Mounds Theatre Investigation
This blog post was written by Whitney Dankemeyer, one half of Two Halves of a Soul.
Picture this: the year is 1922. Prohibition is in full effect, Burlesque shows have taken America by storm, and silent movies are on the rise. If there was anywhere around the St. Paul, Minnesota area to catch some live entertainment, it would be found in what is known as the historic Mounds Theatre.
Mounds Theatre was first established in 1922 as a vaudeville house where it was later turned into a place for cinema. It was renovated twice, once in 1933 and the second time in the 1950’s before the building was shut down in July of 1967.
For over 40 years, this building was used as a warehouse until December of 2001. When renovation projects were finally in effect, the theatre was refurbished into a community center for the neighborhood. To this day, this 8,600 sq. ft. nonprofit organization is operating as a theatre where it hosts live shows, movies, concerts, wedding receptions, and educational activities.
So what is it with the hauntings of Mounds Theatre? Many rumors have circled throughout the years over the paranormal activity within the walls of this establishment, but which stories are accurate and which are an exaggeration of the truth?
Let’s clear the air.
The first spirit we heard about was Mary, who is a little girl spirit residing in the theatre. Her story entails being killed in the basement and found naked outside in the parking lot. When we went on our private tour, we were informed by the tour guide that this story is false. They had done extensive research and looked into the history of this establishment only to come up with nothing regarding the death of a little girl. This doesn’t mean she isn’t still on the property though.
Back when Mounds was first operating business, parents were known to drop their children off at the theatre for the day and pick them up on their way home from work. There is a great possibility that this little girl has come back to one of her happiest memories in the afterlife. That, and there is a portal in this establishment. As our tour guide had mentioned during our tour, they have plenty of time, so “Why not catch a movie?”
When it comes to proof of Mary’s existence, it is said you can hear the laugh and voice of a little girl. Not only that, but she will play with flashlights, roll a ball on the stage, and clap her hands to the song, “If You’re Happy and You Know it.” If your footwear peaks her interest, she might even be found playing with the laces on your shoes.
Aside from Mary and the active portal, there are other well known spirits wandering in the theatre. These spirits, though, were actually employees who dedicated most of their lives to their work. The first one we will go into is Jim.
Jim was the former usher of Mounds Theatre, and he really loved the work he did. At one point in his career, he had left for the Army. Because he was so respected at the theatre, he was told there would be a spot for him as soon as he came back. Jim, never forgetting his love for the theatre, did in fact come home from war and resume his position as an usher.
Jim’s activity includes seeing him working. Employees will have gone home from a late show, leaving their mess behind to clean up the next morning, and return to the theatre to see it already cleaned up for them. There is even a story of a woman who was shushed during a show, only to figure out later it was Jim telling her to be quiet as if it were still a silent movie performance.
The other spirit roaming the property is known as Red. Red worked in the projection booth from start to finish, not including the brief time away he took to recover from a broken leg. Red had jumped from the balcony into the aisles, breaking his leg, but the reason for this occurrence is still unknown. Websites say that it was to impress a girl. Although it is not confirmed, there are still other reasons that could be the cause of this event. Some say that he jumped to stop people from misbehaving, others say he did it just to be reckless. No one officially knows the motive behind this jump, but we do know that this did actually occur.
Red is known to have been interested in blond women. In fact, he just really likes the ladies. He is known to get handsy with women on site, and he is said to swear a lot. These are just some of the key signs that Red is present during an investigation.
There is one more entity that needs to be discussed before we go into our investigation and that is the elemental spirit that never leaves the basement. This being is not of human spirit and has what feels like tentacles when it makes contact with you. In the simplest of terms, this entity reciprocates the energy you feed it. If you respect its existence and space, you will be left unharmed. If you approach the basement provoking it in an aggressive manner, you will be chased out of there with scratch marks on your body. Think we’re joking? Ask the paranormal investigators that were physically touched one night while investigating. It really happened.
Going into this investigation, we tried to keep as open of a mind as possible considering the first investigation of October (The Old Baraboo Inn) had a similar situation of website details not matching the real story. We made the drive to St. Paul, Minnesota the evening of October 22nd, and it wasn’t until midnight where we were let in the doors to sign our waiver forms. This time our crew included our usual companion Nic Dank, followed by our friend Helen and Swan’s boyfriend Gary (who has never been on an investigation with us before). Once inside, we were introduced to Jessica, Shawn, and Chantelle, two of the three who would be our tour guides for the remainder of our stay. It was around this time, too, where we discovered the five of us and the tour guides would be the only ones in the building for three hours. That’s right, we found out AT the theatre that we had the whole place to explore and investigate ourselves.
When we walked through the doors past entry, we all gathered in front of concessions. This was where we got to hear all the history of Mounds and see all the things they discovered clearing out the warehouse for renovations. Our tour guides then took us around the whole location, starting with the back of the theatre, front of the theatre, the projection room, back to the stage, and then were guided down to the basement where we were briefly introduced to the elemental spirit before the investigation actually began. It was throughout this tour that we were given more insight on the roaming spirits before interacting with them. This we were all very thankful for, considering we went over all our false research on the ride over.
When the investigation started, we began with seating ourselves at a table in the front row right before the stage. We set up an EVP recording, had a flashlight on, and conducted an Estes Method/Spirit Box session with the temp gauge simultaneously. This was our first attempt to establish contact with spirits. Our tour guides weren’t present at this time, but you will soon understand why their presence is so important in this investigation.
