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Become a Patreon Producer: www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast Find us at Our Official Website Be on the lookout for the upcoming documentary all about The Midnight Train Podcast!! Well well well, here we are. Home state time. Creepy Ohio is where we are heading today! We're probably going to skip over the big boys like the Ohio State reformatory and places like that because well… You know about them. There will be plenty of good stuff though we promise! Let's start off in good ol… Dayton? Sure Dayton it is! We're going to visit the Victoria Theatre. Fun fact about this place...The Victoria is one of the oldest continually operated theaters on the continent! It cost $225,000 to build and opened as the Turner opera house in 1866. If you're wondering, that's just under 4 million in 2021 money. According to an article, newspapers at the time called it the best theater west of Philadelphia! Impressive! General admission was $1. The best seats in the house were between $10 and $12. Arson was suspected of having caused an all-consuming fire May 16, 1869, which destroyed the theater at a loss of $500,000, about 10 million today, of which insurance covered only $128,000, 2.5 million, so that sucks pretty bad. The rebuild took a few years and the theater reopened in 1871. The opera house resumed operations as "The Music Hall". In 1885 it became "The Grand Opera House". On September 18, 1899, it became the "Victoria Opera House", and in 1903, it became the Victoria Theatre, two years after the death of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. Smooth sailing from here on out right? Wrong? 1913 brought about the Great Dayton Flood. The Dayton flood of March 1913 was caused by a series of severe winter rain storms that hit the Midwest in late March. Within three days, 8–11 inches (200–280 mm For all you civilized people out there) of rain fell throughout the Great Miami River watershed on already saturated soil, resulting in more than 90 percent runoff. The river and its tributaries overflowed. The existing levees failed, and downtown Dayton was flooded up to 20 feet (6.1 m) deep. This flood is still the flood of record for the Great Miami River watershed. The volume of water that passed through the river channel during this storm equaled the monthly flow over Niagara Falls. Daaaaaaaang! The ground floor of the theater was severely damaged. The theater's interior was rebuilt and remodeled. Ok now that disaster is out of the way…. Wait… What's that? There's more? Jeez… On January 16, 1918, fire struck again and gutted portions of the building. Due to WW1 the rebuild was delayed due to a materials shortage. After the Armistice, The Victoria saw extensive interior remodeling and in 1919 re-opened as "The Victory Theatre" – a name commemorating the American war effort and its result. For many years after this, the theater had an amazing run and saw many of the top performers of the days come through. Al Jolson, The Marx Brothers, Helen Hayes, Fannie Brice, George M. Cohan, Lynn Fontayne, Gertrude Lawrence, Alfred Lunt, and some schhlub named Harry Houdini were just some of the big names to grace the theater! In the thirties the theatre was fitted to also play talking pictures! Here's another fun tidbit of trivia, chainsaw was one of the pioneers of talking pictures! He started in the first talkie ever, it was called, "I Can't Believe This, What is this voodoo?" It was not good. In fact, don’t look it up on YouTube, it's really really bad. Over the years the change in times and the way the city of Dayton was headed, threatened to close the theater. In 1975 it was slated for demolition, in favor of a proposed parking lot. A public outcry for the theater's preservation that year helped to earn the building its listing in the National Register of Historic Places and, thus, it escaped demolition. However, portions of the building were in poor or fading condition. All the while, it continued to be visited extensively by traveling theater companies.The theatre had a network of access tunnels stretching out beneath the city's streets for several blocks. It was said that, during Vaudeville times, the tunnels allowed circus animals to be unloaded from railroad cars blocks away from the theatre, and held underground until showtime. As late as 1979, much of the tunnel network was accessible to employees, although some sections were blocked off by city steam pipes. In 1978, the theatre was greatly benefited by the donation of a cache of equipment and stage draperies from National Cash Register's (NCR) auditorium, which had been slated for demolition. NCR also donated its historic five-rank Estay pipe organ to the Victory, which was renovated and installed by aficionados. In 1986, Virginia Kettering donated $7 million to fund a downtown arts center, conditioning her donation on the requirement that the center include the Victory Theater and be located within the same one-block area.The 1989 rebuilding of the theater was extensive. It involved razing the interior commercial space within the forward, Main Street-facing section of the building as well as the stage house, while carefully preserving and restoring the 1866–71 facade and the 1919 auditorium. At the same time, the