Pollard Hotel
Sent in by Stephanie Lang
About 1 month afterwe moved to Red Lodge, MT. I got a housekeeping job at the oldPollard Hotel.
The Pollard Hotel was built between the mid 1800s to late 1800sand has quite a bit of activity surrounding it. Apparently wayback when history notes the Pollard as housing the famousCalamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickock and Buffalo Bill Cody. Shoot-outsin the street were famous back then. The name of the hotel hasn'tchanged since the Pollard family founded it.
When I arrived for my first shift, Jenny, an Ojibwa Indian andthe head housekeeper, sent me up to the north side of the thirdfloor to vacuum the hallway. While I was up there I got thestrangest feeling that someone was watching me. I keep rubbingthe back of my neck, you know that uncomfortable feeling you getwhen someone is staring at you. I tried to ignore it, but thefeeling was too overwhelming. I quickly finished up the hallwayand went back to the front desk. Jenny and the receptionist werestanding there and I said, "Why didn't anyone tell me thathis hotel is haunted?" They looked at me with completeamazement!! I then learned that I was replacing the receptionistbecause she couldn't handle it. They never told me because theydidn't want me to be frightened away. I told them it was no bigdeal to me.
Over the course of my three month tenure, I observed severalhappening and gathered data. For example, I learned that thehauntings were only on the north side of the hotel, and everystory seems to collaborate with that. I also learned that thethird floor (this was the top floor) had the strongestconcentration of activity, more so than the basement, lobby orsecond floor. It was off season at the time I was working thereso we had the hotel to ourselves, but we still had to go aroundevery day to do touch ups since things gather dust. We hardly hadbut one or two rooms full at a time, and we always put them onthe south side.
There was one peculiarity about the second floor though: oneparticular room smelled of a certain 19th century French perfumethat reportedly came in little cobalt bottles. You couldn'tescape it no matter how much you tried to disinfect, deodorize orair out the room. That aroma never faded. Back in those dayshotels were not only for passers-by, but people used to take upresidence there. This is my feeling about this room. Perhaps shewas a performer or evening entertainment.
Before I go any further I should mention that the hotel is shapedlike a "U" and the middle used to be a courtyard. Now,that courtyard has been enclosed and the enclosure has become thelaundry room. From the laundry room you can see the windows ofthe second and third floors that used to view the outside (theyview the laundry room instead). There has been a few occurrencesfrom the laundry room itself. One occurrence happened while Jennyand I were eating lunch. Right in front of the lunch table wasJosh, the manager/owner's room. Josh was the only one that had akey to that room. Well, Jenny and I knew that Josh wasn't therethat day, and while we were eating lunch the light in his roompopped on. We thought this was strange since he was supposedlyout. Jenny went downstairs to ask if Josh had shown up after alland she was told no, he hadn't. She even rang the phone in hisroom just to double check. She came back upstairs and told mewhat had transpired. We both thought this was strange and figuredmaybe it was just a fluke, when all of a sudden the light wentout! This happened repeatedly while we were eating lunch and wenever found an explanation for it. On another day, again while wewere eating lunch, we noticed a man's face looking out at us froma third floor window. We could even see his cowboy hat and oldwestern clothing he was wearing. We went upstairs to that roomand scaired ourselves silly with anticipation, but unfortunatelythe room was empty. We didn't expect to find anything, but we hadfun with the notion.
On several occasions, while cleaning the north side of the thirdfloor, I would see three white flashes out of my peripheralvision going into one of the rooms. I would walk down to thatroom, and as I was inserting the key, I would see the same threewhite flashes going into another room as if they were playing tagwith me or something. I have always been told you see spirits outof your peripheral vision, but I have had experiences whichcontradict this theory.
Well, Jenny and I had always been picked to clean the north sideof the third floor because everyone else was scaired. She saidshe was brought up with spirits because of her Indian heritage,so it didn't bother her. One day she and I had gone into room 310to clean up. This particular room didn't have any windows. Everytime you open that room, the light would be on. Jenny said thatthis has been happening for a long time now and she figured itwas because there was no window. I thought that someone forgot toturn it off last time they were in to clean. Jenny shut the door,and the turned off the light and said we'd come back to it so I'dsee the light would be on. We then proceeded to check all of theother rooms, and sure enough, when we came back to room 310 about20 minutes later - the light was back on! Sometimes we'd yellout, "Keep the light off!" and the light would be offfor a couple of days, but inevitably it would be back on again.It became a big joke to us constantly telling the ghost to keepthe light off. We made a game of it to see how many days "it"could go without turning on the light.
