Brady Cates
bcates@uwyo.edu
The Ghost Tours of Laramie, Wyoming, an annual event, is returning for its 15th year of production this year.
This tour is a good way to get in the mood for the spooks and scares that everyone is looking for during the Halloween season.
The tour includes a haunting and spooky hayride through historic downtown Laramie, along with a walking tour through the dark corridors of the Wyoming Territorial Prison, according to the Ghost Tours press release.
Ghost tours provide those wishing to celebrate Halloween season a unique alternative to the traditional haunted houses and spook alleys and the tours are filled with historically documented stories and guests are treated to an evening that showcases Laramie’s history.
Lynette Nelson, Kristi Nelson and Janine Bangerter are the people who run the Ghost Tours of Laramie annually.
Lynette is the founder of the annual Ghost Tours of Laramie.
Lynette said she was very interested in the history of Laramie and decided to do a little research about the city and found that there were some very interesting stories and realized that it was a wild west wicked town. It was her interest in sharing these stories with people that led to the start of the Ghost Tours.
Bangerter, secretary of the ghost tours, has been involved with the Ghost Tours for eleven years now and said she got involved through a family friend.
“I moved of out town and when I moved back to Laramie Lynette asked me if I wanted to help with the Ghost Tours and I have been helping ever since,” Bangerter said.
Each tour is about an hour and a half and has three separate parts. The first part is on the grounds at the Wyoming Territorial Park, then a hayride through historic downtown and the last part is a walking tour through the Wyoming Territorial Prison.
“We have partnered with the Wyoming Territorial Park to make these ghost tours unique as possible,” Bangerter said.
Bangerter said that one misconception that people have is that the Wyoming Territorial Prison puts these tours on, but they don’t. The tours have just partnered with the Wyoming Territorial Park.
The tour starts on the grounds of the Wyoming Territorial Park, where people enter the horse barn and the mood is set for the rest of the evening.
“We have a different theme in the barn every year,” Bangerter said. “Sometimes we’ll do a zombie theme or Dracula theme, but this year there is a true story and theme to the horse barn.”
After the hayride part of the tour the individuals are brought back to the Wyoming Territorial Park and the final leg of the tour is the walking tour of the prison. Stories are told about prisons and are not necessarily just about the Wyoming Territorial Prison.
“We have a couple specific stories that we tell about the Wyoming Territorial Prison, but not a whole lot,” Bangerter said.
Bangerter said that she thinks the prison tour is the creepiest part of the whole tour.
“When I go tour the prison after hours, I get a very creepy, eerie feeling overall,” Bangerter said.
The Ghost Tours of Laramie are open for everyone of all ages.
“This isn’t just made of stories about zombies and people chasing you around with a chainsaw, these are true stories that have been documented and researched and this is why I think it is a very unique experience,” Bangerter said.
The Ghost Tours of Laramie City started conducting tours Oct. 16 and will continue to offer tours until Halloween night and advance reservations can be made.
