to grab things, Thompson said. I thought I saw white light in the first and second window, but decided it must have been a truck because the windows are too high off the ground for a person to be seen through them. But then I saw a shadowy figure of a man who walked at an angle towards me through the tables. According to Thompson initially he didnt move, trying to wrap his head around what he had just seen. My heart was pounding so hard, I came out and sat down and thought about it, said Kenny. My chest hurt so bad I thought I might be having a heart attack. It took a good hour or so before Thompson calmed down, but after that experience he is no longer afraid of Charlie, any kind of ghost or other paranormal activity. Another evening sometime later, Thompson was again, working the overnight audit shift when the phones started acting up. After the bartenders had left for the evening the pub light on the phone system kept going on and off for long periods of time. But that wasnt all that happened. Then Kenny heard a phone ringing. I thought someone was going out to smoke and their cell phone was ringing, said Thompson. I kept wondering why they werent answering it until I finally realized that the phone in the lounge was ringing. Thompson then made his way into the lounge and picked up the ringing phone, at first it was silent and a few seconds later a dial tone could be heard. No phone calls could reach the lounge without first being patched through at the front desk. Kenny, who was the only staff member working that evening hadnt received a single phone call at the front desk all evening. Other paranormal sightings havent always included or been attributed to Charlie. Other guests have said that the rocking chair has rocked steadily with no occupant and televisions have turned on and off.

Housekeepers have seen figures hovering behind them in a mirror, front desk staff has heard the radio being turned on and off in the kitchen when they are working alone, and bartenders have had pens flung across the room and hit them on more than one occasion. According to Folgers, one woman and her granddaughter were staying in a room for a couple of days together. The first morning the woman woke up to find all of the knobs off the bedpost and sitting on a table. Originally she thought her granddaughter had moved them off to play with them before she woke up. After asking her granddaughter about it, the granddaughter assured her that she hadnt taken the knobs off the bedpost. The next morning the grandmother awoke yet again to the knobs removed from the bedpost while her daughter was still sound asleep. She told the front desk she never did find a logical explanation as to how the knobs were removed. Be it guests or staff, many people have experienced paranormal activity in The Calumet Inn at one time or another. While nobody can say exactly what caused these experiences, one thing is sure; there are many people who believe they have had an encounter with Charlie, the friendly ghost of the Calumet Inn.