Ghost tours show off Logan’s spookier side
Logan’s downtown ghost tours — which have spooked Cache Valley residents for five years — are so popular they have been selling out every year since they started.
“We sell out every year, and I have about 1,200 people come through per season,” said Gary Saxton, the manager of Logan Downtown Alliance. “I would tell people to make reservations early, because this weekend is sold out and there is only one more night.”
During Halloween season the Logan Downtown Alliance, Cache Theatre Company and the Bridgerland Storytellers Guild put on the event, which includes a short 20-minute play in the beginning of the tour based on the works of Edgar Alan Poe: “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cask of Amontillado.”
“I think people are interested in the tour because it is the only private, guided walking tour in Utah, and it is the season,” Saxton said.
There are different stories and different locations every year. The heart of the tour is the historic center in downtown Logan in places like the Blue Bird and the Dansante Theatre. The tour brings to light stories of some of Logan’s most infamous and creepy ghosts.
One of the tours main attractions is the headless horseman. Or rather, horsewoman.
Tessa Guy, a double-majoring senior at Utah State University, and her horse, Vader, have been volunteering for the past four years. They are there almost every night.
“The best experience is seeing how excited everyone is, even returning patrons seem to enjoy it every year,” Guy said. “I like to try and find people that seem scared and follow them around.”
The tours are about an hour and a half each, and the walking distance is around half of a mile. Fridays and Saturdays in October are the dates for the tours and each night has tours at 7 p.m., 8 p.m. and 9 p.m.
Oct. 30 will be the last night of tours for this season. Ticket sales conclude that the majority of patrons are from the Wasatch area, but some are from Idaho and Wyoming.
Even though the tours are sold out and seem to be bringing in a lot of traffic and revenue, there are still those that leave unimpressed.
“Haley, my wife, and I knew that we needed to go on the Logan Ghost tour at least once while we lived in Logan,” said Tysen Johnson, an engineer student at USU. “The tour was great at times and a disappointment at others. The best part was the storyteller in the Blue Bird cellar. The setting was great for a scary story and the storyteller did a great job creating a scary mood.”
Johnson attended the tour on the first night of the season and said that with a little more time and practice, the rest of the tour had the potential to be really good.
“If you want to go to through the tour to simply gain information about ghosts in Logan, then you might not be disappointed,” Johnson said. “If you want to go to be scared, then don’t get your hopes up. We were glad that we went once, but for $10 a ticket in a college town, it wasn’t worth it.”
For more information on the Logan downtown ghost tours, visit logandowntown.blogspot.com/2015/09/2015-historic-downtown-ghost-tour.html.
— jillian.mccarthy@aggiemail.usu.edu