Glover Mansion

James and Susan Glover moved from Portland, Ore., to Spokane, Wash., in 1873.

In 1888, they had this ginormous place built — one of the largest historic houses in the city at 12,000 square feet — now known as the Glover Mansion. It was designed by Kirtland Cutter, who became a prominent architect.

Glover is often called “the father of Spokane,” and his house was fit for a king. Boasting eight bedrooms, five bathrooms and a great hall with 25-foot ceilings, it was the first residence in Spokane with an elevator (which still works, but is incredibly slow). Wood from ten different areas of the world, as well as granite from Spokane quarries were used in its build.

As real estate investors, the Glovers became millionaires, living here with 12 domestic servants. But the good life was short-lived for Susan. The Glovers were divorced in 1891, and 48 hours later, James married a younger woman and moved her in. Meanwhile, Susan was left jilted and broke.

Clearly, Susan was pissed, and went around Spokane telling everyone how dirty James did her. A resentful James had her arrested, claiming she was insane. He was the only one to testify against her, and she was sent to Eastern State Hospital, where she spent the remaining 22 years of her life. She was buried there in an unmarked grave. She was simply No. 746.

Legend says she haunts both his grave and the mansion, floating through the halls of the home that she loved. (And honestly, I’d haunt him too. Check out this deep-dive article on Glover. He was truly a giant asshole.)

The home has changed hands numerous times over the years, and served for many years as the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spokane. It now serves as an event center, making a gorgeous backdrop for fancy weddings.

But, there are potentially party crashers in attendance.

According to an article in the Gonzaga Bulletin, after selling the property, a former owner revealed to his Realtor: “The house is extremely haunted. We lost thousands of dollars worth of stuff, things like rings, car fobs from (the) Mercedes, necklaces. The doors slam, the heat goes up to 95 degrees, then shoots back down to super freezing.”

He continued, “The worst part was there was this little girl in the house. She would run up and down the stairs, slamming doors, running into walls, screaming, hanging from the chandeliers. I hate the girl so much, she ruined my family. I never sleep, my kids are always scared,” the seller said.

To be fair, this tale was relayed by the real estate agent’s college-age son, so it’s definitely been through a bit of the telephone game. But still. Humungous old houses just feel ghostly sometimes, don’t they?

It’s on the National Register of Historic Places.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s