It's a new season for Anoka's ghost tours

At a white Victorian-era home in Anoka, one of its former residents, Col. Paul Giddings, who died in 1930, is said to keep an eye on the place to this day.

The current homeowner believes that the colonel's ghost led her to the furnace room in the basement one night, where she detected a gas smell, according to Darlene Bearl, a volunteer docent for the Anoka County Historical Society's ghost tours.

"If the homeowner hadn't called [the gas company] on it when she did, the family would've succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning or the furnace would've exploded," Bearl said.

The house is just one stop on the historical society's "Ghosts of Anoka" tour, which begins its ninth season May 17. Blending storytelling with colorful facts, the tour recounts all kinds of "unexplained" occurrences.

It's based on countless testimonies that the historical society has gathered through the years, Bearl said.

Starting at Anoka's history center, a costumed tour guide takes people in and around the downtown area to a number of historic homes and city landmarks, including the pistol-shaped City Hall, the armory, Colonial House, Main Street shops and Billy's Bar and Grill (formerly the Jackson Hotel), among other places.

The walking tour is filled with anecdotes about such mysterious events as piano music that plays out of nowhere, cigar smoke that can be smelled without a source, blue mist and flashing lights that seem to have no point of origin.

At one house on the fashionable 3rd Avenue, where "anybody who was anybody" once lived, there's a ghost who, it's believed, doesn't like people to wear shoes in the house.

By the armory, there have been reports of the sound of soldiers marching, Bearl said.

Besides the paranormal, the tour also touches on some historic events, such as a major fire that led to the rebuilding of the lumber town in 1884, a 1939 tornado that left the armory in ruins, and goings-on that led to Anoka being dubbed the "Halloween capital of the world."

Even though Bearl personally believes in the spirits, she said, "The history center can neither confirm nor deny that ghosts and spirits really exist."

Ghostly encounters

Mary Vander Laan, who owns Party Papers, which has been in its current location on Main Street since 1994, has noticed all kinds of "unexplained" activities in the costume shop.

Every so often when she's alone, she hears footsteps and creaking floorboards in the store. At other times, items flip off of the shelves in unnatural ways.

A friend of hers, who she says is in touch with the spirit world, describes a ghost who provides details about the store from years gone by, she said. It's an old-timey storekeeper, she says: a man who is bald and wears a long-sleeved shirt and cuff protectors. He's sweeping a wooden sidewalk near the storefront. A nearby window reads "Mercantile," she says.

Sometimes it seems as if her ghost is just trying to be helpful. Once she found a plastic witch figurine pointing at a display that she'd lost track of. It was as if the ghost was saying, "You got your work done, now go home," she said.

In general, "I think that my belief in ghosts is a way of respecting persons who lived before us," she said. "It gives insight into what happens to us next. I think that's really valuable."

Kevin Bellows also believes a spirit hangs around his historic home on Van Buren Street, which is also on the tour.

He believes the ghost is a mischievous young boy who "is kind of fascinated by modern-day electronics and gadgets," which often turn on by themselves. The smoke detector has even gone off without the batteries.

The Bellows have grown accustomed to these kinds of strange happenings. In fact, when the house gets too quiet, "We get worried [the spirit] has left, and we don't want it to leave," he said.

Anna Pratt is a Minneapolis freelance writer.