KALISPELL — As the leaves fall, and we get closer to Halloween spooky activities are in full swing. One spooky activity in Kalispell offers a look into the town's history and the possible haunting of the Conrad Mansion.
“A lot of people smell cigar smoke as they're walking the grounds that is often reported to be Charles Conrad. So, if you're walking the grounds at night, or if you're up on the third floor in the mansion, and you get this whiff of kind of high-quality cigar smoke, that's Charles Conrad coming to say hello,” said Conrad Mansion Museum Director Brit Clark.
The Conrad Mansion, the home of the founding family of Kalispell, is rumored to be haunted and every October, the community gets a chance to walk through the mansion and experience the spooky history for themselves.
“Well, the Conrad Mansion is from the Victorian era, and culturally, we're a little fascinated by that era. It's dark, it's spooky. These ghost stories often come from that time period, because by the mid-20th century, these houses were old. They were falling apart. They developed these spooky back stories and the Conrad mansion is no different,” said Clark.
The Conrad Mansion Ghost Tours is one of the nonprofit's biggest fundraisers and offers a chance for people who may not be into history a reason to visit the mansion.
“You know, not everybody's a history buff. For some people, it's the architecture that brings them here. It's the gardens. Some people do love the history," Clark said. "But we think that by hosting these fun events that opens the doors to more people, gets more age groups in here. It's important. So we think that by opening the doors at these fun events, it just widens, widens our engagement."
The house is decorated for Halloween adding to the spooky feel of the old mansion. While it’s a cool opportunity to see the history of the mansion in a spooky light, the big question is, is it really haunted?
“Well, a lot of people will tell you it is. We have a lot of community members who have stories, a lot of board members, staff members, who have instances of a paranormal or spooky event that happened in this house. And that's what's really fun about the ghost tours. Every story that you'll hear on the ghost tour is some type of event that was reported in the home,” Clark told MTN.
The ghost tours are sold out this year, but the first floor of the mansion will be open to trick-or-treaters on Halloween giving one last opportunity to see the mansion decorated for Halloween.
