By Crysta Coburn
The city of Ann Arbor has been around for over 200 years. That’s more than enough time for tales of the paranormal to manifest. Probably the most famous local spirit is that of Martha Crawford Mulholland, a.k.a. the Dixboro ghost, who is believed to haunt the Dixboro General Store. But she is far from the only ghost story Ann Arbor has to tell.
Rocket Fizz
The Pratt Block was built in 1896 to be the new factory and headquarters of the Crescent Corset and Clasp Company. The building has been home to multiple residential lofts as well as retail spaces over the years, like Rocket Fizz, a novelty shop specializing in candy and soft drinks that currently occupies part of the main floor.
You might think such a colorful and lighthearted space would be home to the occasional prank. And you’d be right! However, too often when the products fly off the shelves, they are projected not by excited customers but by invisible hands. Sometimes, the store’s employees are the unhappy targets. Such occurrences are not limited to the nighttime or when the store is closed, so be on the lookout for flying merchandise on your next visit.
Downtown Home and Garden
Today, Downtown Home and Garden provides the community with gardening equipment, patio furniture, clothing, and of course plants. But 150 years ago, the building was a supplier of farm goods as well as a livery stable where, much like stowing your car in a parking garage today, you could stable your horse for 10 cents a day. (The basement still smells of horses on a hot day.)
But backstock and remnants of the past are not the only things to be found down there. A small creature that employees have dubbed the gremlin has been spotted now and again. This creature does startle those who see it, but it is not a malevolent being. In fact, it is said to give off a protective aura.
The gremlin is not the only unexplainable encounter at Downtown Home and Garden. Every day, almost like clockwork, at 4:30 in the afternoon the door to an upstair’s artist studio firmly closes whether the resident artist is present or not. The studio was once the office of Emma Hertler, a previous owner of the business that was started in 1906 by her brothers. It is said that 4:30 is when Emma finished up for the day.
According to those in the paranormal field, one type of common ghostly activity is called “residual haunting.” The idea is that a location becomes “imprinted” and replays a specific moment over and over again, like a video on repeat. So, Emma’s dedication could have left an impression on her environment which continues to go about its business long after the original proprietor has gone.
Cobblestone Farm
The land that is now Historic Cobblestone Farm has been farmed for two centuries. Dr. Benajah Ticknor built the iconic Classical Revival cobblestone house in the 1840s. The house was purchased by William Campbell in 1881, thus the home is also known as the Ticknor-Campbell House. Since 1972, it has been operated as a pioneer farm museum.
In its long life, the cobblestone house has seen much tragedy. The Ticknor family lost 11 of their 12 children to various illnesses. A fire in 1924 destroyed many of the outbuildings and fighting it dried up the farm’s water reserves ending the livelihood of the Campbell family, who managed to save their beautiful house by throwing wet blankets onto its roof.
Since then, visitors to the museum have reported seeing a woman looking out of one of the upper story windows, and a man sitting in the dining room. A little boy who allegedly drowned in the well, has been seen running around the property.
Cobblestone Farm was one of several Michigan properties featured in Haunted Travels of Michigan by Beverlee J. Rydel and Kathleen R. Tedsen. A paranormal investigation the sisters participated in resulted in some fascinating experiences. While asking yes or no questions in the barn, the group seemed to receive intelligent responses via knocking sounds. One knock for yes and two for no. When they asked if the spirit, or whatever was present, minded the group being there in the barn, two knocks answered. However, when the team continued to stay, a thunderous single knock shook the barn.
Surprisingly, this did not deter the investigators, and they remained to ask more questions. When someone asked if the presence had something to do with the 1924 fire, the temperature in the barn began to rise steadily from 73 degrees to 87! EMF detectors also registered higher and higher levels of electric fields in the air.
While reviewing evidence after the investigation, the investigators were surprised to find several names whispered by persons unseen on their recording devices. Among them were Winona, Ben, Buck Weiner, and Jay Ticknor.
Ann Arbor is a city with many secrets. And we should never forget the history that surrounds us every day. You never know when the spirits of the past may make themselves known.
