Hartford Elks Lodge

Hartford Elks Lodge #19 has been haunted for over 40 years since Robert Taylor died on the fire escape in 1972, with glasses flying off the bar, a voice captured by TAPS saying "stop it," and a spirit that seems to target women. The 1903 building was the first in the country built specifically as an Elks Lodge.

Robert Taylor's body was found on the sidewalk outside Hartford Elks Lodge #19 in 1972. Did he fall from the fire escape, was he pushed, or did he jump? Nobody knows. But the doorknob on that fire escape has been jiggling on its own ever since.

The lodge sits at 34 Prospect Street, a Renaissance Revival building in yellow brick designed by Hartford architect John J. Dwyer. It opened in 1903 as the first building in the country constructed specifically as an Elks Lodge. The original interiors are still intact, and so, apparently, is at least one former member who didn't get the memo about leaving.

For over forty years, people inside the lodge have reported a male figure. All the voices are male. The activity concentrates in three areas: the bar, the basement, and that fire escape. Glasses don't fall off the bar here. They fly. Sideways. As if someone is hurling them at the bartender.

In the basement, people feel a cold hand touch them. They sense something standing next to them in the dark. Black shapes move through the room, followed by footsteps. The fire escape doorknob jiggles without anyone on the other side.

TAPS investigated for Ghost Hunters Season 7, Episode 24, titled "Membership Denied." The team captured audio of a voice saying "stop it." A female bartender told investigators her hair had been pulled while she was working. A member's daughter heard a voice tell her to "Get out!" Not subtle.

Three theories compete for who's responsible. Some members think the ghost is Samuel Chamberlain, one of the lodge's founders from when it was organized in 1884. Chamberlain would not have been happy about women in the Elks, which might explain why the spirit seems to target women specifically (the hair pulling, the "Get out!" aimed at a young girl). Others point to Robert Taylor and the unresolved fire escape death. A third theory involves a house that stood on this spot before the lodge was built, destroyed by fire in the mid-1800s. If that's the case, the haunting predates the Elks entirely.

Tables move on their own. Lights switch on and off. The activity isn't constant, but it's been consistent enough over four decades that the lodge called in a nationally televised investigation team. When you've been dealing with something for forty years and you're still not sure what it is, that tells you something about the building.

The lodge earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 for its architecture. Arched windows, limestone trim, stately yellow brick. From the outside it looks exactly like what it is: a fraternal lodge from the early 1900s. Nothing about it suggests anything unusual.

But the bartenders know. A glass doesn't fly off a bar by itself. Gravity doesn't work sideways. Either someone is throwing the glassware, or the explanation is something this lodge has been living with since Robert Taylor landed on the sidewalk in 1972.