04/29/2022
History/Background:
We were able to find an extensive history on this property, by our own searching along with the help of the local Historical Society and current property owners. In 1803, the plot was purchased by James Kilbourn and Asahel Hart. Years later in 1817, it was sold to John Snow for $1,800 (Snow owned a local Drug Store nearby). The property was kept in the Snow family for generations, and was then sold to Claude Longenecker in 1917, who owned a Dental Practice near the property. Part of this plot was later leased to Stephen Snouffer starting in 1928, which is when the first structure was built on the property (Snouffer Brothers Garage and Filling Station). In 1967 the property was purchased by Paul Kurtzman (of Kurtzman-Shuter Motors) who had been overseeing the Snouffer Brothers Garage. After this, there is a bit of a gap where we couldn’t find exactly when the Garage closed, but we do know that during this time a “Snouffer Dry Cleaners” along with a Rolls Royce Shop were functioning at some point. In 1992 the property was bought by the owners of La Chatelaine, and they would finish demolishing/rebuilding in 1993.
Claims:
There are many claims of the Paranormal at this location, and have been happening since renovations began. One notable experience happened one evening during the renovation process. Two employees were in the women’s restroom painting, and there was no one else in the building at the time. They both heard a sliding/shuffling noise, and stopped painting to get a better listen. Even with both of them stopped and motionless, the noise continued. They opened the door and looked out into the hall, where several high chairs had been moved (by what?) from around the corner at the other end of the hall. That was enough for both employees, and they left for the night.
A common occurrence (at all times of the day) is coffee and tea tins flying off shelves toward the dining area.There was also an instance where the lights above the bar were seen (and caught on video) flickering on and off without a known cause. These occurrences were things that we definitely wanted to look into during the investigation.
Another common occurrence is sightings or activity from “Mr. Bunn”, an entity that the staff has named (due to most activity happening around the Bunn coffee machines). Over the years, many people (staff and customers alike) have claimed sightings of a man wearing blue coveralls standing near the coffee station. On one of these occurrences, an employee was closing up the restaurant for the night (and was the only one inside at the time). She was closing out one of the registers, and saw a man in coveralls out of the corner of her eye. Thinking it must be her boyfriend coming to pick her up after her shift, she told him she was almost done. Then it hit her, her boyfriend was currently out of state for work. In shock, she looked up to see a figure standing before her, and then vanish suddenly. She immediately left the restaurant that night.
With all these claims, we wanted to try to get as many questions answered for the owners and staff that we could.
Investigators for the Night
Mark, Kayla, Mandy, and Jerry
The Investigation:
Once we met with the owner and got a tour of the building, we sat down and came up with a game plan. We started setting up all of our equipment so we could get straight to work. We always try to cover as much area as we can with our cameras, and we especially try to cover all of the areas that we know have claims to them. For instance we had a camera covering the bar area to try to catch the lights flickering, along with cameras covering the drink station where the coffee and tea tins have been seen flying off the shelves.
To start off the investigation we split into two groups; Mark and Jerry went down to the detached basement to start with an EVP (electronic voice phenomenon )session, while Kayla and Mandy stayed in the main restaurant and started their EVP session by the bar area. When we do our EVP sessions, we usually have one group member listening live through the audio recorder while we ask questions; that way if we do happen to catch a response we can hear it in real time. These sessions went on for a little while and then we decided to regroup and go over any experiences that we may have had. The team met back up in the main restaurant sitting area, and since we hadn’t had much luck in the basement or in the bar area we decided to all sit down by the beverage station to see if we could get any responses there. This area is where Mr Bunn is often seen or experienced.
We decided to try a quick Spirit Box session to see if we could get any responses this way. Depending on the activity of a location and the type of entity that we are dealing with, sometimes they are more receptive to one technique over another, so we try a lot of different things while investigating to get the best responses. In a Spirit Box session, a device is used that filters through AM radio stations at a very fast pace and generates mostly static noise. The theory is that an entity can use the Spirit Box and grab words from the radio stations that are being filtered through and piece those together to communicate to anyone listening to the box. During our sessions we have one team member blindfolded and listening to the Spirit Box with noise-cancelling headphones on, and if they hear any words or sentences they will call it out. The rest of the group will be asking questions and trying to get responses.
At first the session was going very slowly, and we were only getting a couple one word answers here and there (which is fairly normal). At one point we were told to “go away”; we just let the entity know again that we had been invited by the owner, and were only here to talk. After that, the entity become much more talkative, and was able to have a great conversation with us for over 2 hours (the longest Spirit Box session we had ever had!). Throughout the session we were able to learn a lot about this entity. We asked multiple times for a name, age, gender etc, and through the Spirit Box Kayla heard, “I’m Mr. Bunn!”. We asked him if he knew where he was, and he replied, “It’s a bakery”. He even offered us some free bread! When we asked what he thought of the owner he replied, “She’s lovely”. We had such a great conversation throughout the entire session, and to write down everything that happened would probably take hours.
Evidence:
Short of the Spirit Box Session, the only other piece of evidence we caught during the night was a short video clip. We had a couple of cameras covering the beverage area where Mr Bunn is typically seen or experienced. One of these cameras focuses on the pop machines at the front of this area, and we did catch a shadow pass by the pop machine and actually block out some of the light. The team has reviewed this piece of footage many times, trying to figure out an exact cause of why this happened. Could it be the reflection of a team member walking by? Lights from a passing car? Next time we go investigate this location, we are going to try a couple of techniques to see if we can recreate this ourselves.
Debunked:
With all that we experienced and potential evidence captured throughout the night, we weren’t able to debunk or disprove any of the claims of activity. That being said, the investigation left us with more questions that need answers, and we cannot wait to go back for a second investigation of this location.