I have a confession to make: I hate playing favorites. I have some, and I try to not make it obvious. But, with 13th Street Morgue, I have a hard time doing that. It isn’t my only favorite: I have technical favorites, and actor favorites, and a plethora of favorites. I have a personal Top 5 that rotates on a daily basis, depending on my mood. This place however, I just love. Maybe it’s becaue of my natural instinct to wax nostalgic with it being out with Reindeer. Or maybe it’s because of the true history of this place. Or maybe it’s just because Alex has put together a show that is hard to rival. Whatever the reason, I freaking love this place.
From the spiel about the history out front, to the creepy girl that gooses the back of your neck in the graveyard, this place is it. People sometimes ask me: if there was only one haunted house I would go to, what would it be? This is the one. It isn’t the world’s longest. It isn’t a performance masterpiece. There really isn’t one certain thing that hooks you. But it does so many little things so well, you can’t help but love this place. Maybe it’s the fact that these guys and gals can actually touch you. Maybe it’s the fact that paranormal investigators LOVE to come out to this place. Or maybe it’s all the detail and hard work they put into this haunt, as well as the absolutely incredible actors. Whatever it is, 13 Street is incredible. Now, all that being said above….that is not to say that isn’t lengthy enough, or that the actors aren’t worthy of Oscars. It’s to say that all the individual pieces get overshadowed by the fact that they mesh together so well to perform this perfect little ball of fear for you to enjoy. And don’t let bad weather frighten you off. We went out after a TORRENTIAL downpour, and had no problems getting around. The parking lot…..it took on a little mud, but I got to my car with almost zero evidence of it so there are NO excuses: Rain or moonshine, as someone else says, GO SEE 13TH STREET MORGUE!
Definitely a great bang for your buck value. Especially with Reindeer just across the field…….
Continuing its reign of terror into its sixth year in 2009, the 13th Street Morgue is amping up the suspense with new effects and improved theatrics.
The story of the Morgue dates back to when the original owners of Reindeer Manor, the Sharp Family, was no more. Their history can be seen in its entirety on the history page. When the family was gone, a man named Jonathon Maybrick leased one of the barns for his residence and funeral parlor, which he named the 13th Street Morgue while at his first location in Alvarado. He was able to create a state of the art embalming facility, funeral chapel, crematory, horse drawn hearse storage, and even his own residence for his family. The land to the west of the building was used to bury folks who were too poor to afford a plot in the city cemetery and there are still sizable tax discounts on the property for using some of the land for paupers graves.
The Maybricks did well at their new location for some time, but trouble began to brew when a local criminal met his end in a botched bank robbery. During the crime a local widowers 16 year old daughter was shot and killed. The widower, Alfred Helm, religiously kept his three children indoors for fear of loosing them like he lost his wife. In a strange twist of fate, he had sent his eldest daughter Abigail to the bank that afternoon. The robber, Raymond Reynolds, an out of work railroad employee, killed both the bank teller and Abigail for no apparent reason, though it was suspected that the teller resisted the robbers demands. As he tried to flee he was shot dead by the towns only police officer.
After the shootings, Raymonds mother came to the Morgue to make final arrangements for her son. Even though Mr. Maybrick was hesitant to arange the funeral for such a notorious villain he finally acquiesced because he ultimately needed the money. Alfred Helm was not at all happy to hear the news that the murderer of his precious Abigail was to receive a proper funeral when he had to lay his child to rest on his own land with his own shovel. There were rumors that Helms would show up at the funeral and cause trouble, but on the day of the event all was quiet.
It was now close to Christmas time, and the memories of the robbery and shootings were beginning to fade away. But in the early morning hours of December 13th, Alfred cut the phone lines and broke into the 13th Street Morgue. Dressed as Santa Clause to fool the children if they awoke, Alfred made his way into the Maybrick home and into each of their bedrooms. After strangling the two small children, the wife, and finally Jonathon himself, Alfred set himself in a chair in the Maybricks living room and shot himself in the chest.
The note he left read simply “Please watch after my children. They are the product of an unholy mind.”
Over the years the various owners of Reindeer Manor tried to lease or sell the barn as a funeral home or as salvage with out any luck. To this day the remains of the Maybrick home and business still remain. Even the the horse drawn hearse is still there. No one lives there, but the spirits of the long dead still haunt the halls of the former mortuary and cemetery outside. The building has been researched by many reliable paranormal investigators and has been deemed to have several recurring hauntings as well as one poltergeist.
