Ghosts of Seattle's Pike Place Market

There's something undeniably eerie about the American Pacific Northwest. A simple Google search brings up pages and pages of books filled with ghost stories from the region. Whether it be the typically gloomy weather, the millions of acres of forests with who knows what lurking within, or restless spirits from manifest destiny gone wrong, the Pacific Northwest is fertile ground for the supernatural. In today's episode, I'm going to be focusing on a beloved and surprisingly haunted institution. It's located in Seattle, Washington, the Pike Place Market. On August seventeenth, nineteen oh seven, about a dozen farmers set up their stalls in the four block boardwalk that the Seattle City Council used to set up a new public market, one that would offer cheap goods to Seattle lights. The Pike Place Market was an immediate hit. That November, the first building at the market was built, funded by Frank Goodwin, who co owned a real estate business at Pike Place. This building had space for seventy six vendors. Over the next decade, more buildings were constructed, and in the Great Depression, the market's commitment to low prices brought even more business, but it started to go down when supermarkets cropped up in the forties and fifties. The sixties, all seemed lost for the market, but Seattle Lights rallied around their public market with a save the Market campaign. The campaign succeeded when on November two, nineteen seventy one, citizens of Seattle voted to establish a seventeen acre historic district, one that included the market. The city created the Public Development Authority to restore the market to its former glory. Since then, the market has only grown. It's now home to nearly five hundred vendors. But of course, there is much more to the history of Pike Place Market. As much life as a market has brought to the city of Seattle, death lingers in its stalls. The spirits of men, women and children remain inside Pike Place, unwilling to leave the market. Many locals, especially the vendors, have learned to live with these spirits, but visitors might get more than what they bargained for while exploring dismays of shops and restaurants where the line between the living and the dead is barely there. My name is Edwin, and here is a dark memory for this story, our researcher Tess Redman, spoke to Sheila Lyons, co owner of Pike Place's Magic Shop, about her experience with ghosts of the market. Her store is the longest running magic shop in the Pacific Northwest. Then it's celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year. Until about ten years ago, Sheila led ghost tours through the market. Okay, we would start at there's a giant pig that seeds for fund raisings at the top of the market, and we would everybody would meet there. Sheila is referring to Rachel the Piggybank, a five hundred and fifty pound bronze statue of a pig, one that weighs only two hundred pounds less than its namesake, a prize winning pig at the nineteen eighty five Island County Fair. The statue can be found at the base of the iconic Pipe Place Market sign and clock. As the second part of her name suggests, Rachel is a working piggybank. Sheila didn't charge for her tour, but she did encourage guests to deposit any money they wanted to into the piggybank. Donations go to housing and other services in Seattle's low income neighborhoods. Once everyone had arrived, the group would head southeast, passing the Economy Building. I didn't charge, but to pay for the tour, and then we would look upstairs at Arthur Goodwin's library. Arthur was a nephew of Frank Goodwin, and he's credited with designing the inside of his uncle's buildings. He's known for peering downut passerbys from a third floor window, which, as Sheila said, marks the location of Goodwin Library. When Arthur was alive, his office was on that floor. Founder of the market, and I would say, do you see anything, And sometimes people would say they would see a shadow, and I say, yeah, that's Arthur Goodwin. There have also been sightings of Arthur at Ghost Alley Espresso, a coffee shop on post Alley, a side street to the west of Goodwin Library. The coffee shop, named after post Ali's nickname, claims Arthur as its resident ghost. The owner has witnessed paintings fly off the walls and the cash register at espresso machines being manipulated by an invisible presence. After seeing a child's drawing of a tall man in a black top hat that match photos of Arthur when he was alive. The owner came to the conclusion that yes, at least one of these spirits that's haunting the coffee shop was none other than Arthur Goodwin. Additionally, Ghost Ali Espresso occupies what used to be Immense bathroom in the early nineteen hundreds. Because Arthur's office was so close, the owner guesses that he used that bathroom frequently and that he may return just as frequently in the afterlife. The next stop on the tour was Sheila's own magic shop in the lower levels of the market. Although Sheila herself has never experienced anything supernatural in her shot, plenty of customers have told her their stories, all of them centered around a crystal ball. They would come in and they would walk exactly over to where the crystal ball was sold, where it was, and I'd say, so, what's going on. They said, Oh, that crystal ball drew me to it. That's all they would say. And we would talk about the crystal ball and the lady coming in, and a lot of people felt a tingling feeling when they would go into the shop and see it. Not everybody, but a lot of people and then I'd said, well, what do you mean by kingling, and they would say, well, it's kind of like when you'd got