PAGODA

STORY:

As you walk through the vast hallway of a room, occasional cold spots send chills straight to your bones. While you continue to pace along the front windows of the Pagoda you become aware of footsteps other than your own. Hard soled shoes step heavily up and down the stairs at one end of the room. You stop to listen, the cold of the room setting in deeper. The footsteps halt at the bottom of the stairs and you hear a definitive sigh from the floor below. You gather up the courage to peer down the flight of stairs leading to the men’s bathroom, but there is no one there. The building goes silent again and it is clear that you are alone.

HISTORY:

The Pagoda at Point Defiance was built in 1914 as a trolley terminus. The ghost who now resides there has been pacing up and down the stairs to the men’s bathroom since the early 1920s. He had taken the trolley to Point Defiance to meet a ferry from Vashon. His wife was coming back from visiting her parents. He watched from the building’s patio as the small vessel drew closer. The boat took on water and capsized as he stood, helpless. The story goes that, overcome with grief, he then walked down the stairs to the men’s restroom and shot himself in the head with his pocket pistol.