El Rey Theatre, Manteca, CA

A once-beautiful example of Art-Deco architecture and interior design, and one of the truly grand movie houses of the 1930s, the El Rey Theatre in Merced California opened it's doors in 1937. It functioned for 38 years, finally closing due to a fire that essentially gutted the interior. Ironically, on the night that it burned, the film that it was showing was The Towering Inferno.

The building stood empty, a burned-out shell, for over two decades until the Kelly Brothers purchased it and turned it into a restaurant and micro-brewery. But, of course, that's not the end of the story.

Since the Kelly Brothers establishment opened in the late 1990s, stories have begun circulating that spirits left from the old theatre days haunt the building. Customers claim to have seen people in clothing from earlier decades walking about, only to inexplicably vanish. Firefighters, in gear and uniforms from the 1970s, are sometimes seen wandering the building. It is said that hot spots appear in different spots around the building, as if in memory of the fire that destroyed the theatre. When a grease fire erupted in the kitchen in 2003, many people developed the belief that this was a result of the ghostly hot spots igniting the grease*.



*And not, oh, say the fact that there was flammable grease being heated ON A STOVE.

Discussion: I grew up about 15 miles south of Manteca. When I was a kid, it was little more than a small town near a sugar refinery that caused the downtown area to smell pretty horrible most of the time (earning it the nick-name "Man-Stinka'"). During the 1980s, and accelerating in the 1990s, a large number of people who worked in the Bay Area decided to purchase house in the Central Valley, and towns such as Manteca, Salida, Modesto, Stockton, and Dublin grew rapidly. While far from a thriving metropolis, Manteca has grown to be a small city with a more diverse population than it once had.

The growth of these Central Valley towns and cities has had numerous effects, both positive and negative. On the one hand, it has resulted in more money being available for local development and has made them nicer places to live, on the whole. At the same time, the fact that so many of the new residents spent much of their day commuting meant that they had less loyalty to local businesses, and often served as absentee-parents, both of which created their own set of problems. However, as the urban centers have grown, more people have found local work, and a greater commitment to the community has formed.

And that's part of what I like about this story. The construction of micro-breweries in the Central Valley is very much a result of the arrival of more affluent people from the Bay Area, the yuppification of the Central Valley, if you get what I mean. It is a very definite break in both character and culture with the Central Valley's past, which has its up side and its down side. This story, though, symbolically connects the old with the new. By having the ghosts of the past literally show up in a new type of business, it provides a folkloric continuity that I think is needed in much of the Valley.

Sources: Weird Fresno, waymarking.com, Strangeusa.com, Shadowlands, Cinema Treasures, Local Newspaper

Capitola Theatre, Capitola, CA

The Capitola Theatre in my current home of Capitola, California, is, unfortunately, no longer standing. Built in 1947 is a beachside movie theatre in the tourist area known as Capitola Village, the theatre was small, looked rather out-of-place, but was a local fixture for several decades. It became the second-run "cheap seats" theatre for the county, showing movies that had been out for several months as double-features at a discount price. This often resulted in very odd pairings, such as Raiders of the Lost Ark playing with the Neil Diamond vehicle The Jazz Singer or Modern Problems with Tron. The theatre closed as a movie venue in the mid-90s, but was saved from obsolescence by a group of local opera performers and enthusiasts who renovated it and used it for opera, live theatre, and the occasional cult movie (I remember seeing Raising Arizona at the theatre 'roundabouts 1999). After serving as a local performing arts establishment, the theatre again fell into disuse and was finally demolished in the first half of 2010.

Bit of a shame, really. For all of it's oddness, it was kind of a cool building.

And, of course, the theatre was said to be haunted.

The haunting manifestations are mostly of the audible, rather than the visible, variety. They are usually said to consist of the sounds of a crowd of people in the lobby or in the theatre after-hours. When investigated, naturally, there is nobody there. These stories are usually said to be reported by crews working on sets at night or in the mornings, and it is said that at least one of the construction workers who was performing renovations in the mid-90s walked off the job after hearing a crowd in the theatre, but seeing nobody present when he walked into the room. On another occasion, a woman working in the theatre took a phone call, which was intended for the theatre's seamstress. when she called up to the booth where the seamstress usually was, a woman's voice called back that she would accept the telephone call, but the woman who had initially taken the call was unsuccessful in transferring it. When she looked in the booth to see what the problem was, she found that the seamstress was not present.

