Jadyn Smith Smith 1

Victoria Rego

EN211

November 16, 202

The Historical Importance of the Winchester House

When you hear the word Winchester does your mind immediately go to the rifles that the

company makes? Well, there are more than just rifles that made the name Winchester, even

though they are what started it all. Sarah Winchester became the heiress to the Winchester

Repeating Arms Company when her husband William passed away in 1881. In 1886 Sarah

Winchester started construction on her house in San Jose, California. This house would soon

become a six-acre, 24,000 square foot, mansion that had never-ending construction until her

death in 1922 (Junker, 329). This mansion is known for its size, unusual architecture, and being

hunted. It has 40 bedrooms, 13 bathrooms, 6 kitchens, 10,000 windows, 2,000 doors, 47

stairways, and 47 fireplaces. This counts a doorway to nowhere, staircases with stairs that are

only a few inches high, stairways that lead directly to the ceiling, doors that are only four feet

tall, cupboards that are only an inch deep, a door that leads to a 13-foot drop, and a door that

leads to an eight-foot drop into the kitchen sink (Junker, 331). Some people may ask what led

Sarah to build this extraordinary house. The truth is that Sarah believed that building this house

would make her immortal. The Winchester house is historically important because it withstood a

historical event, is an example of suburban sprawl, shows the effects of mental health, and proof

of the spiritual world.

This house was under constant construction from 1886 until 1922 when Sarah was found

dead in her room. From 1922 until the present day, this house is known as the Winchester

Mystery House and is a tourist attraction. It is also known as one of the most haunted houses in

America. It has been explored by both Ghost Adventures and Ghost Hunters causing a greater
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growth in popularity. This is what sparked my interest in the Winchester house years ago. It is

and was believed by Sarah that this house was haunted by the people who lost their lives to the

Winchester rifle. Every night at 12 am Sarah would ring a bell allowing spirits into her seance

room and then again at 2 am to release them. According to Sarah, the spirits are the ones who

built the house. There were never blueprints for the house, Sarah would just tell the manager of

the construction crew what she wanted and they would build it. She also had an obsession with

the number 13 and it is shown widely throughout the entire house. There would be stained glass

windows Sarah designed with 13 gems in it, 13 coat hooks in closets, 13 panels for the ceiling,

13 steps in a staircase, and 13 candles in a chandelier.

Also, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 played a part in how the house looks today

and its importance in history. Before this earthquake, the house was seven stories tall and it

destroyed the top three floors leaving the house only four stories tall to this day. Sarah became

trapped in the daisy room and you can still see the crowbar marks on the floor and doors that the

workers used to get her out. Sarah believed the earthquake was a sign from the spirits and ended

up closing the front of the house to everyone except the carpenters who would install doors that

would never be used again. (Jones). This earthquake is a big part of California’s history and was

felt from Oregon, to Los Angeles, to Nevada. The fatalities of this earthquake was states as more

than 3,000 people caused directly or indirectly by the earthquake and more than $400 million of

damage. (The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake). Theres a room in the house that contains

picture of the damage the house had after the earthquake and what the house looked like before.

This adds historical importance to the house since it still shows the lasting effects of what

happened during this earthquake and the fact that it is still standing.
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Suburban sprawl, also known as urban sprawl, is the unrestricted growth of housing,

roads, and commercial properties that are in suburban areas. Sarah’s mansion that she built is a

great example of suburban sprawl which is an important part of our past. Around this time many

people started moving out of cities and to suburbs for a cheaper living since automobiles were

invented they could now travel by road to get to the cities. According to the US Census

population growth from 1880-1890 in Santa Clara county increases from 35,039 to 48,005 (Santa

Clara County). In 1920, two years before Sarah’s death, the population was recorded at 100,676

people (Santa Clara County). Sarah’s house is a good example of suburban sprawl and could be

used as teaching advice to show people what it means. The house was built in a suburban area

and was under never-ending construction which would show the unrestricted growth of housing.

Sarah also supplied many jobs since she had construction workers, maids, cooks, servers, and

butlers. These jobs also supplied more growth to the suburban area in which the house is located.

Ever since Sarah died in 1922, the house has been a main tourist attraction bringing people from

all over the world to see this extravagant house that she built and to find out if it was haunted or

not. This also brought more growth to the area between the tourists coming to see the house to

the money they paid for their tickets into the house. The house even brought in famous people

such as Theodore Roosevelt and even Harry Houdini (Jones, 3). With suburban sprawl being

such a big part of the history of the United States, the Winchester house is a good example of

what suburban sprawl is. This makes the house an important historical monument to teach people

about the history of the United States.

