LaSpirits Investigates a Haunted Sawmill in Southern Forest Heritage Museum

If you like to be scared and see a piece of history this Halloween, you have to make a trip to the old abandoned sawmill, Southern Forest Heritage Museum, in Long Leaf, LA, just south of Alexandria, LA.

Being apart of the paranormal group Louisiana Spirits, I have had the privilege of investigating this old sawmill, built in 1892 and abandoned in the 1970s when the owner's decided to close their doors without notice to the employees. At the end of their work day, they received their last paychecks and were told to not return. When touring the place, you can see they did just that. All their tools are left just where they laid them. Old railroad equipment left to rust, unprotected, out in the weather.

LaSpirits has investigated this location numerous times -- myself, on two different occasions. We were lucky enough to be able to investigate as long as we wanted on both occasions and to stay the night on the property, which I eagerly did!

The first investigation, our group broke up into three separate teams with the tour guide in with my team. The tour guide, Tracy Mitchell, was very knowledgeable and helped us tremendously, guiding us through this abandoned sawmill. He knew of different places where deaths had occurred and pointed us in the right direction.

He pointed out one spot where a teenage boy "fell" to his death down the scrap chute. I say "fell" because it is rumored that he was pushed by a fellow worker. But that was never proven.

My husband and fellow LaSpirits member Keith was looking down the chute with our digital recorders running to capture any audio we could not hear with our ears called electronic voice phenomenon, or EVP, when he caught something.

Reviewing the tape, he's heard saying, "don't fall down there!" Butreviewing his audio, he caught a sing-song voice repeating what he said. Many more EVP's were caught that night, from singing and laughing to whispers and yelling.

We also snap pictures as we go through on our investigation, usually two to three in a row to see if we can capture any figures on film. Keith did just that and caught two male figures in the back of the sawmill. One was wearing red coat on and another with a blue coat and balding. They were just standing there, like they were investigating us. Again, we didn't notice until going through the pictures on our camera back at home.

One notable thing that occurred was when our team was investigating by one of the engines that's been cosmetically restored and under cover from the elements now. We were asking for a sign that someone was there with us and heard bangs on the engine. We would go investigate the noise and it would happen at the other end. Then, we could hear little footsteps in the gravel just outside the structure, running away from us.

At one point, we were all sitting down on a long bench that's next to the engine asking different questions when suddenly the light that our tour guide Tracy was holding turned on all by itself.

A little later, it had started to rain. As we were waiting for the rain to stop, Tracy was standing at the end of the structure with his coat tugged on. No one was near him, but we all saw him jerk. We believe there was a spirit of a young boy there playing with us. It was awesome! Another one of the teams later told us they had knocks and bangs and gravel shuffling noises, too.

If you would like to experience a true haunted sawmill, Southern Forest Heritage Museum will have a ghost tour Friday October 26th and their haunted house Saturday October 27th. Click here for their website for directions and contact information.