Blog of MYSTERY

The Winchester "Mystery House" is a mansion / site of historical interest / roadside attraction that's fairly well-known to Californians and lovers of oddities in general. Its somewhat misleading roadside-attraction marketing leads to generally disappointed visitors; most of the "mystery" in contained in the site's history rather than the house itself. I've heard people bemoan the general lack of secret passages and relatively low number of totally inexplicable things. However, I think it's plenty fantastic, and my visit during a childhood trip to San Francisco really stuck with me.

Basically, the story goes like this: the widow of the inventor of the Winchester rifle inherited the company's fortunes, but also simultaneously inherited the guilt of her husband's marvelous invention having killed thousands of people. Spooked, she contacted a psychic, who told her that she was to build a house for the restless, angry spirits; when she stopped building, she would stop being alive. So she used her outrageous fortune to build endlessly onto her house, the way you do when you're playing SimWhatever and put in a cheat code.

Anyway, a person named Stephen worked as a tour guide in the house, and has been blogging about it. (Some of the picture links seem to be no good, but don't let that stop you from paying it a visit!)