interior auditorium portion of the structure was completely renovated. All of the commercial space at street level was reclaimed for a grand, new lobby. The result was an extensively-new Victoria Theatre (as it was now so renamed) designed expressly for the performing arts. The auditorium retained its original appearance with completely restored plaster work, drapery, marble work, gilding, and fresco detailing. Additionally, the house received state-of-the-art upgrading to its wiring, lighting, and sound systems and now accommodated infrared sound transmitters for headphone use. The current theater accommodates 1,154, with 635 seats in the orchestra, and 519 in the balcony. The proscenium measures 37'7" wide by 29'0" high by 39'3" deep. A full-sized orchestra pit lies just below the stage lip. Ten dressing rooms, accommodating up to 18 people, are off-stage left, in the basement and at stage level. You know we love to get the history of these places and this one is pretty cool. So what about creepy stuff? Well let's check it out! First off according to a dayton.com article, there's the story of a touring actress in the early 1900s who went to her dressing room to change for the next scene, and never came out of the room. No trace of her was ever found, though fewer and fewer actors would use that dressing room, with reports that some would look into the mirror and see her face staring back again. The same article talks about how in the 1950s, a man committed suicide in the theater by wedging a knife into the seat in front of him and throwing himself upon it. When the curtains around the left exit door are pulled, some people claim to see his face. Staff members through the years have said they heard strange noises like the rustling of satin or taffeta, or suddenly smelled the scent of roses in the air. Others are said to have seen the ghost of the Victoria’s founder when they’re alone in the building. Diane Schoeffler-Warren, Victoria spokeswoman, told us that many of the historic theater’s long-time volunteers and staff like to blame these strange occurrences on “Miss Vicki,” who was not a real person. PARANORMAL FINDINGS Staff, patrons and performers have had a boatload of experiences with the spirits who visit or reside here. Project Paranormal Investigations caught some hard evidence that greatly increases the known number of spirits who adore this theatre. Apparently, the spirits here are a talkative group. They caught a boatload of EVP’s of many spirits. One spirit once worked there as an usher, some crew members, actors and actresses, a director and a well dressed man with a dirty hat who watches people who come into the auditorium. One EVP possibly suggests that the spirit of Vicki’s killer is grounded here. “They will never catch me!” This well-dressed man could be the spirit of the Victoria’s founder keeping a close eye on the living and still enjoying his theer. Spirits freely gave up their names: Isaac, Jacob, Alice, Jennifer Price, Bill and Miss Josephine Swartz who was a well-known ballet instructor. One male spirit pleaded for help. One gruff spirit didn’t believe he was dead, and asked the investigator. “Do you want to fight?” This fiesta spirit said that the year was 2000. One male spirit keeps the spirit of Vicky company. Hopefully he is a friend and her protector. There was a negative, evil one there as well, reported by the other spirits. This spirit said that he was sent to keep another spirit stuck here. That's…. Nuts...ooh boy. So that's fun stuff, haunted theaters are always good. Where should we head now? How about a lunatic asylum that's now part of a college… We know that seems crazy but just run with us. The Ridges, a building formerly known as the Athens Lunatic Asylum, has been a constant source of ghost stories and sightings for years. The Ridges, was a Kirkbride Plan mental hospital operated in Athens, Ohio, from 1874 until 1993. After a period of disuse the property was redeveloped by the state of Ohio. Today, The Ridges are a part of Ohio University and house the Kennedy Museum of Art as well as an auditorium and many offices, classrooms, and storage facilities. The original design included an administration building with two wings, one that would house the males and the other for females. The building itself was 853 feet long, 60 feet wide, and built with red bricks fired from clay dug on-site. Built onto the back were a laundry room and boiler house. Seven cottages were also constructed to house even more patients. There was room to house 572 patients in the main building, almost double of what Kirkbride had recommended, leading to overcrowding and conflicts between the patients.The administrative section, located between the two resident wings, included an entrance hall, offices, a reception room on the first floor, the superintendent’s residence on the second floor, and quarters for other officers and physicians on the 3rd and 4th floors. A large high ceiling amusement hall filled the 2nd and 3rd floors, and a chapel was included on the 4th floor. Behind and beneath the building’s public and private spaces were the heating and mechanical systems, kitchens, cellars, storerooms, and workspaces. The site, which was first comprised of 141 acres, would eventually grow to 1,019 acres, including