the shivers. The spirit trapped inside the crystal ball is named Madam Nora. She was allegedly the owner of a shop called the Temple of Destiny in the market's early days, and she was known to practice crystal gazing, Egyptian sand divining, an Indian psychic projection. Legend says an old woman traded the crystal ball to the owner of another store, one called the Pharaoh's Treasure. It's possible the Pharaoh's Treasure's owner is the woman in Sheila's story. Sheila doesn't know who gave her the crystal ball, just that a woman walked up to the store one day and gave it to her and then vanished. Next the group would have sent a street level where they would visit an allegedly haunted barber shop. There used to be a lady who cut hair. They would go in there, and sometimes when the barber was cutting their hair, they would feel all kinds of weird, strange experiences, and it became quite popular. The barber that was there then is not still there. Another popular legend about the so called fat Lady. Barber says that she would sing her customers to sleep and then rob them. That story is true. Then karma caught up to this barber. Apparently she fell through the floor to her death. In the seventies, maintenance workers report hearing lullabies at night. Then we would walk down a hallway, I would say. Originally the farmers brought all the products to the market, and they would go into stalls underneath the market. That's where they would leave their horses, and then they would bring in the produce. And a lot of times people filed somebody following them as we walk down the market as a hallway. I always thought that was Princess Angeline. And Princess Angeline was the daughter of Chief Seattle, and of people thought that they saw her there in the market. She always protected the farmers. Apparently. How she would do that is if somebody was taking a piece of fruit or something and squishing it, she would knock it out of their hands. Princess Angeline, also known as kick A Samblu, was the oldest daughter of Duwamish tribe's Chief Seattle. In eighteen fifty five, the Treaty of Point Elliott was signed, which essentially forced the tribe off the land, but Princess Angeline ignored the treaty and continued living in a cabin somewhere along what is now Western Avenue. She died on May thirty first, eighteen ninety six, and the Seattle Lights hosted a funeral for her. She's seen most frequently near a wooden column on the lower level of the market. One website claims that a Native American shaman has tried to exercise the spirit and failed. That being said, she last says that she disappeared after her cabin was torn down about fifteen years ago. However, sources I have found agree that Princess Angeline's cabin was torn down before Pipe Place Market was even built. It's possible that there's another explanation for why Princess Angeline hasn't been making her presence known as often in the last fifteen years. Or maybe when Sheila stopped giving tours, she stopped visiting the places where Princess Angeline is known to appear. Princess Angeline was such a fixture in the Seattle community prior to her death that it seems unlikely her ghost would suddenly vanish. Sheila's tour group would then visit the bead zone. The most unexplainable thing to occur at this store was the discovery of pennies inside one of the walls. But they've told me a story that behind one wall there was a whole bunch of pennies, and I got really and they said, yeah, they weren't always there. They just each day they would be like one more penny and going that's kind of weird, and they said, oh no, it's the ghost they take and put pennies in there. And I would say what ghosts are those and they would say, well, we don't know for sure, but one of them is an old lady and another one as a child. They oftentimes heard the little boy apparently was a boy crying, and that was a ghost of the little boy, although there isn't much information about the ghost of the old woman. The little boy is named Jacob, and there are plenty of stories of the stuff that he would do, including mixed up beads, strands flying across the room, and the cash register opening and shutting on its own. Then nobody that was really the most powerful place the bead shop. It left and the people who ran moved to India, so that was and of Vepp. The former bead zone is now home to a toy store called Mary Tales. The new owners have a section of the store called Jacob's Room. We would go downstairs. There's a piece of art down there that a guy named Michael. You might have to look that up. Michael Something built. It's an obelisk, and an obelisk is a design that attracts spirits, and people could attract this steel. The spirits there all the time. Michael Something is Michael Orrin, a sculptor who created the obelisk in question, Entitled a Point. The beige stone sculpture is tucked at the foot of the staircase within the market and apparently honors the Duwamish people. In fact, it's said that the obelisk is positioned almost exactly where Princess Angeline used to live. The book on Art and Seattle says that Michael died before the sculpture could be installed, so his friends did it in his name. Who knows. Maybe the sculpture is another ghost haunting the market. Another stop on the tour, Mister D's Greek Delicacies, supposedly houses a walk in freezer full of ghosts. Mister D's carved meat. He would carve the head of people and then put him in his freezier and then freeze him. And he had one of George Bush and a couple other people. And one day he said he went in there and there was a nose missing on one of the pieces of meat. I said, how did that happen? He goes, I don't know, Sheila, but