The Haunted Las Vegas Academy

Source

Las Vegas Academy, located at South Seventh Street in Las Vegas, is a premier performing and visual arts school, graduating students since the early 1990s. However, before the art deco building was used as the academy, it was built as the first Las Vegas High School.

Back in 1930, workers building the nearby Hoover Dam (then called the Boulder Dam) largely lived in the Boulder City area. However, many found the rules and regulations of the city too restrictive, and families began settling in the Las Vegas area. This influx of residents resulted in the need for a local high school. Construction began that year and by the 1931 the school opened as Las Vegas High School.

The main building of the high school was built on land deeded to the city by the Union Pacific Railroad, but in the 1950s, a separate performing arts center was added. It would be this building that would gain a reputation for being haunted, long before Las Vegas High graduated its last student and was taken over by Las Vegas Academy.

Students and staff have affectionately named the ghost that haunts the performing arts center (PAC) "Mr. Petrie." Mr. Petrie has been seen in the PAC as an older man wearing a suit and tie. He is blamed for such things as flickering lights, icy cold drafts, misplaced items, and slamming doors that interrupt performances. It is even rumored that there is a picture of Mr. Petrie in the school's 1968 yearbook!

But who WAS Mr. Petrie? No one can quite agree on who Mr. Petrie was and how he came to haunt the school's PAC. Some believe he was a former teacher. One lady in particular who had witnessed the apparition while a student strongly believes this to be the case. As she and her friends were talking and laughing loudly, they were approached by the apparition of the older man in a suit and tie who looked at them sternly, and even put his finger to his lips as if to shush them.

Others believe Mr. Petrie was an elderly man who died in a house fire on or around the property where the school was built. Believers do like to point out that there WAS a man with a similar name associated with the property. In 1933 a Frank Partie and his wife, Sylvia sold a plot of land to E.A. Clark. This land would later be the land that the PAC was built upon.

Frank died in 1964 at the age of 77, but I cannot confirm nor deny that it was due to a house fire---but instinct tells me it wasn't. For years, he was the city electrician for Las Vegas, and you can find several newspaper articles mentioning his work in this capacity, especially during the Christmas season when he supervised the stringing of the city's Christmas lights. He is buried at Palm Desert Memorial in Las Vegas.

Whether or not Frank is the "Mr. Petrie" who haunts the Las Vegas Academy is unknown, but to scores of students and staff, SOMEONE OR SOMETHING otherworldly is keeping an eye on the old school!

Sources:
Haunted Las Vegas: Famous Phantoms, Creepy Casinos, and Gambling Ghosts by Paul W. Papa
The Haunting of Las Vegas by Janice Oberding
Find-a-Grave
Wikipedia

The Man Who Ate Paste

From: Find-a-Grave user, NevadaBob

A lot of my readers are familiar with the small town of Goldfield, Nevada for the simple reason that it boasts an allegedly haunted hotel...and that Zak and the Ghost Adventures Crew investigated there with quite interesting results.  However, I found something even CREEPIER than a haunted hotel...

...I found out what happens when you eat too much paste.

I think as elementary school children, we all knew that one kid who ate the paste.  Maybe curiosity got the better of us, and we too imbibed.  And while it was pretty gross, and probably pretty weird, it wasn't dangerous was it?

It was for one man, an unknown homeless man who found himself starving on the streets of Goldfield Nevada in 1908.  Goldfield was a relatively new town, having just been laid out six years previously after pioneers from nearby Tonopah discovered gold deposits in the area.  Over the next decade or so, the town proved extremely prosperous, but not for the gentleman in question.  Finding himself without a place to stay, or enough money in his pocket for a meal, it is said that this unknown stranger fished a rather large tub of discarded library paste out of the trash, and started to chow down on what he assumed was a simple paste of flour and water.

Unfortunately, at the time, library paste contained another ingredient, "alum," which was a chemical compound made out of sulfates and water designed to enhance the adhesive qualities of the paste.  Although generally harmless, and even used a means of inducing vomiting, apparently alum is toxic if large doses are consumed.  Which makes one wonder...just how big a tub was this guy EATING?

In all fairness, it is noted that this individual had a heart condition, which was simply worsened by the consumption of the alum, but I'm still not sold.  Intestinal blockage might have been a little more believable for me, but not alum poisoning.

In any event, the unknown man died on July 14, and was buried in the Goldfield Pioneer Cemetery.  His final resting spot is a large rock painted white with red lettering.  His identity remains a mystery, but his legend will live on in infamy among thousands of Pinterest subscribers!

Goldfield Pioneer Cemetery

There's actually an interesting bit of history about the cemetery where Mr. Paste Eater lies for eternity. The original cemetery was established in 1905, right in town.  It was the final resting spot of around 70 of Goldfield's earliest pioneers.  However, as the town grew, the idea of a downtown cemetery didn't sit well with the people.  The Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad Company came through town and decided that it was demoralizing for their passengers to step off their trains and the first thing they see be a cemetery.  Similarly, it was considered bad taste for visitors of the Goldfield Hotel, which opened in 1908, to look out the window and directly into the town's burial ground.

Therefore, a group of men known as "official ghouls" worked under the cover of darkness to move the bodies to a more suitable location, outside of town.  82 additional burials would be added to the original 70 pioneers, including a murder suspect who hanged himself and another man who was shot.

Goldfield Pioneer Cemetery Photos

Goldfield Historical Society