Byrd Park Pump House

Built in 1883 to supply water to Richmond, this Romanesque Revival pump house also doubled as a social hall for city events. It's been sitting vacant for decades.

During a March 2010 paranormal investigation called "The 3 Mile Lock Experiment - Conquest," which drew over 100 participants, Robert Bess of the Foundation for Paranormal Research declared the activity so intense it overloaded his Parabot system. Bess, inventor of the Parabot device featured on Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures, rates the Byrd Park Pump House as "extremely haunted." His theory: the combination of running water, steel, slate roofing, and iron throughout the structure creates a perfect conductor that acts as a portal to the other side.

The building itself looks the part. Rising from the wooded banks of the James River like a medieval fortress, the Pump House was built between 1881 and 1883, designed by Colonel Wilfred Emory Cutshaw -- Richmond's city engineer and Confederate artillery veteran whose letter of recommendation from Robert E. Lee helped secure his position. This Gothic Revival masterpiece served two purposes that made it unique among American municipal buildings.

Below, machinery drew water from the James River and Kanawha Canal, pumping it uphill to Byrd Park Reservoir. Above, an open-air dance hall transformed the industrial facility into one of Richmond's most glamorous social venues. During the Gilded Age, debutantes in Victorian hoop skirts and gentlemen in evening dress would board flat-bottomed bateaux at Seventh and Canal Streets, arriving by mule-drawn canal boat to dance on the pine floor while overlooking the gentle rapids of the James. The building ceased operations in 1924. The equipment was scrapped for metal before World War II, and the city planned demolition in the 1950s. First Presbyterian Church purchased the abandoned structure for one dollar, saving it.

DANIEL, ELIZABETH, AND SPECTRA

Several distinct spirits reportedly inhabit the deteriorating structure. Daniel Tetweiler is the most tragic -- a man who hanged himself inside the Pump House. His sorrowful presence lingers within the building. Figures have been seen dangling or drifting in the shadows, forever bound to the site of his death.

Elizabeth manifests differently. Bess calls her "the most fantastic orb you will see" -- a floating sphere of light that drifts through the darkened corridors.

Most dramatic is Spectra, a woman in white who Bess says "cuts loose with her energy force." He claims twenty-three different spiritual groups travel within her aura.

THE VOLUNTEER'S STORY

On one occasion, workers on the second-floor dance hall heard distinct conversations coming from the machine room below. One volunteer descended to investigate. His flashlight suddenly went dead. All sounds ceased. He retreated back upstairs and the light mysteriously relit. He tried again. The flashlight died the moment he stepped downward. The voices resumed as soon as he withdrew.

What makes this place unusual is the skepticism of the people who know it best. The Friends of Pump House organization -- which spends more time in the building than anyone -- maintains this official position: "Is the building haunted? As best we can tell, no, and we spend a lot of time there! We are aware of stories floating around on the internet stating otherwise, but we have been unable to find any evidence of such in our research, and have never experienced it directly ourselves."

The Pump House was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. Today it hosts occasional events including "Poe at the Pump House" each October, where Edgar Allan Poe impersonators read ghost stories in this appropriately Gothic setting. Restoration continues, with an estimated eight to twelve million dollars needed for full rehabilitation. The nonprofit Friends of Pump House began restoration efforts in 2017. Whether the spirits of Daniel, Elizabeth, and Spectra still roam the granite halls -- or whether imagination runs wild in atmospheric ruins -- the Castle on the James remains one of Richmond's most intriguing architectural and paranormal landmarks.