I think it was the ghost having a fight. Sheila's tone is lighthearted, and the premise of the story, a food fight between ghosts, is funny, but if you think about it too long, it starts to sound a little terrifying. I mean, imagine working at the deli at night alone, you wander into the walk in freezer to do inventory. Suddenly a slab of raw beef is flung right past her head, hitting the wall with a loud smack. For a moment, you stand there, frozen in shock, staring at the dead meat on the floor of the walk in a thin red trail left on the wall in front of you. Out of the corner of your eye, you spot a tray on the second highest shelf. You watch as a plastic wrap covering the trail is slowly peeled back, and chunks of raw chicken rise from the tray. A second later, they are hurled in your direction, barely giving you enough time to duck. You stay low to the ground, crawling as fast as you can to the door as more and more trays of ingredients are upturned in the air above you. You reach the exit and slam the door behind you, breathing heavily as you lean against a solid barrier, jumping when you hear and feel something hit against the other side of the door. Sheila says that the last two stops on the tour scared her guests the most, so we'll make those stops up next. Stay with me. The second to last stop was a restaurant that is no longer operating. Based on additional research, it's likely that this restaurant wasn't the Butterworth building on First Avenue, which used to house pipe places mortuary. Although the business only lasted twenty years, the mortuary has left a lasting imprint on the Butterwork building. The owners of the restaurant apparently hired a shaman, one who told them that at least nineteen ghosts were present in the building. Some may have been clients whose spirits didn't leave with their bodies. Others may have worked on the building and died during its construction. The old mortuary was a final stop on Sheila's tour into the mortuary, and we could see the elevator door and it would take people down to where they embalm people. And I'm going, how come they don't use that anymore? And they said, because the ghosts got too strong. They're going, Okay, what did they do? And nobody seemed to know. There is pictures of the mortuary. I think I had pictures of them. There was a altar, and in the altar it was kind of like a place where you pray, and everybody always kind of tended to go towards that place, and sometimes somebody would say a prayer or to the Pike Place. Mortuary was founded by Edgar Ray Butterworth in nineteen o three, four years before the market opened. The elevator that Sheila talks about was the first elevator to be used on the West coast of the United States. Edgar is also credited with first using the words mortuary and mertitian. Today, the Butterworth Building houses an Irish pub called Kels that the owner's claim is haunted. The pub is reportedly visited by the ghost of a little girl who is summoned by the playing of traditional Irish music, and also the ghost of a man named Sammy One who smiles at patrons from inside a mirror. A man wearing suspenders in a newsboy cap has also been seen in the pub. He's believed to be a deceased former employee of the mortuary. Other hauntings that cells include candles, lighting and glasses breaking on their own, symbodied voices, and even levitating silverware. Sheila wasn't the market's only ghost tour guide. Ten fifteen years ago. Mike Yeger, who's no longer live, he also did the ghost tours. Michael and his wife opened a store called Seattle Watercolors in nineteen seventy nine, and he served on several market committees. He was so involved in the community that he earned the title of Honorary Mayor of the market. He experienced some more often a man. It was always on the walkway going down from down to the lower level. There is more than one way to get to the lower levels of the market, but it's possible that Sheila's talking about an old wooden ramp that was attached to a stables from early days of the market. There are even more ghost stories beyond the ones featured on Sheila's tour. One story tells of a little boy with no eyes who could have been a stable boy who fell victim to the nineteen eighteen Spanish flu. Jacob, the ghost of the little boy at the bead Zone and now at Married Tales, may have also died of the Spanish flu. Another story features Frank Goodwin, whose office was nearby the present day Alibi Room, a speakeasy style bar on Postally. He's reportedly been seen outside the bar offering visitors directions. It seems wherever you turn in Pike Place Market there is a piece of haunted history. These tales could all be urban legends created to capitalize more on tourism in the market, but above all, Pike Place is a community. It started as a public market with fair prices and has grown for more than a century into a treasured city hub. It isn't hard to imagine why so many spirits would want to continue to roam around the market even after death. After all, once you find a community that matters to you you never want to leave. This episode of Dark Memory was researched and written by Tess Redman. A special thank you to Sheila Lyons from the Pike Place Magic Shop for sharing her story with us. You can help support this show by joining Scary Plus by going to scaryplus dot com or by checking out our Apple podcast channel. Up next, be sure to check out True Scary Story, where people share their most terrifying experiences. You can get in touch with me by going to Edwin or by finding me on social media. I'll leave links to everything in the description of this episode. Thank you very much for listening, See you soon.