![]() ![]() The phenomenon is prevalent in the Rust Belt. Both numbers have doubled in the past 10 years. America Haunts, a trade association, estimates that there are now 1,200 haunted houses in the U.S., with annual revenue of $500 million. “It happens in times of stress and anxiety.” A parallel trend is the boom in full-time haunted houses. ![]() “We’re seeing a rebirth of 19th-century spiritualism,” says parapsychologist author Pamela Heath. Steve is an artist, entrepreneur, tour guide, Christian preacher and demonologist, paranormal investigator, and all-around hustler, who has cobbled together a living from side gig and rental income.Ī lot of them are in the ghost business, appropriate for a place where many dream of going back to the more prosperous past. They’re started and run by people like Steve, who have stayed in towns that no longer offer plentiful employment. You’ll find these atypical small businesses all over the Appalachians and Rust Belt (Moundsville sits on the border of the two). The 37-year-old was the first person I met in Moundsville, when I pulled off the highway in 2013 and saw a sign that said “Paranormal Hot Dog Stand.” It was Steve’s business, which I profiled on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, the first step toward making the movie in 2018. “We’re holding this in the summer, because school is out, and now quarantine is over, and at Halloween, I have a lot of other stuff going on,” says Hummel. Steve and the Archives museum are featured prominently in our movie Moundsville now out on PBS. ![]() Lee is one of a half-dozen speakers Steve Hummel has invited for his Haunted Relic Expo at the Archives of the Afterlife Museum (1600 Third Street, in an old schoolhouse) July 18, 1pm to 8pm. That’s why the Ohio Valley is “a plethora of paranormal activity”, says Kristin Lee, a psychic medium and owner of the Bellaire Haunted House in Bellaire, Ohio. The Appalachians and the Rust Belt have a rich past, from prehistoric mound-building peoples thousands of years ago to the French-Indian and Civil wars, and, more recently, aggressive industrialization from 1880-1980, and now, de-industrialization and depopulation. ![]()
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