The ghosts of Allen County

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August 14, 2017 - 12:00 AM

JUNE 29, 1870 — E.G. Dalson, in jail on charges of murder … was taken from jail at midnight by a mob and hanged. Dalson had confessed to the unplanned murder of an adopted son while disciplining him. … It was estimated 50 to 60 men took part in the lynching. Dalson lived in the southern part of the county and it is assumed that the mob came from that neighborhood and not from Iola. (The Annals of Iola and Allen County, 1868-1945, Vol. 1.)

Saturday evening two teams that specialize in investigating paranormal occurrence set upon Allen County’s old jail in search of spirits — ghosts in the vernacular — that might reside in the stone structure.
The guests came at the invitation of Kurtis Russell, Allen County Historical Society director. As nightfall approached they were completing installation of electronic listening and video devices.
“Some of it is like a home security system,” said Jason Kupzyk, spokesman for Mid-Continent Paranormal Research Society of Lenexa. An electronic command center was situated in front of the jail, with recorders and computer terminals attached by wiring snaking into the jail.
“We’re also going to try an experiment: One of us will be blindfolded and have on noise-canceling earphones. Another person will ask questions and we’ll see if the other (with sensory deprivation) hears or sees anything,” Kupzyk said.
In another venue, he said, such an experiment led to the one gussied up as deaf and blind perceived answers from what appeared to be a little girl.
Dalson’s death being at the hands of vigilantes prompted the investigators to call his name now and again, in hopes his troubled spirit would respond.
The old jail was in use for 89 years, starting in 1869. During its service the jail held a multitude of law-breakers. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, hoodlums of all descriptions experienced its discomfort.
In those days all of Allen County was rife with robberies, burglaries and occasional murders. Hardly a week went by in Iola during the gas boom days that a business wasn’t burglarized. Safes often were cracked with a small dose of dynamite.
Many of those responsible ended up in the jail, a place where punishment began when the cell door was slammed shut. The double-occupancy cells were so small that when drop-down metal cots (a primitive version of Murphy beds) were in use there was little space between inmates.
Many residents left their mark: A calendar was penciled on a wide bar of one cell; Cockroach Motel was burned into ceiling paint with a cigarette lighter in another.
By today’s incarceration standards, the jail was just a step above the notorious goals of pre-Victorian England.
The supposition of paranormalists is the experience was so distressing that after they died, the inmates’ after-life form took up residence and haunted the structure.

WHAT success do you expect, Kupzyk was asked.
“No expectations,” he said, although unexplained comments, caught by recorders, and sightings have occurred in previous investigations.
Kupzyk told the Register Sunday afternoon one shadow was seen and a recorder captured the voice of a woman saying, “No!,” in the upstairs kitchen. In another incident, when one investigator was in the jail, a man screaming “very loud” was picked up by a recording device, although the person in the jail at the time heard nothing.
“I was in a cell across from where a mannequin is on a cot and I thought I saw a shadow move across the room. But, it was hard to say for sure,” Kupzyk said, in concession to veracity.
The group remained on site until about 2:30 a.m. Sunday. “Kurtis (Russell) was getting pretty tired by then. We decided to call it a night,” Kupzyk said.
“Sometimes you experience a lot, and I don’t try to label things anymore,” he said. “Anything could happen, or nothing at all. It’s not unusual for something to happen that we can’t explain.”
Computer analysis of all recorded will be done in the days ahead.
Kupzyk understands skeptics abound and “even those who don’t believe (in ghosts) have an interest;” i.e., popular television shows about paranormality. “Often, it is a matter of being at the right place at the right time.”
Also, there was a time when mediums who claimed to be able to communicate with the dead were in demand.
“Sometimes we have a medium with us, but not this time,” Kupzyk said.
The campsite for Saturday night’s exploration was the ACHS meeting hall next to the jail. Some probes were made there, as well, in part because of the display of Dr. Waugh’s old dental office, a place that surely was responsible for pain and suffering in the time before modern medicines and techniques.
“But,” Kupzyk said, “you don’t have to be where something was or something happened to have a contact. It can happen anywhere.”
A hanger-on, Michael (he didn’t give a last name), recalled walking into a dark house one night and seeing a shadow move across a room. When the house was illuminated, no one was found.
Unusual noises also are commonplace, but often can be traced to a natural source, such as electrical wiring and weather conditions, Kupzyk allowed.
In additional to the jail and meeting hall, the investigators intend to return to Iola for sessions at the Funston Boyhood Home Museum and the main ACHS museum next door.
“We also want to have them down to give a public presentation at one of our meetings,” Russell said.

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