Charleston Daily Mail
Tourists respond to scare tactics
Kris Wise
Daily Mail Capitol reporter


Ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night are becoming big
business in West Virginia.

Mirroring a nationwide trend, cities and counties are drawing tourists
by touting some of West Virginia's weirder attractions, from the Braxton
County monster to the ghoulish gal who supposedly haunts a quaint little
hotel in Lewisburg.

Ghost tours and haunted trails are becoming one of the more popular
pastimes for people to offer in cities trying to get themselves on the
map.
John Luckton, a 50-year-old advertising executive in Lewisburg, has been
turning tour guide by night for the past 13 years.
Luckton runs Ghost Tours of West Virginia in Lewisburg and Beckley
during the height of the state's tourist season, which runs from about
June through November.
Business is especially brisk starting in early September and lasts
through late October, when more travelers visit the Mountain State for
fall foliage tours and when those with an interest in all things haunted
start thinking about Halloween.
"Every year beginning probably about 1997, there were constant increases
each year," Luckton said. "I'm not saying one or two more people, I'm
talking 20 percent more at least each year.

"Lewisburg is the golden grail," Luckton said.
His tours take guests past top historical spots that supposedly have a
hint of a haunted heritage, from the city's Carnegie Hall to the Old
Stone Presbyterian Church Yard.
Luckton offers walkers their choice between his 45-minute "Haunted
Mansions of Lewisburg" tour and his 90-minute cemetery tour. Most people
opt to do both, he said.
"Everybody's favorite is the Greenbrier Ghost," Luckton said, invoking
the name of one of West Virginia's most famous, or infamous, spirits.
The way Luckton tells the story, a woman named Zona Shue came back from
the grave to visit her mother and reveal that she had been murdered by
her husband. Her mother told the tale to anyone in town who would
listen, and she convinced authorities to exhume her daughter's body. The
corpse was found to have had a compound fracture in her neck, and Shue's
husband eventually was convicted of her murder.

A plaque in Lewisburg now proclaims the case as the only one in which a
person was convicted of first-degree murder based on the testimony of a
ghost.
Tales like those keep Luckton's tours on Lewisburg's must-do list.
Luckton's headquarters are at the General Lewis Inn, where the two most
requested rooms are the ones that are rumored to get frequent visits
from harmless, yet ghostly guests.

Kim Cooper, executive director for the Greenbrier County Convention and
Visitors Bureau in Lewisburg, said the haunted tours have been a hit
with the type of tourist on which the county depends.
"For us, it's a great attraction, especially during the fall months when
they're feeling the need to walk around and see some additional sights,"
said Cooper, who once helped Luckton run his tour business. "It has been
one of the top things people told us they wanted to see added, was a
guided walking tour. Certainly, people are still expressing interest in
the ghosts and the haunted sites."

Kari Thompson of the Parkersburg Convention and Visitors Bureau said
tips she has gathered from attending some of the nation's top tourism
conferences have recently centered on how hauntings can help attract
travelers.
"The things that we're getting, as far as the hot things to see and do,
ghost tours keep surfacing," Thompson said. "It's one of the few things
that are popular, and that stay popular."
Parkersburg has at least one privately run ghost walk, and it has become
a favorite place for the state's own group of self-proclaimed
ghosthunters who track and investigate such claims and document their
findings on the Internet.

The state Division of Tourism also has begun using the Internet to help
market West Virginia to those interested in adding a horror theme to
their vacation. The agency features an entire section on its Web site
devoted to listing ghost tales of West Virginia and the fairs, festivals
and tours that pay homage to the supernatural.
Tourism officials from around the state said their cities and towns also
have benefited from some recent exposure West Virginia has had on
various cable ghost-themed shows over the past couple of years.

The Sci-Fi, Discovery and Travel channels have featured everything from
the state's eerie Civil War history to stories about the state's spooky
old jails. Mason County, especially, has seen tourism increase since the
Mothman became an international movie star.
"We're on every single network right now, and it seems like no matter
where you turn there's a Mothman special on some time," said Denny
Bellamy, head of the Mason County Tourism Center and economic
development director for Point Pleasant.

"Right now, economic development is tourism and tourism is the Mothman,"
Bellamy said. "We've had a camera crew of some sort here pretty much
since May, and we have people coming from all over the world to see the
Mothman museum and the statue."
Last week, two people visited from Liverpool, England and Sydney,
Australia. Both were traveling the United States and had picked Point
Pleasant as one of their stops specifically because of the Mothman
legend.

Point Pleasant's annual Mothman Festival attracted 3,000 people last
year, and organizers are expecting at least 5,000 this year.
"It has been doubling every year," Bellamy said. "It's becoming kind of
like a convention for all the ghostbusters in the country."

Braxton County had a similar sort of interest in its famed Braxton
County monster, so much so the county had to make up a brochure about
the legend and decided to start its own Monster Fest just last year.

This year, the one-day festival, held in the parking lot of the
Flatwoods Outlets, is expected to bring in at least 1,000 people.