Baraboo Train Depot Investigation
This blog post was written by Whitney Dankemeyer.
The first train to ever arrive in Baraboo, Wisconsin was the year 1871.
Baraboo had a much smaller population before train transportation. Bringing trains into the city not only doubled the population but made it easier to move furniture and lumber without the aid of a horse. Having the railroad expanded the community from 2,000 to 4,000 people, and by 1886, there were more stores, homes, and churches scattered across the area.
The train depot began as a only one-story building, but it was the headquarters and at the center of railroad activities. Because people thought the headquarters was too small, they decided to expand it into a two-story building in 1902. Brick was added, and so was an office upstairs.
The upstairs office consisted of railroad staff, including the railroad division managers, clerks, and dispatchers. The managers oversaw the employees, created work schedules for the staff, and kept track of every train arrival and departure. Because this was a time before technology, trains were kept track of with merely paper and pencil. By the time renovations were completed, they had almost 400 employees working for the train depot. Aside from management staff, they were paying conductors, engineers, repairmen, brakemen, and even firemen. This was more than 5% of the city’s population.
The downstairs of the depot had rooms for passengers to wait in, as well as a restaurant they could eat at to pass time. Outside had a 300 ft. long canopy that would shelter guests as they waited for their train. There was also an eight-stall roundhouse with turntables that expanded to 28 during renovation.
But alas, time marches on, and cars became available for purchase in the Baraboo area in the early 1900s. By the 1920s, cars were found everywhere all over the Sauk County area. People began driving their own vehicles more and taking the train less. By 1963, passenger trains stopped coming through Baraboo, WI. Trains still come to Baraboo carrying freight, but the train depot sits as a shell of a business. The offices were sold, the canopy was removed, and all the windows were boarded up.
Present day, the Baraboo Chicago & Northwestern Depot and Division Office is the only surviving building representing railroad transportation in Baraboo. In October of 2020, the depot was turned over to the Sauk County Historical Society, and they are in the process of restoring the building. The last update of restoration on the train depot was from April of 2022. If you would like to donate to help restore this historic train depot, you can click the link here: Home - Sauk County Historical Society (saukcountyhistory.org). Donations currently sit at $282,694.
While there are no records of paranormal activity, the depot is just a block away from the historic Old Baraboo Inn. It is said men would step off the train and ladies from the brothel used to watch them through the window. It is also rumored that Al Capone traveled to Baraboo from Chiacago to hide out at OBI. So while the train depot is out of service and vacant, we still believed we could find spirit communication there.
We’ve been driving by the Baraboo Train Depot for over a year now, mostly while driving up for paranormal events. There have been a few occasions where we walked around it, sometimes with other people, sometimes by ourselves. This day we ventured just the three of us, leaving for Baraboo mid-afternoon on Saturday, November 11, 2023.
Any time we visited the train depot, images from the past flooded my mind. There is always one image in particular I see of the backside of the building, and that is of the canopy, people standing underneath it, and a black train pulling up to the station. I hear the roaring of voices, the train’s brakes on the tracks, and can feel the steam hitting my face. Because I had the same experience on this investigation as well, I subconsciously logged it in case it was important to us later.
Once our walk-around of the building was complete, we did what we do best and set up for an Estes Method session. Swan, as always, put the headphones on over her ear and turned the spirit box on. We could have set boundaries to only speak to spirits from the depot, but with OBI being kitty-corner, we did not set limitations in case they too wanted to talk.
The first word we received from Swan was, “Walter.” We were unsure if this was a spirit providing their name or reaching out to someone, so we let the spirit know they could come forward and talk. The next response was, “Up on there,” so I asked if they were waiting for a train, and Swan said, “You wouldn’t know.” We said we wouldn’t know because the business appeared to be out of service, and Swan answered, “Cheers.”
This response inspired me to ask if they visited OBI. Swan said, “Personally, we have,” revealing to us that there may be more than one spirit present. I asked, “Were you a frequent visitor of the area?” and Swan answered, “Contract.” We asked if they came to town for business, and the temperature gauge sounded. When we asked what they did for business, Swan said she heard a kiss.
Nicole giggled. She said, “Business in pleasure,” and Swan responded, “The guy on the right.” Without question, we knew this was referring to the women from the brothel watching men get off the train. I told Nicole I was getting brothel vibes, so I asked the spirit if they knew some of the women upstairs. Swan responded that she saw a woman leaning up against a wall with a cigarette, so we began to wonder if we were actually speaking to a lady. I asked if this was a woman from the brothel, and the temp gauge sounded again. This was followed by, “Fast” and a moan. We tried to ask what the lady’s name was, but it appeared she didn’t remember it. Swan mentioned hearing a sultry woman’s voice though, which still gave us the impression this was a woman from the brothel.
The woman then said, “Five.” Nicole and I questioned whether or not this meant there were five spirits with us. Earlier, they said, “We,” and now they were giving us quantity. Swan said the woman’s voice started to sound like it was in the background, which made us even more confused. We started to wonder if the spirits were going back and forth talking.
We continued to ask questions, but we were getting little for answers now. What we had established so far was someone came by train for business, visited the brothel, and there was someone named Walter. We did not know if Walter was communicating, but we did know the lady coming forward wasn’t the only one. It almost made us question whether or not boundaries would’ve been a good idea after all, but if we did, we may not have had the previous conversation.
One of the responses we received was “Run, run” when we asked where their home was. Later we got the word, “Thief,” and then Swan said she heard someone else say, “Who wouldn’t?” While the temperature gauge was sounding, I tried to ask if they were caught stealing. This was interrupted with radio interference. The audio cut out on both video and spirit box. We are unsure what exactly caused this other than it possibly being the frequency of the temp gauge going off.
Once our equipment finished glitching, Swan said, “Herb is right here.” Nicole and I greeted Herb and asked what he had to share with us. Swan shouted, “Hey!” We hollered it back.
Herb was quite the flirt during this session. He interrupted our conversation to say, “Oh my. You are gorgeous.” We said thank you, and Herb said, “Kitty” and “I’m crazy.” Nicole said, “Yeah, ya are!” while we shared a laugh. When Swan said, “Get out,” we thought Herb was offended by our laughter until she additionally mentioned seeing a man standing outside our vehicle. When we asked Herb if he wanted us to step out of the car, Swan said, “Down the way.” While this could’ve meant many things, we believe he wanted us to go to Old Baraboo Inn with him. When we asked for confirmation, only the temp gauge sounded.
We shot the shit with Herb for a little while longer, but his proactiveness started to take its toll. I broke the news to him that I was gay, and instead of taking no as an answer, he asked if I was bi and if I would give him a kiss. Fortunately, we were distracted by a squirrel whilst this was occurring, so we were able to redirect the conversation when we came back to it. When we apologized for getting distracted, Herb said, “It’s cool,” and “Live your life.”
As we were wrapping up our session, Swan brought up the number five again. We asked one more time, “Five what?” and they finally responded, “Next to you.” While trying to gather more information about who these people were, Swan said, “Vigilante.” We asked who the vigilante was, and Swan answered, “ME!” When we asked if this person was Fonz, the temperature gauge sounded and Swan said, “I’m serious.”
Our Baraboo Train Depot investigation went exactly how we expected it to go. While we can’t confirm the spirits we communicated with were merely at the depot, we were able to verify these spirits are mobile. They are not confined to one specific property, so these spirits were able to communicate with us freely. We thank the spirits for coming forward to share a few words with us, and we thank YOU for reading.
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