![]() ![]() A relative said many decades later Winchester fell “under the thrall” of a medium, who told her that she would be haunted by the ghosts of Winchester rifle victims unless she built, non-stop-perhaps at ghosts’ direction, for their pleasure, or perhaps as a way to elude them. A spiritualist in the mid-1800s, when plenty of sane Americans believed they could communicate with the dead, Wincehster became terrified that her misfortunes, especially the death of her husband and one-month old daughter, were cosmic retribution from all the spirits killed by Winchester rifles. The answer: Her building is a ghost story of the American gun. In 1911, the San Jose Mercury News called Winchester’s colossus a “great question mark in a sea of apricot and olive orchards.” Over a century later, the San Francisco Chronicle was still baffled: “the Mansion is an ornately complex answer to a very simple question: Why?” She had apparently forgotten about it and built over it. ![]() It had two chairs, an early 1900s speaker that fit into an old phonograph, and a door latched by a 1910 lock. Winchester hastily sketched designs on napkins or brown paper for carpenters to build additions, towers, cupolas or rooms that made no sense and had no purpose, sometimes only to be plastered over the next day. She built her house with shifts of 16 carpenters who were paid three times the going rate and worked 24 hours a day, every day, from 1886 until Sarah’s death in 1922.Īn American Penelope, working in wood rather than yarn, Winchester wove and unwove eternally. After she moved from New Haven, Connecticut, to San Jose, Winchester dedicated a large part of her fortune to ceaseless, enigmatic building. ![]() Her father-in-law Oliver Winchester, manufacturer of the famous repeater rifle, died in 1880, and her husband, Will, also in the family gun business, died a year later. Winchester had inherited a vast fortune off of guns. In this provocative and deeply-researched work of narrative history, Haag fundamentally revises the history of arms in America, and in so doing explodes the clichés that have created and sustained our lethal gun culture. The tour starts with a Victorian wake in the front parlor, where a guide will explain the more macabre traditions of death and mourning in the 19th century.The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture In conjunction with the Centennial celebration, Winchester Mystery House is already letting visitors “Walk with Spirits” on a new interactive tour experience focused on spiritualism and paranormal. Tickets will be available starting-appropriately enough–on Oct. Shoppers can take self-guided tours of the mansion before or after the market. 3-4, featuring vendors selling everything from taxidermy to dark art. The folks at the Winchester Mystery House seem to agree, as they’re hosting the fourth annual Menagerie Holiday Oddities Market Dec. General admission tickets start at $64.99 at .Īs “Nightmare Before Christmas” proved, adding a little Halloween can make the holly-jolly holiday more interesting. Rumor has it that Madame Nightshade has convinced the owners of the Winchester Estate to set up her show for 13 select evenings from Friday, Sept, 30, through Monday, Oct. Visitors can take multiple routes through the mansion as guests of Madame Nightshade, owner of a small traveling carnival and self-proclaimed investigator of supernatural phenomena.īefore entering the haunt, guests can enjoy a variety of activities, including Madame Nightshade’s Spirit Carnival and the Spookeasy Bar. The popular immersive Halloween show returns this fall with “Unhinged: Nightshade’s Curse,” billed as a real-life paranormal thriller. ![]() Visitors to the Winchester Mystery House last had the opportunity to become “Unhinged” in 2019. and 9:30 p.m., Van Praagh will walk through the house with 25 guests and attempt to make contact with the other side. 5 to connect with her spirit and those of others at “Beyond the Veil,” hosted by psychic medium James Van Praagh. While Winchester’s affinity for seances may have been exaggerated over the years, visitors to her home will have the chance Sept. 5, 1922, and a celebration of her life is planned for that same date 100 years later, when guests are encouraged to leave flowers, cards, photos and mementos in the front gardens. The San Jose estate officially opened its doors for public tours on June 30, 1923.īefore then, the mansion and gardens were owned and occupied by Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester Repeating Arms fortune. The Winchester Mystery House is getting a jump on its centennial as a tourist attraction with multiple events planned to celebrate the occasion. ![]()
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