At one point the hotel booked guests in room 312. Jenny and Iwere sent up to clean the room after the guests checked out.While she was cleaning up the bathroom she started feeling faintand said she had to get out of there. She said it felt likesomeone was trying to push her down, trying to make her slip. Ihad, at another time, had an interesting experience in that sameroom. Again, guests were booked into room 312. This time I wassent up to clean it by myself. I parked my cleaning cart outsidethe door and proceeded to walk in. As soon as I stepped over thethreshold, my head became cloudy and I felt very dizzy, veryunwelcome, like I was being pushed out. Every time I crossed thethreshold to grab something off the cleaning cart, my head wouldclear instantly, but once back in the room, I became cloudy again.I couldn't get a grip, but knew that someone didn't want me there.I quickly cleaned up and got out of there in a flash. I had neverfelt like that before and could never find anyone who had asimilar experience. I had always wondered what, if anything,happened in these rooms - like a card game that went awry andsomeone was shot. No one knows much history about the hotel.
I had asked the night receptionist if she had ever noticed anystrange happenings late at night. She told me that she heardstrange noises coming from the indoor racquetball courts, butcould never find anyone there, or any explanation for it since noone ever heard these noises in the day. She said it almostsounded like someone playing racquetball, but not so loud. Shesaid she even went down there one time figuring someone wastrying to sneak in a game after hours, but the courts were darkand there was no one there. She then proceeded to tell me thestories she had learned. Apparently when the hotel was beingbuilt, the Pollard children had a pet monkey. One day the petmonkey was missing, never to be found again - some say it wasentombed in one of the basement walls. She thought the noisesmight have been the monkey's spirit trying to escape. She alsomentioned at one time (period unknown) an indoor pool was put in,but it never held water and no leaks were ever found - with noexplanation. This is now where the racquetball courts are - ifyou rip up the floor, the pool is still there and intact.
Well I decided that I was going to take my camera to work andtake some pictures of the third floor hallway. I was hoping tocatch the white flashes I had seen. I set up my 35mm on a tripod,hooked up the trip switch and ducked around the corner. I had afew frames left on my present roll so I shot the rest of the filmand put in a new roll. This time I put the camera on a timer andleft it there for a while to take a few frames. I came back alittle while later and noticed that it only took a few frames,but I figured that would be good enough - after all it was onlyan experiment. A few weeks later a friend came to visit us. Hehad a new puppy and we had a new puppy so I took some pictures ofthem playing together. Suddenly I noticed the picture indicatorwas way past 36 frames, and still going! This is unusual sincethe film tugs, and it is always easy to tell when you've reachedthe last frame. I had taken photography for years and was veryfamiliar with the workings of the camera. I opened the camera totake out the film thinking I had ripped the roll, and there wasno film in the camera!! What! I was utterly dumbfounded. I lookedin my camera bag for the other roll of film which had some hotelhallway pictures on it and guess what, that roll was gone too!The feeling was overwhelming. It became obvious to me that "someone"in that hallway didn't want to be photographed and took my film!Needless to say I never tried again. I was very disappointed.
On occasion people would come in to the hotel because they heardit was haunted. I usually volunteered to give them a tour andrelay everyone's experiences. I frequently took them up to room310 and, sure enough, the light would be on. We'd move on to thenext attraction and go back a little while later to check on thelight - it always amazed people. This was the most reliableattraction.
After working there for about three months I ended up getting abetter job, so I ended my employment with the Pollard Hotel.Quite some time later my friend Valerie came down from GreatFalls (for those that read part one, this is the same Valerie). Itold her all about the hotel so she was intrigued to check it out.One night we went over there and I took her on a tour. She becamevery uncomfortable in the third floor hallway and didn't want tostay. She didn't give much of an explanation except that it gaveher bad feelings.
One thing that I noticed about the third floor hallway (northside of course) is that it always had dead flies everywhere; onthe floor, in the lights. What's the signifigance of this? Thishallway was always much colder, with the exception of the roomwith the odor of perfume. I never heard any strange accounts fromany of the guests.
I hope you enjoy this story..
