Preservation Bath Launches Its First Ghost Walk

A Night with the Ghosts of Warm Springs: Preservation Bath Launches Its First Ghost Walk

By Danny Cardwell · Allegheny Mountain Radio

On the Saturday before Halloween, the historic village of Warm Springs is going to feel a little different.

Preservation Bath is launching its first-ever Ghosts of the Warm Springs Ghost Walk on Saturday, October 24. Earlier this month I spoke with Peter Fowler from Preservation Bath about the organization’s annual lecture and its three historic districts. This week, I sat down with another member of the Preservation Bath board — Rebecca Larys, who serves as Secretary — to talk about something the organization has never done before. For full disclosure, I served two three-year terms on the Preservation Bath board.

The Ghost Walk, Rebecca explained, is Preservation Bath’s major fundraiser for the year. But it’s also something else — an evening built entirely out of true stories pulled from Bath County’s past.

“The ghosts are real historical figures from this area, and they’re going to tell their tales of mischief and mayhem,” Rebecca said.

The event is designed to be spooky but not scary. No one jumps out from behind a tree. Kids are welcome, and families are encouraged to come together.

“It is really based on historical figures here in Bath County,” Rebecca said. “These are real people that had some real stories to tell. And now they’re back. You’ll get to hear a lot of our history, and understand some stories that I bet most of you don’t even know have happened.”

Here’s how the evening works.

Guests will not park in Warm Springs itself. Everyone starts at the Bath County High School parking lot, where a shuttle will take them down to the Warm Springs Post Office — the check-in point for the tour. Ten guides will be on hand, each leading a small group through the village to a sequence of haunted stops, with costumed actors stationed along the way to tell their stories.

“They are their ghosts,” Rebecca said, “and at each stop you will be able to see them and hear their stories, and then the guides will take you to the next ghost.”

Tours leave every ten minutes. The whole walk runs about an hour.

The last stop is one Rebecca would not spoil.

“Our last ghost is a great one, and it’s at the jail,” she said. “This is the old jail next to the courthouse. And boy, is there a story there. I know I wouldn’t go in that jail at night by myself.”

That ties this walk back into what Preservation Bath actually does. These aren’t invented ghost stories. They’re the result of research — a Preservation Bath team that went looking for the true stories still remembered around the county.

“We researched, as well as a team of us who wrote the stories,” Rebecca said, “and found the stories from many folks here who really knew what happened. As a matter of fact, we had so many ghost stories that we had to choose which ones to actually have this year.”

That is maybe the quiet point worth sitting with. Preservation isn’t only about the buildings. It’s about the stories attached to them — the people who lived and worked and sometimes met untimely ends in the places that still stand along Warm Springs’ main road.

If you go

Tickets are available at preservationbath.org. Click the event page labeled Ghost Walk, where tickets are sold in half-hour slots: 6:00, 6:30, 7:00, and 7:30 p.m. Within each slot, tours leave every ten minutes.

Guests should arrive at the Bath County High School parking lot a half-hour before their ticket time, where they’ll check in, pick up a wristband, and board the shuttle down to Warm Springs. Live music will greet each tour at the Post Office before the walk begins.

The walk takes about an hour. When it’s done, hot cider will be waiting at Cider Park in front of the courthouse before the shuttle back to the high school.

Kids 12 and under are free. For all the details, visit preservationbath.org.