Commentary: The Capitola theatre was a sort of non-landmark in Capitola. It was in the main tourist area which, by the 90s, had become very difficult to navigate during the summers, and parking was always a problem; it was located next to other buildings at the bottom of a cliff and less than 300 feet from the beach, meaning that it's architecture was not well-served by being near many things that might attract (or distract) one's eye; and it was one of many theatres within Santa Cruz county providing live theatre and oddball films. It was unique, it must be said, but it was a place that unfortunately faded into the background of a very active, busy community filled with unique buildings and eccentric artists.

I have commented before about the fact that it seems that every live theatre venue is said to be haunted. The same is not true of movie theatres - to be certain, there are movie theatres with ghostly reputations, but they seem to be less common than live theatre venues with resident spirits. Friends of mine who work in live theatre tell me that this has to do with a sense of tradition, a sense of fun among actors, and a tendency for many actors to be (for lack of a better word) over-dramatic and want to see wherever they are as special*.

In light of the disparity between haunted movie theatres and haunted live theatres, it is interesting to note that all of the ghost stories that I have been able to track down date to the mid-90s, and specifically cite set builders, renovation workers, seamstresses, and other people who would be present due to the conversion or use as an opera house/live theatre. It would appear that, in addition to being converted for use, the moviehouse also was initiated into the actor's tradition of ghost stories.

And, really, I wouldn't want it any other way.





*Though, one would think, that with the proliferation of "haunted" theatres, having the one that was ectoplasm-free would make your place special.


Sources: Santa Cruz Paranormal Research, Shadowlands (AKA the Illustrious Internet), Carpe Noctem, Cinema Treasures, KFRC

Modesto High School

Updated on May 12, 2010

Anyone who has spent much time as or around students at Modesto High School is likely to have heard the story of the ghost in the auditorium. The most common version of the tale holds that a young man, a student at the school, fell from the auditorium's balcony and died when his head struck the floor below. Since his death, he is often seen walking back and forth on the balcony.

There are, of course, variations on this story. In some of the variations that I have heard, the young man was despondent and commited suicide. In others, he was killed in an accident involving a sand bag or weight used to move scenery on pulleys.

While the auditorium ghost is the only version of the story that I have heard from other people who have lived in or around Modesto, entering "Modesto High School Ghost" into Google also produces a few references to strange knocking noises heard in one of the school's hallways, next to a room that used to be (and for all I know still is) used for home economics classes. On a few of the sites that mention this, the knocking sound is said to come from the floor, and references are made to tunnels that used to run under the school.


Commentary: I probably heard the auditorium story for the first time from my older sister, who graduated from Modesto High in 1992. Since then, I have heard it numerous times, from students and alumni of the school as well as from other folks around town.

Gene and Bryan of Hometown Tales, in an episode on haunted colleges made a comment to the effect of "the reason why there are ghost stories in colleges is because boys and girls go to college together." The same probably applies to high schools, as the use of scary stories is pretty common in adolescent courtship. But there is a bit more to it than that. Scary stories are a part of teenage social bonding in general, not just between the sexes, and putting the story in a shared context, such as a high school, makes it even more effective.

Add to that the fact that, as I am assured by everyone I know who has ever been involved in theatre, "every theatre has a ghost*", and it seems certain that the auditiorium of a high school would have its own ghost story.

In of June 22, 2009, the Wikipedia entry for Modesto High School had a history section that was two paragraphs long. The first, longer paragraph described the school's history. The second, short paragraph listed, with no transition, a few ghosts said to haunt the school. The jarring and non-sequitor nature of the entry was hilarious. However, it has now been changed and lacks the comedy elements that it had back then.




*Interestingly, I have only ever met one person involved in theatre who scoffed at the ghost stories. While doom is said to fall on those who dismiss the spirits, she was actually one of the most succesful theatre professionals that I have ever met. So, go figure.




Sources: Local Folklore, Published Book, The Illustrious Internet