Pollard Hotel
About 1 month after we moved to Red Lodge, MT. I got a housekeeping job at the old Pollard Hotel.
The Pollard Hotel was built between the mid 1800s to late 1800s and has quite a bit of activity surrounding it. Apparently way back when history notes the Pollard as housing the famous Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickock and Buffalo Bill Cody. Shoot-outs in the street were famous back then. The name of the hotel hasn't changed since the Pollard family founded it.
When I arrived for my first shift, Jenny, an Ojibwa Indian and the head housekeeper, sent me up to the north side of the third floor to vacuum the hallway. While I was up there I got the strangest feeling that someone was watching me. I keep rubbing the back of my neck, you know that uncomfortable feeling you get when someone is staring at you. I tried to ignore it, but the feeling was too overwhelming. I quickly finished up the hallway and went back to the front desk. Jenny and the receptionist were standing there and I said, "Why didn't anyone tell me that his hotel is haunted?" They looked at me with complete amazement!! I then learned that I was replacing the receptionist because she couldn't handle it. They never told me because they didn't want me to be frightened away. I told them it was no big deal to me.
Over the course of my three month tenure, I observed several happening and gathered data. For example, I learned that the hauntings were only on the north side of the hotel, and every story seems to collaborate with that. I also learned that the third floor (this was the top floor) had the strongest concentration of activity, more so than the basement, lobby or second floor. It was off season at the time I was working there so we had the hotel to ourselves, but we still had to go around every day to do touch ups since things gather dust. We hardly had but one or two rooms full at a time, and we always put them on the south side.
There was one peculiarity about the second floor though: one particular room smelled of a certain 19th century French perfume that reportedly came in little cobalt bottles. You couldn't escape it no matter how much you tried to disinfect, deodorize or air out the room. That aroma never faded. Back in those days hotels were not only for passers-by, but people used to take up residence there. This is my feeling about this room. Perhaps she was a performer or evening entertainment.
Before I go any further I should mention that the hotel is shaped like a "U" and the middle used to be a courtyard. Now, that courtyard has been enclosed and the enclosure has become the laundry room. From the laundry room you can see the windows of the second and third floors that used to view the outside (they view the laundry room instead). There has been a few occurrences from the laundry room itself. One occurrence happened while Jenny and I were eating lunch. Right in front of the lunch table was Josh, the manager/owner's room. Josh was the only one that had a key to that room. Well, Jenny and I knew that Josh wasn't there that day, and while we were eating lunch the light in his room popped on. We thought this was strange since he was supposedly out. Jenny went downstairs to ask if Josh had shown up after all and she was told no, he hadn't. She even rang the phone in his room just to double check. She came back upstairs and told me what had transpired. We both thought this was strange and figured maybe it was just a fluke, when all of a sudden the light went out! This happened repeatedly while we were eating lunch and we never found an explanation for it. On another day, again while we were eating lunch, we noticed a man's face looking out at us from a third floor window. We could even see his cowboy hat and old western clothing he was wearing. We went upstairs to that room and scaired ourselves silly with anticipation, but unfortunately the room was empty. We didn't expect to find anything, but we had fun with the notion.
On several occasions, while cleaning the north side of the third floor, I would see three white flashes out of my peripheral vision going into one of the rooms. I would walk down to that room, and as I was inserting the key, I would see the same three white flashes going into another room as if they were playing tag with me or something. I have always been told you see spirits out of your peripheral vision, but I have had experiences which contradict this theory.
Well, Jenny and I had always been picked to clean the north side of the third floor because everyone else was scaired. She said she was brought up with spirits because of her Indian heritage, so it didn't bother her. One day she and I had gone into room 310 to clean up. This particular room didn't have any windows. Every time you open that room, the light would be on. Jenny said that this has been happening for a long time now and she figured it was because there was no window. I thought that someone forgot to turn it off last time they were in to clean. Jenny shut the door, and the turned off the light and said we'd come back to it so I'd see the light would be on. We then proceeded to check all of the other rooms, and sure enough, when we came back to room 310 about 20 minutes later - the light was back on! Sometimes we'd yell out, "Keep the light off!" and the light would be off for a couple of days, but inevitably it would be back on again. It became a big joke to us constantly telling the ghost to keep the light off. We made a game of it to see how many days "it" could go without turning on the light.