cultivated, wooded, and pasture land. The grounds were designed by Herman Haerlin of Cincinnati and would incorporate landscaped hills and trees, decorative lakes, a spring, and a creek with a waterfall. Not only would the patients enjoy the beautiful landscape, but citizens also enjoyed the extensive grounds. Though the facility would never be fully self-sustaining, over the years, the grounds would include livestock, farm fields and gardens, an orchard, greenhouses, a dairy, a receiving hospital, a Tubercular Ward, a physical plant to generate steam heat, and even a carriage shop in the earlier years. The hospital, first called the Athens Lunatic Asylum, officially began operations on January 9, 1874. Within two years, it was renamed the Athens Hospital for the Insane. Over the years, its name would be changed many times to the Athens State Hospital, the Southeastern Ohio Mental Health Center, the Athens Mental Health Center, the Athens Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center, and the Athens Mental Health and Developmental Center. During its operation, the hospital provided services to a variety of patients, including Civil War veterans, children, the elderly, the homeless, rebellious teenagers being taught a lesson by their parents, and violent criminals suffering from various mental and physical disabilities. With diagnoses ranging from the slightest distress to severely mentally ill, these patients were provided various forms of care, many of which have been discredited today. The asylum was best known for its practice of lobotomy, but it was also known to have practiced hydrotherapy, electroshock, restraint, and psychotropic drugs, many of which have been found to be harmful today. More interesting are the causes listed for admission, including epilepsy, menopause, alcohol addiction, and tuberculosis. General “ill health” also accounted for many admissions, which included in the first three years of operation 39 men and 44 women. For the female patients hospitalized during these first three years of the asylum’s operation, the three leading causes of insanity are recorded as “puerperal condition” (relating to childbirth), “change of life,” and “menstrual derangements.” According to an 1876 report, the leading cause of insanity among male patients was masturbation. The second most common cause of insanity was listed as intemperance (alcohol). Depending upon their condition, a patient’s treatment could range from full care to amazing freedom. Over the years, numerous buildings were added, including a farm office, a new amusement hall, additional wards and residences, a laundry building, power plant, garages, stables, mechanics shops, a firehouse, therapy rooms, and dozens of others. By the 1950s, the hospital was using 78 buildings and was treating 1,800 patients. In the 1960s, the total square footage of the facility was recorded at 660,888 square feet. At this time, its population peaked at nearly 2,000 patients, over three times its capacity. However, the number of patients would begin to decline for the next several decades as de-institutionalization accelerated. As the number of people at the Asylum declined, the buildings and wards were abandoned one by one. Comprised of three graveyards, burials began soon after the institution’s opening as there were deceased patients who were unclaimed by their families. Until 1943 the burials were headed only by stones with numbers, with the names of the dead known only in recorded ledgers. Only one register exists today, which contains the names of 1,700 of the over 2,000 burials. In 1972 the last patients were buried in the asylum cemetery. Today the cemeteries continue to be maintained by the Ohio Department of Mental Health. In 1977, Athens Asylum made news when it housed multiple personality rapist Billy Milligan. In the highly publicized court case, Milligan was found to have committed several felonies, including armed robbery, kidnapping, and three rapes on the Ohio State University campus. In preparing his defense, psychologists diagnosed Milligan with multiple personality disorder, from which the doctors said he had suffered from early childhood. He was the first person diagnosed with multiple personality disorder to raise such a defense and the first acquitted of a major crime for this reason. Milligan was then sent to a series of state-run mental hospitals, including Athens. While at these hospitals, Milligan reported having ten different personalities. Later 14 more personalities were said to have been discovered. After a decade, Milligan was discharged. He died of cancer at a nursing home in Columbus, Ohio, on December 12, 2014, at 59. The next year, the hospital made the news again when a patient named Margaret Schilling disappeared on December 1, 1978. It wasn’t until January 12, 1979, 42 days later that her body was discovered by a maintenance worker in a locked long-abandoned ward once used for patients with infectious illnesses. Though tests showed that she died of heart failure, she was found completely naked with her clothing neatly folded next to her body. More interesting is the permanent stain that her body left behind. Clearly, an imprint of her hair and body can still be seen on the…
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