The Haunting Of Cheyenne's Knights Of Pythias Building

CHEYENNE — The Knights of Pythias building is not the easiest place to find.

The doorway to the meeting place for the secret fraternal society lies sandwiched between two businesses on 17th Street, a tiny space between modern worlds that, at first glance, feels like it must be hiding some kind of “Alice in Wonderland” room behind it.

The door is impossibly skinny to hide such a large space behind it. Or so it would appear.

But when the door is opened, something unexpected is revealed.

The door leads not to some magically overlarge Harry Potter room, but to an antiquated, oversized staircase. That leads to yet another door, and it’s behind that door where the Cheyenne chapter of the Knights of Pythias actually lives.

And at least 50 years ago where a young girl was buried under a stage and forgotten for decades.

There, guests find a space that floats above all that is modern in the world. It has clung to the antiquated look and feel of the bygone era from which it was born, with intricate wooden trim and doors still punctuating antique walls and ceilings.

Those, in turn, frame display cases filled with ancient medals and pins, old swords and yellowed historical documents — remnants of historical lives, and relics of the Knights’ unbroken thread of history in Cheyenne.

The secret fraternal society formed to devote itself to three principles: friendship, charity and benevolence, in the belief this could help bring peace to the world. In Cheyenne, the order started in the 1870s — more than 150 years ago — and it continues with about 50 members.

Its heyday in Cheyenne, though, was from 1930 to 1960. Between those years, everybody who was anybody was part of Cheyenne’s local chapter. That included storied names such as former Wyoming Sen. Francis E. Warren and former Wyoming Gov. Stanley Hathaway.

Where Spirits Observe The Living

Walk up the stairs to the Knights of Pythias and you may feel as if someone is watching you.

You wouldn’t be alone in that. In 2010, Paranormal Investigations Team Wyoming snapped a picture of a shadowy spirit figure at the top of the stairs, one that seemed to be observing the living.

Footsteps and voices have also been heard by people who were completely alone in the building. Occupants of the neighboring apartment, which is still part of the complex, have reported hearing the sound of someone climbing their stairs, causing the hackles on their dog to rise as well.

But when they looked outside, no one was there.

The hidden upstairs space at 312 W. 17th St. has always been the meeting ground for the Knights of Pythias, ever since it was built in 1884.

And it is a space where secrets have been hidden — as would soon be revealed during Way Out West’s paranormal investigation. The basement of the structure, meanwhile, has served for the last 25 years as a haunted house — The Nightmare on 17th Street.

Many of the items used during the haunted house remain in the basement, which has been turned into something of a labyrinth — difficult for those unfamiliar with it to navigate.

Difficult sometimes, even for those who are familiar with its twists and turns.

How To Investigate Ghosts

Before plunging into the difficult basement, Way Out West Paranormal’s Arron BlackBurn talked a little bit about his organization, as well as the equipment he and his team use for paranormal investigations.

“We don’t guarantee any spirit activity, because spirits are going to do what they want to do,” he said. “We don’t have anything set up. This is not smoke and mirrors when we come in and investigate.”

Guests were advised to remain polite throughout the five-hour event and refrain from insults or other behaviors intended to provoke a spirited reaction.

The equipment the group uses includes the usual suspects. There are K2 meters, which are supposed to detect fluctuations in electromagnetic energy. Spirits can approach the devices to set off the lights in answer to questions, indicating yes or no responses.

There are various cameras that create images using infrared or ultraviolet light, which are invisible to the naked eye. These devices include an SLS Cam, which puts out hundreds of infrared beams to build a 3D image of any dark space. That captures fluctuations in temperature caused by both human bodies or any spiritual presences.

A set of what are called cat balls, meanwhile, are a fun low-tech option. The little plastic balls are lightweight and very easy to move or roll. If a ball is moved, it will light up with a colorful display that’s impossible to miss.

“They have to be touched and moved to go off,” BlackBurn said. “They won’t just go off on their own. And we’ve had cat balls go off in this building on every floor, in almost every room we’ve investigated.”

Among the last remaining pieces of equipment include what’s called an Ovilus, basically an electronic Ouija board that spirits can use to spit out words or syllables on a screen.

There’s also an EVP, which stands for electronic voice phenomenon. It rapidly scans radio waves, creating a steady noise of white static.

Spirits are thought to manipulate radio waves to speak words through the device, which then appear out of all the static, sometimes quite distinct and clear.

How Way Out West Got Started

BlackBurn started Way Out West Paranormal with his wife, Gina, both of whom have been hunting ghosts together for about as long as they’ve been a couple.

But BlackBurn has long seen and heard ghosts. As a child, he often went back and forth between Wyoming and the Pinedale Reservation in South Dakota. At the latter, he would often hear footsteps late at night when everyone in the house was asleep.

“It’s very spiritual up there,” BlackBurn told Cowboy State Daily. “So, there’s lots of supernatural stuff.”

That didn’t make BlackBurn want to get up and investigate when he was a child, however. At that time, he was more likely to pull the covers over his head to avoid directly confronting anything supernatural.

He credits Gina with helping him to change his mindset on that.

