Griffith Park

Griffith Park is one of the largest urban parks in North America, covering 4,310 acres. The land was originally Rancho Los Feliz, purchased in the 1880s by Colonel Griffith J. Griffith, who donated it to Los Angeles in 1896. The park has been plagued by misfortune: a devastating 1933 fire killed 29 people, and Griffith himself shot his wife during a drunken rampage and served time in San Quentin. Some believe the land is cursed by Dona Petronilla, who was cheated out of her inheritance in 1863.

The curse of Griffith Park began on a deathbed in 1863. Don Antonio Feliz, owner of Rancho Los Feliz, lay dying of smallpox when scheming friends convinced him to sign a new will leaving everything to Antonio Coronel—and nothing to his blind, seventeen-year-old niece Dona Petronilla. In her grief and rage, Petronilla placed a curse on the land: "The cattle shall sicken and die. The fields shall no longer respond. I see a great flood spreading destruction. I see the grand oaks wither in tongues of flames." One by one, the curse devoured the subsequent owners. Coronel's family died from misfortune and disease. The next owner's dairy farm was wiped out by floods and debt. The man who negotiated the water rights was killed in a saloon. The following owner was murdered by banditos in Mexico.

Colonel Griffith Jenkins Griffith—a self-bestowed title from the man whose first and last names were identical—purchased 4,000 acres in 1882. He wore ridiculously fancy clothes, carried a gold-knobbed cane, and demanded everyone address him as Colonel. In 1896, he donated 3,012 acres to Los Angeles as a public park. At the dedication celebration, California folklorist Horace Bell recorded that the ghost of Don Antonio Feliz materialized before the stunned guests, took Colonel Griffith's seat, and proclaimed: "I come to invite you to dine with me in hell."

The curse struck Colonel Griffith in September 1903. Convinced his Catholic wife Christina was conspiring with the Pope to poison him and steal his fortune, the secretly alcoholic Griffith shot her in the eye at the Arcadia Hotel in Santa Monica. Christina survived by hurling herself from a window, landing on an awning, and crawling to safety through another window—but was left disfigured and blind in one eye. Griffith served just two years in San Quentin for "alcoholic insanity." He died in 1919 from liver disease.

On October 3, 1933, the curse manifested as fire. Over 3,700 Depression-era workers earning 40 cents an hour labored in the park when temperatures exceeded 100 degrees. A brush fire erupted in Mineral Wells Canyon around 2 p.m. Without fire training or piped water, supervisors ordered workers to beat flames with shovels. At 3 p.m., the winds suddenly reversed. Flames roared up the canyon at 20 miles per hour. Twenty-nine men burned to death—officially. Accusers claimed authorities covered up a death toll as high as 58. It remained California's deadliest wildfire for 85 years.

On September 16, 1932, British actress Peg Entwistle, 24, left her uncle's bungalow after drinking heavily, climbed the maintenance ladder on the Hollywoodland sign's "H," and jumped 45 feet to her death. RKO had just cut her scenes from the film "Thirteen Women." Days after her death, a letter arrived offering her a role—as a woman who commits suicide. Ranger John Arbogast reports her ghost appears late at night when conditions are foggy. "There have been times when I have been at the sign and the motion detectors say someone is standing five feet away from me," he said, "only there's nobody there." Hikers describe a sad blonde in 1930s clothes, floating above the ground, trailed by the scent of gardenias—her favorite perfume. On Syfy's "Paranormal Witness," four friends hiking after a Dodgers game reported a woman in vintage clothing appearing to float uphill despite wearing heels.

Dona Petronilla's ghost still rides a white horse through the park, appearing at midnight near the Paco Feliz Adobe—the oldest structure in the park, now the Crystal Springs Ranger Headquarters—watching from the second-story windows on dark and rainy nights. Don Antonio Feliz has been seen on horseback near Bee Rock. Honorary Mayor Luis Alvarado watched a man descend the stairs near the merry-go-round and vanish at the final step. The legend of "Picnic Table #29"—where lovers were allegedly crushed by a falling tree on Halloween 1976—draws paranormal enthusiasts, though the story may be an urban legend. Every tragedy in the park is blamed on Petronilla's curse.