Crazy Wisdom Bookstore
The Crazy Wisdom Bookstore opened its doors at 114 South Main Street in 1999, but the building itself has been around since at least 1857. Its first occupants were Hutzel and Company, better known today as Hutzel Plumbing and Heating (though they started off as a grocery store, not as plumbers). Rumor has it that the second floor, the former location of the Crazy Wisdom Tearoom, was a speakeasy during Prohibition. Given the secretive nature of speakeasies, it is difficult to confirm this story, but we do know that Ann Arbor banned alcohol before the rest of the nation did with the passing of the 18th Amendment, and the city’s substantial German population did not take it well. Given this history, is it any wonder that customers as well as employees have experienced things that they can’t explain?
One evening, after the store was closed and the customers had all left, the lone employee closing down the tearoom was frightened by the glass globe of the lighting fixture shattering behind her. When she looked up, the fixture was swinging wildly, which it had never done before. None of the surrounding fixtures were moving, and there was no breeze to have sent this one into motion.
After the tearoom had been closed for several months, a bookstore employee was at the front counter when the phone began to ring. But it wasn’t a customer with a question at the other end of the line. The call had originated from inside the store. Someone, or something, was calling the front desk from the phone in the empty tearoom.
A popular phenomenon heard by several former employees is a mysterious giggling encountered near the elevator in the building’s basement. On one occasion, it sounded as if little girls were conspiratorially whispering together followed by high-pitched giggling. The store was closed, and there were two people in the building at the time: the person in the basement who heard the giggling and another employee two entire floors away in the tearoom. It should be noted that directly above this location, on the main floor, was once the home of a fairy door. So perhaps this particular phenomenon was fairy rather than ghostly mischief.
Gandy Dancer
Gandy Dancer is a popular restaurant with a gorgeous historical interior. Many in Ann Arbor probably already know that it was once the city’s Michigan Central Railroad Depot built in 1886. The name itself is a reference to its railroad past. Gandy dancer (a.k.a. section hand) was once a slang term for a person who laid and maintained the train tracks, a job largely done by machines now.
A “well-respected employee” told MLive in 1991 that when the building was still a depot, it was used to temporarily hold the bodies of World War I soldiers that were shipped home after dying in battle. Their families came to the depot to claim them for local burial. The depot was also a busy place for soldiers coming and going throughout World War II, after which rail traffic slowed considerably.
Places of transition like a train station, with countless passengers coming and going for decades, are often considered by those in the paranormal community to be beacons. Whether this is because so many people passing through creates more opportunities for some to stick around (as it were) or the heightened emotions of saying goodbye to your loved ones for the last time leaves an impression on the landscape, no one can say. It is also believed that after death, people can (and do) return to places of great importance in their lives such as a childhood home or beloved business.
Gandy Dancer’s founder, seasoned restaurateur Chuck Muer, died tragically in 2005 along with his wife and two friends when his boat disappeared during a bad storm in the Bermuda Triangle.
Regardless, people have reported strange activity at the modern restaurant. Lights have been known to turn upside down, glasses fly off shelves, and a mysterious, well-dressed man has also been seen hanging around.
Crysta Coburn is a long-time contributor to The Crazy Wisdom Community Journal, one of the authors of Ypsilanti Ghosts & Legends, and she cohosts the popular Michigan-based podcast Haunted Mitten which covers ghost stories, urban legends, cryptids, UFOs sightings, and more events reported all throughout the Mitten State (including the UP). Haunted Mitten is available wherever you get your podcasts. In partnership with Ann Arbor Community Education & Recreation, Haunted Mitten will be conducting haunted tours of downtown Ann Arbor this October. Check reced.a2schools.org for dates and times.
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The city of Ann Arbor has been around for over 200 years. That’s more than enough time for tales of the paranormal to manifest. Probably the most famous local spirit is that of Martha Crawford Mulholland, a.k.a. the Dixboro ghost, who is believed to haunt the Dixboro General Store. But she is far from the only ghost story Ann Arbor has to tell.