Shops spooked by ghostly patrons

If Nevada has a ghost town, it has to be Virginia City.

But the historic locale is not a ghost town in the typical sense of the phrase, as in devoid of life.

Nope.

Virginia City is full of ghosts.

"When I first got here I was afraid to talk about it because I thought people would think I was crazy," said Sandy Olinger, who since June 1999 has owned and operated Grandma's Fudge Factory on C Street in Virginia City.

"When I was first here I worked late a lot and one night I heard a little girl laughing, then crying, and it really freaked me out."

Then Olinger found out that sometime in the 1800s a young child reportedly was killed on C Street and now she haunts the shops and buildings on that road.

"She roams from place to place," said Olinger.

That's when Olinger found out, too, that most people - except maybe her husband - don't think she's crazy.

In fact, Olinger and others say the ghostly community is pretty much an accepted part of life in the tourist town.

Virginia City dominates a list of northern Nevada's haunted businesses provided by Janice Oberding, author of Haunted Nevada.

"I'm not a skeptic and I'm not a believer, but strange things do happen," said Joe Curtis, owner of Mark Twain Books, a Virginia City bookstore founded by his parents in 1959.

The same books repeatedly fall off shelves, said Curtis, no matter what he does.

The bell attached to the door rings, even when no one opens the door.He's taken photos of the store's interior - and seen mysterious orbs of light in the print where there were none in the store.

"It doesn't excite me one way or another," said Curtis.

"It annoys me more than anything."

Most of the ghosts are friendly - except for the tall man clad in black that sometimes hangs around the fudge store.

"It's like pure evil when he's around," said Olinger.

Not true of Rosie and William, the two ghosts who haunt the Gold Hill Hotel down the road in Gold Hill.

"They'll move keys, do mischievous things like that," said Melody Reynolds, front desk receptionist at the hotel, which was originally opened in 1859.

Mostly, though, they smell.

"We call her Rosie because you smell nothing but roses," said Reynolds.

And William? "An overpowering smell of cherry tobacco will appear and dissipate just as fast." "I wasn't a true believer when I first worked here," said Reynolds.

"But then it happens again and again."