Michele StuevenGhost stories have been around and the source of endless fascination for centuries. They include popular folklore featuring spirits and haunting stories handed down for generations, often shared around the campfire.
Fort Tejon State Historic Park along the I-5 Grapevine Canyon in Lebec has been the subject of countless stories since it was established by the U.S. Army in 1984.
Several buildings have been restored, and two are partially open to visitors. The restored barracks contain display cases of uniforms and a recreated troopers’ quarters. The commanding officer’s quarters have several restored and furnished rooms, including a functioning kitchen reproduction used for special events.
A quartermaster building has been reconstructed, and the park grounds include the original barracks, where the soldiers slept, and also the grave site of Peter Lebec under one of the centuries-old Valley Oak Trees that have stood in a grove since long before the fort was established. Legends abound about the town’s namesake who was killed by a grizzly bear.
Fort Tejon in the 1880s (Courtesy Fort Tejon Historic Park)
With the proliferation of ghost hunters, Spooky Tourism has blossomed into a billion-dollar business. The historical society at Fort Tejon will lean into the fort’s well-documented haunted side.
They’ve invited a renowned paranormal expert, author, and Santa Clarita native Marie Mason to host public tours and ghost hunts on Sat., Oct. 24. Equipped with state-of-the-art ghost imaging equipment, Mason led several sold-out tours at Fort Tejon in late April.
With decades of documented paranormal activity, spirit encounters, and unexplained phenomena, Fort Tejon State Historic Park ranks high on the afterlife phantasm folklore list. You may encounter George sitting in the saddle of the troopers’ quarters or an angry Vicky Yorkshire searching for a lost bracelet in the garden via the spirit box and telekinetic radio.
Author of Ghosts of Randsburg: The Madame’s Secret, Mason has been capturing ghostly images, their voices, and spirits since 2019 while living north of Los Angeles, catching ghosts on camera on a regular basis, has been featured on Ghost Adventures on Discovery+, and documented legendary ghosts in Placerita Canyon.
1937 Fort Tejon barracks (Courtesy Fort Tejon Historic Park)
“I’m a historian, I write books,” Mason told LA Weekly on a tour of the fort with Steven Ptomey, Supervisor of the Cultural Resources Program for the Department of Parks and Recreation. “ I want to tell the history differently and keep that history alive. Most people will walk by the historic markers and forget most of it by the time they get home. But if I go out to the Lebec tree and say Mr. Lebec, are you here and the ghost responds via paranormal instruments that are used to measure sounds and detect energy, that’s something you’ll never forget. They can be fickle and need to be warmed up, but it does happen, both day and night. We’ll ask them questions, and they’ll talk in complete sentences. What we’re doing is not a game or jump scare stuff; it’s history differently.”
While the parks department takes no position on ghost sightings, employees of the park have told stories about things that were hard to explain by natural phenomena near the cemetery where six soldiers and one officer are said to be buried.
For tickets and more information, visit FortTejonHalloween.eventbrite.com. Guests will be provided with ghost equipment and can take part in one of three investigations at 7 p.m., 8:30 p.m., and 10 p.m., and will visit six locations within the park, which was originally home to indigenous groups associated with Fort Tejon like the Inland Chumash and experienced cultural conflict after the Civil War. Rangers are stationed at every stop; tickets start at $65for adults and $28 for children under 12.
Paranormalist Marie Mason in the Fort Tejon restored barracks (Michele Stueven)
Peter Lebec grave (Michele Stueven)
For another ghost story that keeps on giving at every shocking turn, don’t miss HBO’s true crime docuseries The Pet Cemetery Murders: A Ghost Story, which premiered on Sunday, Oct. 11 and airs the final episode on Sunday, Oct. 25.
The haunting new three-part docuseries comes from two-time Academy Award-winning producer Simon Chinn and Emmy Award-winning producer Jonathan Chinn’s Lightbox, and is directed by Philip Cairney.
The series traces the gruesome murder of Dorothy Thompson, owner of a local pet cemetery in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. Steeped in tragic history and local lore, residents had long believed the cemetery grounds harbored dark spirits.
In 1985, Thompson’s body was found in the Mississippi River. Despite identifying several suspects with potential motives, law enforcement struggled to build a case, and the investigation eventually went cold. Decades later, Hurricane Katrina brought another devastating blow when crucial crime scene photos and reports were lost. With little physical evidence remaining, the case took an increasingly eerie turn as investigators revisited the long unsolved murder. An informant claimed he was visited by a ghost, while investigators uncovered a psychic’s earlier depiction of the suspected killer, adding another layer to the mystery.
As the gripping series digs deeper into Thompson’s life, her own secrets and dark history (which includes two dead husbands) become part of the puzzle, raising new questions about who she was, who might have wanted her dead, and what really happened in the tiny community of Toca, also the controversial site of the 1868 St. Bernard Paris Massacre, where 35 Black residents were killed, robbed, and terrorized.
The Pet Cemetery Murders (Courtesy HBO)