Cleveland Top 10 Creepiest Legends?

I was interviewed by John and the gang at Type 3 TV last night. In honor of Halloween, I hosted a poll on the site and presented the results of the top 10 creepiest legends in northern Ohio.

While there was initially some technical difficulties, the interview lasted about 90 minutes and covered the following legends:


Gray's Armory
South Bay Bessie
Squire's Castle
Rider's Inn
Witch's Ball
Helltown
Gore Orphanage
Mansfield State Reformatory
Franklin Castle
Melonheads



You can stream the entire show at the Type 3 TV website (it's in two parts, owing to the aformentioned technical difficulties), or you can grab my mp3 copy from here (Note: it's a 20.3M file) I want to thank John and the guys from Type 3 TV for having me on (again) and look forward to working with them in the future on some (possible) on-location haunts. Stay tuned, kids.

NOTE: It only took six years, but I finally got around to putting this interview on Youtube (with a static image of the ad for the show).  Easier than downloading (and mobile friendly!)

Franklin Castle TV Show Trailer

P.S. This is not me. (I am *not* CharlesAtTheCastle) This is the current owner/caretaker...

Franklin Castle Interviews

Charles Milsaps, owner of the Franklin Castle, founder of the Ohio City Preservation and Restoration Society, and proprietor of The Franklin Castle Club is now available for radio interviews. Contact Charles directly at the email below to get the latest news about the Franklin Castle restoration, the Network TV show about the Castle, and how the paranormal community will soon have the opportunity to do the first ever investigations of the Franklin Castle.

Press release to paranormal radio shows
The Castle has been off limits to most people for over 30 years. Find out the real story and the future of one of America’s Most Haunted Homes, first hand, as Charles Milsaps answers all your questions about the infamous Franklin Castle.
Charles will be available for phone interviews as well as on site, live remote interviews over the next 2 weeks. His time is limited and the interviews will be scheduled first call, first schedule. Contact Charles today. He will return calls in the order the are received.
Charles@FranklinCastleClub.com
Charles Milsaps
The Franklin Castle Club
Ohio City Preservation and Restoration Society
4308 Franklin Blvd.
Cleveland, Ohio 44113
216/631.2582

Franklin Castle Real Ghost Video

Contributed by CastleSeeker

SO.. I know it was not right, but I snuck into the Franklin Castle a few years back and shot some video for a few minutes in each room and then got the Hell out of there. It was crazy scary and I thought for sure I was going to get caught. I think someone pulled in the driveway while I was crawling out a window. I didn't see the ghost until I looked at the video the next day and I held on to it until now. Let me know what you think, but I can not explain it except to say it looks like the only thing I've ever seen that is real. I figured it was time to share it with the world. Happy Halloween !!!

Questions / Comments on Franklin Castle

Hi, nice site.. I was wondering if you know of a story of someone who waits for a streetcar in Cleveland..a ghost, somewhere on the east side...and that is all I remember of hearing of the story I read 20 years ago. Does that remotely ring a bell?

Also, I wonder why Franklin Castle, besides the politics, has not been aggressively pursued by ghost enthusiasts from all over, who may want to donate for restoration. It happened with The Christmas Story House..Superman House.. Weill, what about preserving and restoring one of the said to be most haunted houses in Ohio? Perhaps such a place would be a good museum for the neighborhood and B&B, attracting those who like this sort of thing...and something that can be a feature on A&E, or something like that.

I live in Ohio City...walk past the castle a lot... The property is maintained well in the front and side where St. Herman's is..But it is too bad the castle itself just sits there risking decay. I am surprised with how popular the ghost interest is---that no one has prompted an idea. The private social club thing is not, in my opinion, a good idea...and was a facade.

Your knowledge is appreciated!

Regards,
Robert

That's Life with Robin Swoboda

Did you miss the show? Robin Swoboda's "That's Life" Cleveland morning talk show on Halloween 2008 featured a number of haunted locations and creepy legends around Cleveland.


See all the segments here

Also see:
Creepy Tales on the Tube

Weirdest Place in Cleveland

Cool blog! Franklin Castle is downright evil.

I visited the old Masonic lodge on Franklin Blvd. As soon as I walked in chills ran down my spine. The Masons told me that all kinds of weird things go on in the building and that no one would even consider spending the night there. A local psychic told me that the building is some kind of portal to another place and she had seen multiple entities while in the building. If you're looking for something that's truly creepy then this is the place.

Jeff

Franklin Castle Tour

A friend of mine, Chris, and his wife Brenda took a tour of Franklin Castle the other night. Chris took a lot of pictures and I've spent the day perusing them for any signs of anything paranormal. So far, no luck. The tour sounded like a good time anyway... I'll let him tell the story:

It was very interesting. but kinda uneventful. I used to get an uneasy feeling in my grandfathers basement and I really expected that there, but nothing. The house is in pretty bad shape, the fire caused a lot of smoke damage which is still present. It was really cool. The guy that was doing the tour I kinda expected to be all gothed-out and trying to be spooky, but he wasn't. He was very knowledgable of the history. He actually debunked a lot of the urban legend. They are putting $3 million dollars into it and they are making it a social club memberships are $5000 a person though. It's gonna be a non profit preservation society with a hundred year lease on the house from him and the woman Michelle who own it. She is the "California" lady but she actually only lived in California for a short time. She was born here and moved back here. ... I took 288 pics and there was only one questionable thing in the pics that I saw so far. I generally think that orbs are just dust, but there was a pretty bright spot on the wall on the 4th floor, and I took multiple pics of the same spot but it only shows up in pic. one funny thing is as Brenda and I were going to the third floor, we saw this black flash, we later found out it was a bat, LOL! but for a couple of minutes we weren't sure. It was pretty cool he took about 2 hours for the tour and then he let you walk around the house for as long as you want, you can go anywhere you want unsupervised. The reason that he doesn't want audio or video taken is that they are in the process of filming a documentary, and he doesn't want a ton of video of his tour going out on the net and hurting the documentary sales. They are doing it to raise money for the restoration. He seemed genuinely interested in saving the house for future generations not in hyping up the haunted part just for money.

Cool, huh? 288 pictures. Wanna see 'em? Check em out here.

- Chuck

Franklin Castle Tour

From Youtube:

Franklin Castle

from: Bill

I loved your site and you had a good deal of info on the Franklin castle, but there were quite a few things that were incorrect. first off, let me introduce myself. my name is William Krejci and I've been researching the Franklin castle for well over 13 years. in that time, I've had a chance to learn more about Hannes Tiedemann than nearly anyone else alive today and that includes his descendants (yes, he does have living descendants despite common belief).
It is true that August died in 1906 and yes, his 2 sons did die at young ages as well, but not until 1929 and 1934. the younger of the two, Carl H. Tiedemann was married to a woman named May Glenn and they had two children... one of which is still alive and resides in new york.
August wasn't the only child to survive to adulthood. he had a younger sister named Dora who married a man named Wiebenson (Hannes Tiedemann's successor as president of the united savings and banking co. they had 5 sons, 4 of which lived to adulthood and had children of their own... most of which are still living.
also, the house fell victim to arson in 1999, was sold and is now being restored by a man named Milsaps who has intentions of turning it into a private club.
I have much more info on the house and family who built it. I also have quite an interesting collection of photos from within the house that contain many orbs. feel free to contact me back. I'd be more than happy to share with you what info I have.