In sunny Soledad, California, you might be interested in taking a look at the old (and as yet not restored) Los Coches Adobe.
It’s an old hotel and resting place for the stagecoach line, which in years of yore used to run from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
Photo credit: travelchannel.com
Updated 9/23/2019 – If you’re a history fan, you might be interested to see this place before they finally get around to sprucing it up; wander around in the shade of the trees, feeling like you’ve stepped out of the modern world and into the dim and sepia-toned past.
You might meet people there, too.
People who have the frightening distinction of being from that past.
Locals say that a ghostly woman clad in black wanders the grounds, especially around nightfall.
Reports vary somewhat, but she is said to be a witch of some sort, with a face of pure evil.
Some people who have seen her have, at the same time, heard screams coming from a nearby well.
The legend is that the well opens on a mine shaft where (at least, according to legend) a group of miners got caught years ago and died.
They say she kept the miners company while they were trapped in Soledad…
According to the few people who have both seen the woman and heard the screams at the same time, there seems to be a connection between them.
“I used to work in the area, and I drove by the Los Coches Adobe site every day after I would get off work,” says one local resident.
“This would be about ten in the evening, I guess.
Anyway, I remember one evening I thought I saw this person walking around near that well, and since it was dark, I pulled over.
“You know, I was going to warn her not to get too near there, in case she wasn’t aware.
“I guess at the time I didn’t think about it being weird that there was someone out there after dark.
“I got out of my truck and started walking toward her.
Just as I was about to speak, she turned toward me, and I felt my blood run cold.
Photo credit: tumblr/simplyjannie
“Her face was something out of a Stephen King novel or movie or something – it just wasn’t human.
“She looked at me for a long time, and then kind of casually tilted her head in the direction of the well.
“That was when I realized I could hear screaming coming from the well.
“Then, when she could tell that I heard it, she belted out this sick and awful laugh and raised one bony hand toward me.
“Now, you gotta understand, she was, like, all the way across the parking lot from me, but I swear I felt her fingers close around my neck.
“And they were cold!
I got out of there as fast as I could, and I didn’t ever go back.
“I don’t drive around that place anymore, either.”
What ghosts from history haunt Los Coches Adobe?
What happened to the miners – if there ever were any miners – down in the well?
And what does it have to do with a woman – perhaps a witch?
– dressed in black, who wanders the grounds at night?
Soledad is a nice place to live, but we wouldn’t want to spend eternity there.