“When we met, we realized that we both had kind of a fascination with ghosts and ghost hunting,” BlackBurn said. “So, we decided to make that something we did together.”

Any time they traveled, they’d look online for a ghost tour, even if — perhaps especially because — it was a wedding anniversary.

“On our third anniversary we went to Salt Lake City and did a ghost tour and an investigation there for our wedding anniversary,” BlackBurn said. “That was in Salt Lake at the Fear Factory.”

The ghost hunts BlackBurn remembers best are the ones like at Gettysburg, where musket shots can be heard late at night on the historical battlefields.

“We spent several nights there, and you could hear people talking and see shadows moving in the trees,” BlackBurn said. “You can hear musket fire, and it’s just pretty crazy. It’s like that every night. The energy there is just, there’s a lot of it.”

Feeling The Ghostly Energy

BlackBurn feels a similar energy in the Knights of Pythias building in certain rooms, like in the basement where Knights of Phytias puts on its annual Nightmare On 17th Street haunted house.

The event raises money for scholarships in the community, but when it rolls up for the year, many of its artifacts are simply left behind, right where they were.

That leaves the basement a labyrinth of macabre things like hanging body parts, paint that mimics blood spatter and tattered strips of torn sheets.

And a coffin.

The coffin is not, as one might assume, simply a prop built for the haunted house.

It is a real coffin, Blackburn said, and it once held a dead body.

The coffin is part of a mystery that has never been solved.

A 50-Year Secret

As Jill Pope relates in her book “Haunted Cheyenne” the coffin was discovered in the 1990s by a caretaker named Mike when he was cleaning the stage area of the Knights of Pythias meeting space.

A little section of flooring had become loose in the stage area and moved while he was sweeping the floor.

Mike knelt to investigate, figuring some type of repair was in order. Instead, he found a secret trap door that led underneath the stage.

In that space, he found something straight out of a horror movie: An old and dusty coffin. With something inside it.

No way Mike was going to open that coffin by himself.

He called some longstanding Knights of Pythias members to ask them about the coffin. But they had no idea there was a trap door under the stage, much less that this secret space had been hiding a casket.

An Unsolved Mystery

Mike waited for the Knights of Pythias members to arrive and then they opened the casket together.

Inside, there was indeed a dead body just as Mike had feared.

The body, really just a skeleton by then, was turned over to a funeral home. Forensics determined that it had belonged to a 15-year-old female who had been dead at least 50 years.

She had lain under the stage quietly decaying for all of that time.

There were no particular signs of foul play by the time the girl’s body was found.

No one had any idea who the girl might be, not even the Knights of Pythias’ oldest living member.

A search of missing persons from the time frame when the girl would’ve died turned up nothing in particular that indicated who the girl might be.

The girl has since been buried, BlackBurn said, but her coffin has remained with the Knights of Pythias, where it’s kept in the basement and used during the organization’s annual haunted house.

A Woman Named ‘V’?

The area where the coffin is kept in the basement is sometimes a hotspot for paranormal activity, BlackBurn said.

He bases that on how he feels differently when he’s in the space. In his experience, that is usually an indication something supernatural is present.

But the most active space in the Knights of Pythias during the paranormal investigation on this Saturday night was the stage area, above where the girl in the coffin was found.

A string of lights placed on the floor leading up to the stage lit up multiple times even though no one was nearby. Way Out West Paranormal guides said that indicated the presence of … something.

Sitting on the stage above where the mysterious coffin had been, BlackBurn told the group that he has heard voices in this area before, including one that suggested it belonged to a female whose name began with “V.”

But then, a male voice came along, silencing the female.

She has not been heard from again.

Military Official Or Doctor?

During Saturday’s session, the EVP was clearly heard to say the words “military,” “official” and “doctor” in answer to questions about the spirit’s former occupation while living.

That could indicate multiple spirits in the space, BlackBurn said.

The spirit or spirits wouldn’t share a name, but BlackBurn thought one of them could well have been one-time Knights of Pythias member F.E. Warren.

Earlier in the evening, downstairs in the basement, a male voice claiming to be Warren had been heard over the EVP.

“Have you followed us up here?” BlackBurn wondered aloud at one point.

But the EVP was now stubbornly silent, projecting only static at such questions.

“I think the spirits do want to communicate with us,” BlackBurn would later tell Cowboy State Daily. “There’s a connection between our side and their side, and hopefully, at some point, we can figure out more of how that works.

“We’re all energy, and energy does have a feeling, and we obviously get something because we do get these great responses through spirit box sessions or through mediums. So there has to be something still there.”

After the stage room, the investigation moved into the pool hall, where the smell of tobacco and smoke are quite strong.

During this session, the words “birthday” and “whiskey” were clearly heard on the EVP.

But nothing else.

The cat balls placed on the pool table remained silent and still, despite the spirit or spirits being invited several times to set them rolling, like the pool balls of old.

Finally, midnight arrived, with no more secrets revealed than when the tour began.

It seems the spirits residing in the shadows at the Knights of Pythias will keep their secrets, including the mystery of a young girl’s coffin, quiet for a while longer.

Perhaps another 140 years.

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.