Fragments | The Leadville Ghost: The Tenants Who Refused to Go Back — Ep. 04

Patreon And Keeping The Show Free

Hey everyone, before we get into this week's story, I want to take just a minute to tell you about something new. I've been making State of the Unknown independently for more than a year now. I research the stories, write the episodes, record them, produce them, and I've always tried to keep the show free from commercial interruptions. I want to keep it that way. So I finally set up a Patreon for anyone who enjoys the show and would like to help support what I'm doing. It's $3 a month, and that support helps with the real costs behind the show: website and hosting fees, research and production tools, equipment and the advertising I use to help new listeners discover State of the Unknown. There's no pressure at all. State of the Unknown isn't going behind a paywall, and if all you ever do is keep listening, I'm genuinely happy you're here. But if you'd like to help support the show, you can find me at patreon.com/slash state of the unknown. There's also a link right in the show notes for this episode. And apparently, if you sign up, you get to become a Sasquatch supporter because, well, I couldn't resist. All

What Fragments Is All About

right, let's get into this week's fragment. I'm Robert Barber. Welcome to Fragments. Just me, a microphone, and an interesting story that I couldn't stop thinking about. Some of these are forgotten newspaper accounts, some are old legends, some are bits of folklore that have survived for generations. They're not full documentaries, they're simply stories that deserve another telling. Have

Leadville 1907 And A Sudden Move-Out

you ever paid for something and then decided you wanted absolutely nothing to do with it anymore? Not because you were disappointed and not because you changed your mind, but because something happened that made the money stop mattering. In April of 1907, two miners in Leadville, Colorado did exactly that. Leadville was an old mining town by then, high in the Rocky Mountains. Men were still working the mines, trains were still moving through town, and people were still coming and going looking for work. One of the local businessmen was a barber named John Wagner. Wagner owned a rental property at 123 West Front Street, and that spring two Italian miners rented it from him. They paid for three weeks in advance. Four nights later, sometime in the early morning, the two men showed up at Wagner's home. They wanted out. And they told him that he could keep the money they'd already paid. They weren't going back. So Wagner asked what happened.

A Headless Stranger Joins Supper

The miners told him they'd been sitting down to a late supper a few nights earlier when a man suddenly appeared in the room. They hadn't heard him come in, and as he moved around the room, apparently he didn't make a sound. But that wasn't the weird part. The man didn't have a head. Now, I wish the account gave us more here because I have questions. What did these two guys do when a headless man suddenly appeared in the room? Did they try talking to him? Did he look like a normal person except for the obvious problem that he didn't have a head? We don't know. Those details weren't preserved. What was preserved is what happened next. The figure came over to the table and sat down with them. That's the part I keep getting hung up on, because this wasn't something they caught a glimpse of before it disappeared. Whatever these two men believed they were looking at was now sitting there with them at the dinner table. And then it started eating. The miners said they watched food being lifted toward the place where its mouth should have been, and the food disappeared. Just picture sitting there for a second. There's a stranger at your table. He doesn't have a head. And somehow he's eating your supper. The account doesn't tell us how long this went on or what happened when the figure finally left.

Why They Stayed After Seeing It

What it does tell us, though, is that the miners stayed in the house. And I have to be honest here, I don't know that I would have. Now, scratch that. I know that I would not have. I would have been out of there right away. But they stayed for three more nights. Maybe they convinced themselves there'd been some explanation for what they'd seen. Maybe they simply didn't want to walk away from the money they'd already paid. We don't know. Whatever the reason, they stayed.

It Appears In The Bed

Then, while they were getting ready for bed, the figure appeared again. This time, it was lying in one of the beds. That was enough. They left the house and spent the rest of the night with a neighbor. And by the time they went to see Wagner, they'd made up their minds. He could keep the rent. They were done.

Neighborhood Rumors Of A Death

Wagner told the newspaper he'd never known anything unusual to happen in the house before. The neighbors had heard something different. People living along Front Street were already telling a story about a man who had supposedly died inside the house years earlier. According to the version being passed around the neighborhood, he'd hanged himself with a pair of suspenders. Now there were two miners saying they'd seen a headless man inside that same house. So you can probably guess what happened. People connected the two stories. Maybe they thought that the man who died in the house had come back. That wasn't exactly helpful for Wagner. He still owned the place and he still needed someone to rent it. A real estate agent named Walter Strickley was trying to find another tenant. And by then, having two miners walk away from three weeks of prepaid rent probably wasn't doing much for the house's reputation. And that's when this story takes a wonderfully strange turn.

A Ghost Tamer Offers A Fix

A few days later, a man named Herman de Mongu got involved. The newspaper described him as a fortune teller, a spiritualistic medium, and a professional ghost tamer. And yes, professional ghost tamer is exactly how they described him. DeMonggu approached Stickley and offered to take care of the problem for $2.50. He said he'd communicate with the spirit and get it out of the house. Stickley declined. So whatever was supposedly in there was apparently going to have to stay. A week

A Strange Light And A Vanishing Man

later, the house showed up in the newspaper again. This time the story came from a high school boy who was passing the property one night when he noticed a strange light inside. He stopped and watched. According to his account, a man came through the front window carrying something that was burning and giving off a strong, unpleasant smell. The man ran across Front Street and dropped it. Then he disappeared. The boy followed. Whatever had been burning went out, but when he got there, there wasn't anything left behind. And he couldn't find the man. The boy never described the man as headless, but by then this was the house everyone was talking about. So this strange new report became part of the story too. And after that, the newspaper trail seemed to stop. More than

What Time Erased From The Record

a century later, there are pieces of this story we simply can't recover. We don't know who the two miners were. We can't confirm the story people were telling about the man who supposedly died inside the house. Even the address given in the newspaper is difficult to match confidently to old maps of Leadville. So today it's hard to point to one particular spot and say, yep, this was the house. And whatever happened with that strange light a week later seems to have disappeared right along with it. I think that's part of why this one stuck with me. So much of it has slipped away. The miners' names, the exact house. Whatever story might have existed before people started talking about a ghost. But the decision those two miners made is still there. They'd paid for three weeks. They stayed for only four nights. And whatever they believed they'd seen sitting at their table and lying in their bed, they decided losing the money was better than going back inside. Wagner could keep it, but they weren't going back.