Lucian Barnes Pavilion-Main Museum
A large number of experiences occur in the Main Musuem. Volunteers have reported hearing whistling or a piano playing when they are here alone. Videos, such as the one in the Vice Exhibit, will begin to play without anyone pressing its start button. If you visit the Rotating Gallery where the Military Exhibit is up, you will see a broken shotgun in one of the cases. This belonged to Leo Cleveland and was used to murder Henry Biever and his wife, Shirley, in 1936. The couple owned a service station in Leonard, North Dakota and were closing up when Leo Cleveland entered their store. Cleveland was desperate to marry a girl from Anselm, North Dakota, but was a broke farmhand. After being unable to secure a loan, he went to the store with the intent to rob it. He walked in, waited until customers had left, then approached Mr. Beiver and shot him. Mrs. Biever screamed and tried to run away. Cleveland hit her over the head with the gun. He took $5 from the register, left the store, filled a kettle with gasoline, and proceded to douse the building and the Bievers in it, before lighting it on fire. Leo Cleveland fled. He was later caught and convicted. In prison he was a model prisoner, prompting an early release in 1956. He moved to the west coast and married a widow with several children. Cleveland eventually killed her, too, and left her children without a mother.
Passenger Train Car
After the announcement of Paranormal Investigations of Bonanzaville in 2017, an inquiry came to the staff from a person who asked if anyone had ever seen any ghosts in the Burlington Northern passenger car. They stated that when they were a child they were at Bonanzaville on a tour and had snuck off into the train shed, a place where they were not supposed to be. They stated they saw a full-body apparition, a woman in old-style clothing, who shook a finger admonishingly at them.During the Paranormal Investigations in October 2017, many groups were able to pick up different intelligent responses to questions from the Spirit Box. The Spirit Box cycles through radio frequencies at a rapid rate and it is thought that a spirit will channel their voice through it. One group in particular was told to "get out" after they had been joking about the "ghost" not wanting them there.
Fredrickson Hearse
Built in the late 1800's, the Myhra-Fredrikson Funeral Home in Davenport, ND purchased the hearse in 1905. The last time the hearse was used by Mr. Fredrikson himself was in June of 1932, when heavy rains necessitated two teams to pull the hearse throught the mud. The hearse was used for the last time in 1986, when Mr. Fredrikson's son, Robert, passed away. He had specifically requested the hearse be brought from Bonanzaville for his funeral. Several visitors have reported feeling the presence of a man attached with the hearse. One person even reported seeing a vague shadow near the hearse during Pioneer Days 2017.
South Pleasant Church
This historic church was built in 1890 and served its congregation until 2013. It was moved to Bonanzaville in 2015 and underwent extensive renovations before being opened to the public in late 2017.While the church was being worked on, construction crews reported several instances of the unexplained. Tools would go missing or be found in random locations in the church, child-sized footprints were found in sawdust on the floor (the churched was closed during renovations and no one was allowed on site), and some reported hearing a child's laugh. Most disturbing of all was several reports from the crews that hands were trying to push them off the balcony while they were working up there. It got so bad that crews refused to work before dawn or after sunset.During a live morning newshow in the church in October 2017, several production lights that had been fully charged flickered and went off for several minutes before coming back on again. They had no trouble with the lights after that.
Houston Mansion
This extravagant home, which was owned by Annie and David Houston, has been long had reports of unexplained activities. In one of the east bedrooms on the second floor many guests have reported seeing an indentation in the bed in the shape of a human figure. On multiple occasions staff have remade the bed and will come back a few hours later to the same indentation in the mattress. After further investigating staff were unable to find a reasonable cause for this incident.In the same bedroom a rocking horse sits on the floor. After wrapping up an interview with a local news station, the rocking horse was seen moving. All four people (2 Bonanzaville staff members and 2 news crew members) in the room had witnessed this event and spent the next few minutes trying to debunk the movement. As they moved around the room they would jump to see if the rocking horse would move again with no success. They were unable to pinpoint what would have caused the horse to rock.In between news segments, the staff was showing the newscrew how to use a Spirit Box when a not very nice word came through. Staff and the newscrew were shocked, as this word is not one that would be heard on the radio. Two minutes later, the word came through a final time before all activity stopped. Finally, on one of the Ghost Tour nights in October, a visitor claiming to be a medium claimed that the spirit of Annie Houston was still in the home and was displeased by all the visitors coming through so late at night.
Brass Rail Saloon and Hotel
The Brass Rail Saloon from Page, North Dakota has been another location with unexplained activities. The building housed a restaurant/ bar in the main level and the upper level was home to the Page Hotel. Many people have claimed to feel someone watching as you walk into the building. Some of the noises that have been heard in the building include the chairs moving, voices, footsteps, and more. Guests have mentioned seeing someone looking out over the street from the upper story windows, which was closed to the public at that time.Located in the upper level there is a photo of a woman. A close acquaintance of the staff had asked to see the upper area of the building. Upon seeing this photo, she immediately announced that she believed that the woman in the photo was still in the building and that her name or nickname started with an “M”. Bonanzaville staff researched further and found that the lady in the photo was named Mildred. During the winter months when Bonanzaville is closed the building is left locked unless entered by Bonanzaville staff. In the spring of 2018 staff and entered the saloon in search of an item and had noticed that the deck of cards the is left on the poker table had been sprawled out cross the table with one card in particular being stuck under the leg of the wood burning stove on the floor. None of the staff members had remembered the cards being moved and there were no signs of a break in to the building, leaving this unexplained.A paranormal group received permission from Bonanzaville to investigate the village overnight in the spring of 2018. They left a recorder in one of the upstairs bedrooms of the saloon while they went out into the village. Early in the morning hours, you can hear on the recorder chairs moving across the floor and several loud bangs that the group, upon hearing the recording, were unable to explain away, as there was no wind that night.
Bjerklie Drug Store
The Bjerklie Drug Store is another location at Bonanzaville where odd and unexplained things have happened.During a paranormal group's investigation in the spring of 2018, they heard on a voice recorder what sounded like someone tapping on the glass case three times. They had three recorders going at this point and only one picked up the tapping. None of them heard it in the actual moment, leaving this as yet another unexplained activity at Bonanzaville.
