The Stricker Ranch
Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash (Not an actual photo of the ranch)
Shannon Stowe was the caretaker at the Stricker Ranch the summer of 1996. Shannon explains in her own words, “When I took the job as the caretaker for the summer, several people told me that the house was haunted. It never bothered me, the idea of spirits being around. There were lots of people that died there on the Oregon trail and there’s a small cemetery down the road from the house.
There were several times that I talked to the spirits before I went to bed and said, “OK if you guys are around I’m gonna put this toothbrush, cup or whatever here on the bathroom counter. If you’re around and want me to know that you’re here, move this item so that I find it somewhere else tomorrow morning.” Each time I invited them to move an item, the spirits accommodated and the item would be in a different place the next morning.
You could feel the energy of the spirits around in the home. As the caretaker, I stayed in the back part of the house. The front part of the house is like a museum for people to come in and look around.”
The Stricker Ranch is located south of Hansen, Idaho, on the old Oregon Trail. In 1980, the ranch was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Dating back to 1865, the ranch was an early stopping point for serving pioneers using the Oregon Trail.
The ranch was operated by a German immigrant named Herman Stricker and his wife Lucy Walgamott. The couple let some of the travelers stay in their home and they ran the store. They sometimes had to nurse the sick emigrants. Eventually a cemetery was created near the ranch, because not all of the ailing pioneers survived.
The Stricker Ranch has a great deal of history, but it is considered one of the most haunted spots in Idaho. The state of Idaho has more information in case you would like to check it out for yourself. https://history.idaho.gov/stricker/
