Local Ghost Tour ROCKS!
Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 3:27 amEarlier this year, my wife bought a Groupon for a ghost tour here in Greensboro called Nightmares Around Elm St. After many delays, we decided that today's warm temps and our normal weekend schedule kind of forced us to get in on the tour tonight. Frankly, having lived around this place for all our lives and not really seeing anything much interesting about it, we did not anticipate much in the way of cool stories.
I gotta say, I was pleasantly surprised. My wife and I go to ghost tours in a lot of places, and the better tours that we take have guides that are good story tellers, AND they give interesting points about local history. This tour had both a good story teller AND a lot of interesting history to teach about the city.
We started in front of the police station out on Washington St, then walked to Blandwood Mansion. I had never been to this place... driven past it countless times but never actually laid eyes on it. What a SHOCK to get onto the grounds and see a freaking Tuscan villa that was originally started over two centuries ago! Here, we learned a general outline of the birth of the city and its role in the growth of the Piedmont from the time of the Revolution through to the coming of the Civil War and the age of reconstruction and the birth of the many local industries. Cool stuff for a history buff, like me.
And of course, there were ghost stories. Stories of the Mansion, the police station nearby, the Carolina Theater... all of them very charming in their own right, and intertwined with varying points of actual history.
If you are ever planning to be in town for a Friday or Saturday night, and if you like a bit of walking around some creepy places in the night, this tour is definitely a good investment of your time and money.
I gotta say, I was pleasantly surprised. My wife and I go to ghost tours in a lot of places, and the better tours that we take have guides that are good story tellers, AND they give interesting points about local history. This tour had both a good story teller AND a lot of interesting history to teach about the city.
We started in front of the police station out on Washington St, then walked to Blandwood Mansion. I had never been to this place... driven past it countless times but never actually laid eyes on it. What a SHOCK to get onto the grounds and see a freaking Tuscan villa that was originally started over two centuries ago! Here, we learned a general outline of the birth of the city and its role in the growth of the Piedmont from the time of the Revolution through to the coming of the Civil War and the age of reconstruction and the birth of the many local industries. Cool stuff for a history buff, like me.
And of course, there were ghost stories. Stories of the Mansion, the police station nearby, the Carolina Theater... all of them very charming in their own right, and intertwined with varying points of actual history.
If you are ever planning to be in town for a Friday or Saturday night, and if you like a bit of walking around some creepy places in the night, this tour is definitely a good investment of your time and money.
