Here's a question: What makes a haunted house spooky if you've
never been there? How scary can a haunted house be if no
one has repeatedly investigated it? In other words, what is
more frightening, the honest anecdotes about experienced
paranormal activity in a haunted location or the unverified
legends and lore of a place that send the frights of our
imagination into overdrive? And what makes a house
haunted? Is it the house or land itself, the activities and
energy of its inhabitants, or a reciprocal combination of
both? These are questions that would be apropos for
tonight's subject, a house known as the Wilbur-Hahn manor in
Spokane, Washington. The craftsman-style mansion came to
life in September of 1916, when the heiress to the Hecla Silver
Mine fortune, Sarah Smith, married playboy Ralston T. "Jack"
Wilbur. Jack Wilbur had used Sarah's money to hire an
eminent architect to build a three-story, seventeen-room house in
Spokane's historied and tony South Hill neighborhood. For
the princely sum of $75,000, the estate, sitting on nearly four
acres of land, flaunted imported marble, gold-leaf carvings, and
mahogany paneling inlaid with mother of pearl brought from
China. However, the newly minted Mrs. Wilbur didn't fancy
the home, and with this and other tumults in the marriage, Smith,
and Wilbur divorced in 1918. The following notorious couple
to occupy the house was Rudolph A. Hahn and his second wife
Sylvia, thirty-two years his junior. Hahn purchased the
manor in 1924 and spent $50,000 on additions, like a swimming
pool and lavish gardens with fountains and statues, along with
rumored secret panels and tunnels. Obtaining a doctor's
license through a correspondence course, Hahn made a fortune
performing electroshock therapy and illegal medical procedures
for Spokane's well-heeled. The money, which some believe
Hahn had stashed on the property, fueled his love of wild
parties, fast cars, boats, and racehorses, much to the neighbors'
dismay. But the excess and extravagant lifestyle of this
real-life "Great Gatsby" would eventually lead to his bizarre
murder in a seedy hotel downtown known as The New Madison
Hotel. Perhaps it was the raucous, illicit activities and
extreme emotions witnessed by the estate that imprinted
somehow. Reports of arguing phantom voices or boisterous
laughter, vanishing bloodstains, shadow figures, the apparition
of a woman at the top of the stairs, and even screams and
mysterious noises heard by passersby are forever bound to the
house. The lesson of such an infamous place as the
Wilbur-Hahn manor is that no matter how private any owners are,
they cannot curb the spirits or the legend of a haunted mansion,
and spooky is as spooky does.
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