Do you believe in ghosts?
Spend some time at The Captains Anchorage Restaurant and Bar in Big Bear Lake ,California and you just
might. In the 'forties and 'fifties, illegal gambling was a popular pasttime, and it could be found
here. Legend has it that the bookkeeper for the activity was a man named George. (A photograph of George
and his friends is in the bar.) It is said that George was embezzling money.
Here there are two theories: a
despondent George either commited suicide inthe upstairs office, now the Captain's Quarters, fearing the
consequences of being caught, or he was murdered - by whom, no one knows.
As to the Famous Big Bear
Restaurant and Bar being haunted, one opinion is that emploees are making this up. However, a lot of
these hauntings occur when customers are watching, such as the December night the Crown Royal bottle
impolded, the night the Andy Devince Room sign in the bar began to swinging, the times a beer bottle
would fling out of the display, the heavy footfalls in an empty upstairs, and things that happend when
Loren and Kathleen from the Big Bear Magazine would come in, arriving after hours to gather material for
an article. The last time they were in they brought a psychic. This psychic said she felt four sprits,
one of them a woman. Curiously, about twenty-five years ago, an employee, the first one in tat day,
experinced the same. She
unlocked the door, turned off the alarm, went out to the bar to get a Coke, and was startled to see a
woman seated at a table by the stairs. The expressionless
woman gave no response to the employees query, "May I help you?". The employee ran out th the building, not to return until kater when ohter
employees arrived, by then the apparition had departed.
A few years ago, one of
the girls who works here san another apparition, this one a man, walking over by the porthole
door. Moos people would accept
the story if they were here for an incident. Not all though. When the Crown Royal bottle
blew up, two of the witnesses thouhgt it was rigged, to "prove" the place is
haunted. People
frequently take pictures here. Ribbon-like objects, orbs, even a raging fire have been manifested in these
photos.
Draw your own
conclusions. All though there are sometimes long sells without any hauntings, you just might be at the
Captains Anchorage Restarant and Bar when "he's back!"
