Discover the Oregon ghost
Story & photos by Gretchen Ammerman
Oregon Coast TODAY
The Taft area of Lincoln City, which once housed wrecks of sunken ships in the abutting bay, is ripe for spine-tingling stories.
Thus, from this fertile ground and the even more fertile imaginations of the people who live on it, rose the guided walking tour Haunted Taft: Ghosts and Legends of the Oregon Coast. Though some fantasy might be woven into the tales, most are grounded by true events and historical places.
Local locutors of lore, including some city council members, share tales like the one about a deserted schooner that sank in Siletz Bay. Even though the wreck, which was still visible until the 1980s, has since been taken by the elements, some residents swear they still see a ghostly apparition of the vessel sailing toward them on foggy nights.
There are, as of this writing, only a few tickets left for the fall season of Haunted Taft, leaving three options for people excited to get their spines tingled in this historic area: snap up those last few tickets; plan ahead for the spring tour season; or make your own tour, aided by the brochure created by Haunted Taft organizers the Bay Area Merchants Association, available at Taft area businesses or at taftbeach.com.
We’ve made a few suggestions based on our own ramblings.
This year is the 100th anniversary of the start of prohibition in the USA with the passing of the 18th Amendment. So, what better place to start or end your tour than the Snug Harbor Bar and Grill, which is the longest continuously running pub on the Oregon Coast, likely opening shortly after the passage of the 21st Amendment, which repealed prohibition in 1933.
“This place definitely has ghosts,” said Frankie Lam, who has worked at the Snug for roughly 10 years. “Over the years, when I am closing up and I’m here completely by myself, I will hear doors opening and closing upstairs. It used to freak me out but I’m pretty used to it now. We think it’s a guy named Phil, who used to live up there and might have died there, too.”
Your next stop might be across the street at the Sapphire Center, which is the first stop on the formal tour. At this shop, filled with rocks and crystals that frequently jump off the shelves or out of their baskets, you might get to talk to the employee, who asked to remain nameless, about the night she encountered a spirit with a sense of humor when closing up the store.
“We have so many little things in the store, so I was pleased when I got everything done faster than usual,” she said. “So, I said out loud to myself, ‘Now what will I do with all this extra time?’”
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she turned around to see that displays in one corner of the room had upended their contents all over the floor, telling her exactly what she could do with her extra time.
You can also bring local history alive at the North Lincoln County Historical Museum, recently reopened with new displays. Visit ghosts of technologies past at the “Defunct Devices” display, or get creeped out by photos of the old pioneers who might have had to live through prohibition on top of all the other hardships of settler life on the Oregon Coast.
No walking tour of Taft would be complete without a trip to the beach, where you just might catch a glimpse of Whiskey Jack, walking with his shovel.
“A few years ago, I heard a story about whiskey running on the Oregon Coast,” said Shellie Stuart, who helps organize and collect stories for the Haunted Taft tour. “So, I thought we should do something in honor of the anniversary of prohibition. I found a story about three men who were involved in a side business, running whiskey from Canada. They would land their boat on the shore and bury the whiskey all along the coast and, one time, their last stop was in Taft. They decided to burn the boat to get rid of the evidence, but of course all that did was alert everyone to their presence. Everyone knew about the whiskey runners, so they all went running down with shovels to dig up the whiskey. But the law also went down and caught the three men and they ended up in prison. They were such affable guys that when they finished their prison sentence, they didn’t want to be let out because they had made so many friends there. Anyway, there was a local hobo named Whiskey Jack, who was one of the people who would dig the beach with his shovel, hoping to find bottles that hadn’t been already claimed. On some nights, he can still be seen.”
You don’t need a shovel to find a treasure near Siletz Bay. Geocachers can check their apps for the Taft cache — one of 20 such treasures hidden from Newport to Garibaldi as part of the Cache the Coast GeoTour. Launching on Saturday, Oct. 17, the tour offers a unique collectible GeoCoin for the first 250 people to find all 20 caches. It’s sure to be a challenge for even the most spirited seeker. For details, go to cachethecoast.itzwild.com.
“We started this to highlight all the things that Taft has going on, even at night,” Stuart said. “We’ve had so much fun finding and sharing the many stories from around here. I think these types of tours are a great way to get to know the more interesting, offbeat parts of an area and it’s a great way to get to know the character of a place, too. It’s not that I’m a huge believer in ghosts, I just think it’s a fun way to get to know about where you are visiting, or even to find out some things you didn’t know about where you live.”
The Haunted Taft tour takes about an hour and a half, covers about half a mile of walking on flat, paved streets, and is wheelchair accessible. As of this writing, the few tickets remaining are for the Oct. 31 tour. VIP tickets include a t-shirt with a glow in the dark logo and a goody bag of fun, spooky-themed items donated by local businesses.
If you do your own tour, you can still get a goody bag and shirt for $25 by emailing shellie@taftbeach.com.
For more information, go to hauntedtaft.com.