Not only does the house show something physical like suburban sprawl, but it also shows

something that can’t be seen with the human eye, mental illness. One of the main causes for

Sarah building this house is the guilt she felt for anyone who lost their life to a Winchester rifle.
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This guilt though was not felt right away, but after the press started to blame Sarah for the deaths

the rifles were causing (Ignoffo, 141). Also, the unexpected loss of her only child and her

husband left Sarah with a weakened state of mind. Sarah believed she heard voices of the spirits

who were killed by the rifles her company made. These voices she heard were what triggered her

to build this house and are what helped her come up with building plans. This showed Sarah

suffered from mental illness most likely triggered by the guilt she had. Sarah spent $5 million

dollars building this house that helped her struggle less with her mental illness (Silva). It is a

physical representation of what was going on inside Sarah’s head when she was alive. Sarah

believed that building this house would make her immortal and that her body was linked to the

house so as long as the house was being built she would never die. This house can be used as a

tool in aiding people to show what it may be like to suffer from mental illnesses, especially in the

past when there were fewer medications and doctors that specialized in them. The house being

the product of the mental illnesses Sarah struggled with adds to its importance in both history

and the present day.

Hauntings are something that are both physical and sometimes can’t be seen with the

human eye. The house is known as the house that the spirits built, due to the fact that Sarah said

that the spirits told her what to have built. Some people believed the elegance of the house would

bring in higher class ghosts and scare away the evil ones (Junker, 5). Many of the workers who

give tours believe the house is haunted and specifically stay out of the servants’ quarters at night

since this is where the most unexplainable things happen. They even allowed ghost hunters to

come to explore the house inviting over television shows, such as Ghost Adventures and Ghost

Hunters. This house could prove that spirits do exist for many reasons, such as: unexplained

noises, people seeing things that were never there, the ideas of the architecture of the house, and
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the voices and sights that led Sarah to build the house. This shows the importance of the house

due to it proving that the spiritual world may exist and have shown a lot of meaning behind the

house. It is important in history since it shows the history of the house and what really started

and made the plans of the house.

The Winchester house is an important part of history because it shows suburban sprawl,

the effects of mental illness, and even shows proof of the existence of the spirit world. It is also a

house full of confusion and mystery with doors leading to nowhere, stairs leading into the

ceiling, doors leading to drops, secret passageways, rooms with thirteen windows, and stairs that

are only a couple inches tall. It brought the growth of people, jobs, and money to a suburban area

helping and showing suburban sprawl by also having the fact that it was under never-ending

construction until 1922. The house showed the mental illnesses brought on by the guilt that Sarah

felt from all the lives that were taken by the Winchester rifles. Not only that but it also shows

proof of a spirit world since the house was built by the spirits according to Sarah Winchester.

These all prove the historical importance of the house and all it stands for. It is and has been a

popular tourist attraction since 1922 and even got the name for being one of the most haunted

houses in America.
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Works Cited

Ignoffo, Mary Jo. Captive of the Labyrinth: Sarah L. Winchester, Heiress to the Rifle Fortune.

University of Missouri, 2010. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=438788&site=ehost-liv

Jones, Rosemary, Sunday, Call-Chronicle. "The Winchester Mystery House. One of the World’s

Wackiest Examples of Suburban Sprawl, Sarah Winchester’s California ‘Mansion’'

Illustrates What Can Happen When You Listen to Strange Voices.: [THIRD EDITION]."

Morning Call​, Jul 15, 1984​. ProQuest​,

https://nmu.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.nmu.idm.oclc.org/docvie

w/391971272?accountid=2745​.

Junker, Christine R. “Unruly Women and Their Crazy Houses: Sarah Winchester's

Unconventional Domesticity.” ​OCLC Article Exchange,​ Home Cultures, 15 Dec. 2015,

worldcat.org/ILL/AE/deSafJuo8.

“Santa Clara County.” ​Santa Clara County -- 1860-1960 Census Data,​

www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/counties/SantaClaraCounty50.htm.

Silva, Lee A., and Susan Silva. "Winchesters Won the West and also made the Winchester

Mystery House Possible."​ Wild West,​ vol. 14, no. 4, 12, 2001, pp. 20-22+​. ProQuest,​

https://nmu.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.nmu.idm.oclc.org/docvie

w/201456508?accountid=2745​.

“The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.” ​U.S. Geological Survey,​

earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/events/1906calif/18april/.
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“Winchester Mystery House®.” ​Winchester Mystery House,​ 27 Oct. 2020,

www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/.