The spirits were communicating with us via flashlight and temperature gauge, meaning they would trigger the devices after a Yes or No question was asked. At one point Nicole even mentioned feeling a presence walking up and standing behind her, and that was when the temperature gauge went off yet again. We came to the conclusion that it might have been a mix of spirits in the beginning of the session, but we definitely ended this session with Red. We asked him if he would step away from the gauge that was sounding, and almost immediately, the noises ceased.
It was then we decided to move from the table in front of the stage to a circle on the actual stage. We all seated, inviting the tour guides to join us for the rest of this tour. Chantelle wasn’t there for the entirety of the sessions, but we were fortunate enough to have Shawn with us the whole rest of the journey. When we began our next session with all the same equipment, we asked the spirits if they recognized our tour guides. The answers we received were “yes” and “love.” Our tour guides had mentioned before we began the tour that they were well-known and liked by the residing spirits at Mounds, so this was very confirming evidence. And because Shawn joined us for the rest of the investigation, we received a lot more responses than we expected we were going to.
We proceeded this session with asking what they wanted to tell us, and they responded “anniversary.” This again was compelling because the theatre had just celebrated its 100th anniversary. That was when a spirit came through and said “Holy shit!” to which the tour guide responded “Hi, Red.” Remember what we said about Red swearing a lot? Well, it wasn’t hard to figure out when he was around.
Red definitely wanted us to see and feel his presence because he at one point even asked us if we could hear him. We said yes, and then he continued to speak by saying he was around us. That was when the flashlight on the stage turned off behind us. He clearly didn’t want us to leave the establishment though because he said “Stay here” not too long after, and then when I told Red we would stay as long as he liked, Swan said “Happy” over the Estes. Due to all of his excitement to speak to us and show us around, he demanded that we go upstairs.. NOW. And that was when we knew he wanted to take us up to his projection booth.
The projection booth was where Red worked during his employment at Mounds, so this is where we got a ton of evidence, including channeling his emotions and feelings. It began with Helen conducting the Estes Method this time, and right away she said “touch” and “Swan.” We assumed that he was talking about just touching her, but we later realized the pain in her hips and legs she was feeling throughout the night was Red channeling his pain. This was because Swan had major leg surgeries growing up, including a hip surgery later. She was the only one who could truly relate to the pain he may have endured from the incident or even after.
While also up in the projection booth, we recapped Red’s love for blonde women. Fortunately, we had Nicole with us who has blonde hair and a nice build. Red commented on that by speaking “Boobs” through our devices. We joked about Nicole having the largest boobs in our group, so Nicole said, “I guess we’re gonna talk about my body then!” and Red responded “Fun.” This definitely broke the ice for conversation.
Further into the session, Red set off the temperature gauge as red instead of the color blue, indicating heat in the room. We believe that Red was showing us how hot the projection booth used to get because the tour guide mentioned that the area up there could get up to over 100 degrees. It wasn’t too long after that when we got a series of words indicating it was time to move to the next spot and conduct another session. The words he said were “Move, time is up,” “change,” and “movement.” Pretty self-explanatory.
We moved back down to the fireplace room where Jim is known to hang out. The temperature gauge detected cold when we were down there conducting the Estes again and began sounding off. We knew it was Jim the minute Swan said “Army.” If you hadn’t remembered from earlier, Jim is the one who left the theatre for deployment and returned to his work once he came home. This was him confirming his presence with us during that session.
Jim didn’t seem to be giving great responses and eventually said “end of this.” Our tour guide picked up on the vibe that he was asking us to stop recording but not necessarily end the session. As soon as we stopped recording on EVP, turned off the video camera, and turned off our iOvilus device, we got what was one of the most incredible pieces of evidence we’ve ever heard. What we received was a full sentence from Red, who was still following us along the investigation, but hanging out alongside Jim during this session. I had asked, “What’s going on over there, Red?” and he responded “I don’t know,” followed by, “half of them,” “not sure,” “how to,” and "react.” WHAAAAT!
Other than this, we didn’t get too much else from our session at the table in the fireplace room with Red and Jim. With only twenty minutes left in the investigation, there was one more area we still needed to explore.. the basement.
We get over to the basement and Helen asks us if she is allowed to go down there alone. We got the equipment ready for her and left her to walk down the stairs by herself. She wanted to sit with the basement and really get a feel for what it was. After a moment of quiet, sitting on the stairs listening to her talk, she finally came up the staircase to explain that the basement entity just.. chooses to be down there. We didn’t have enough time to conduct a further session and ask where it came from, but it did confirm that it was not a Native American related spirit, as others have said once before.
Overall, this investigation gave us a lot of evidence throughout the night, but unfortunately nothing caught on EVP. Although EVPs have been heard before investigating this location, we happened to have multiple devices and the spirits had favorites. This was also part of the reason we had to conclude our EVP and video recording during our Estes Method session at the fireplace table. We can confirm though that all these spirits reside, and they are overjoyed to still be at the theatre. It was pleasant to reminisce about their time alive working at Mounds, and it was an absolute pleasure to be so welcomed by both the spirits and tour guides. We recommend this place to anyone who is not only into paranormal activity, but mostly importantly, the history this establishment holds. Remember, this theatre is also a nonprofit organization, and you can find a link to donate to this historic theatre on our lnk.tree in our bio on Instagram.
Thanks for reading!
Supporting Links:
Comentarios