At one point the hotel booked guests in room 312. Jenny and I were sent up to clean the room after the guests checked out. While she was cleaning up the bathroom she started feeling faint and said she had to get out of there. She said it felt like someone was trying to push her down, trying to make her slip. I had, at another time, had an interesting experience in that same room. Again, guests were booked into room 312. This time I was sent up to clean it by myself. I parked my cleaning cart outside the door and proceeded to walk in. As soon as I stepped over the threshold, my head became cloudy and I felt very dizzy, very unwelcome, like I was being pushed out. Every time I crossed the threshold to grab something off the cleaning cart, my head would clear instantly, but once back in the room, I became cloudy again. I couldn't get a grip, but knew that someone didn't want me there. I quickly cleaned up and got out of there in a flash. I had never felt like that before and could never find anyone who had a similar experience. I had always wondered what, if anything, happened in these rooms - like a card game that went awry and someone was shot. No one knows much history about the hotel.
I had asked the night receptionist if she had ever noticed any strange happenings late at night. She told me that she heard strange noises coming from the indoor racquetball courts, but could never find anyone there, or any explanation for it since no one ever heard these noises in the day. She said it almost sounded like someone playing racquetball, but not so loud. She said she even went down there one time figuring someone was trying to sneak in a game after hours, but the courts were dark and there was no one there. She then proceeded to tell me the stories she had learned. Apparently when the hotel was being built, the Pollard children had a pet monkey. One day the pet monkey was missing, never to be found again - some say it was entombed in one of the basement walls. She thought the noises might have been the monkey's spirit trying to escape. She also mentioned at one time (period unknown) an indoor pool was put in, but it never held water and no leaks were ever found - with no explanation. This is now where the racquetball courts are - if you rip up the floor, the pool is still there and intact.
Well I decided that I was going to take my camera to work and take some pictures of the third floor hallway. I was hoping to catch the white flashes I had seen. I set up my 35mm on a tripod, hooked up the trip switch and ducked around the corner. I had a few frames left on my present roll so I shot the rest of the film and put in a new roll. This time I put the camera on a timer and left it there for a while to take a few frames. I came back a little while later and noticed that it only took a few frames, but I figured that would be good enough - after all it was only an experiment. A few weeks later a friend came to visit us. He had a new puppy and we had a new puppy so I took some pictures of them playing together. Suddenly I noticed the picture indicator was way past 36 frames, and still going! This is unusual since the film tugs, and it is always easy to tell when you've reached the last frame. I had taken photography for years and was very familiar with the workings of the camera. I opened the camera to take out the film thinking I had ripped the roll, and there was no film in the camera!! What! I was utterly dumbfounded. I looked in my camera bag for the other roll of film which had some hotel hallway pictures on it and guess what, that roll was gone too! The feeling was overwhelming. It became obvious to me that "someone" in that hallway didn't want to be photographed and took my film! Needless to say I never tried again. I was very disappointed.
On occasion people would come in to the hotel because they heard it was haunted. I usually volunteered to give them a tour and relay everyone's experiences. I frequently took them up to room 310 and, sure enough, the light would be on. We'd move on to the next attraction and go back a little while later to check on the light - it always amazed people. This was the most reliable attraction.
After working there for about three months I ended up getting a better job, so I ended my employment with the Pollard Hotel. Quite some time later my friend Valerie came down from Great Falls (for those that read part one, this is the same Valerie). I told her all about the hotel so she was intrigued to check it out. One night we went over there and I took her on a tour. She became very uncomfortable in the third floor hallway and didn't want to stay. She didn't give much of an explanation except that it gave her bad feelings.
One thing that I noticed about the third floor hallway (north side of course) is that it always had dead flies everywhere; on the floor, in the lights. What's the signifigance of this? This hallway was always much colder, with the exception of the room with the odor of perfume. I never heard any strange accounts from any of the guests.
I hope you enjoy this story..