Latest / Ghost stories and the Unusual Paranormal podcast / The Ghosts of the Blevins House: Blood, Bullets, and the Dead Who Never Left
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Right now. A floor is creaking above an empty room.
- 0:09Speaker 1: A door is closing in a house where nobody lives.
- 0:17Speaker 1: A name is being whispered into the ear of someone
- 0:23Speaker 1: who is completely alone. They tell you it's the wind. imagination.
- 0:39Speaker 1: They lie. Every town buries something. Every silence hides something.
- 0:48Speaker 1: Every story you were told to forget was told to
- 0:52Speaker 1: you for a reason. These are the places history couldn't kill.
- 0:58Speaker 1: The names carved into wood by hands that shouldn't have
- 1:03Speaker 1: been This is Ghost Stories and the Unusual Paranormal Podcast
- 1:16Speaker 1: with your spooky paranormal host, Joe the Ghost Guy. He
- 1:24Speaker 1: is already inside. Come find him.
- 1:32Speaker 2: Previously on Ghost Stories and the Unusual Paranormal Podcast... Joe
- 1:39Speaker 2: the Ghost Guy walked us into the crumbling cell blocks
- 1:42Speaker 2: of Eastern State Penitentiary, a place built for silence that
- 1:47Speaker 2: became something else entirely.
- 1:51Speaker 3: The stone still remembers, and the voices, well, they never
- 1:57Speaker 3: really left. This week, where does he take us next?
- 2:02Speaker 3: Tune in to a brand new episode of Ghost Stories
- 2:05Speaker 3: and the Unusual Paranormal Podcast with your favorite investigator, Joe
- 2:12Speaker 3: the Ghost Guy.
- 2:15Speaker 4: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are across
- 2:22Speaker 4: the country and around the world. You are listening to
- 2:27Speaker 4: to Ghost Stories and the Unusual Paranormal Podcast. I am
- 2:32Speaker 4: indeed your spooky host, Joe the Ghost Guy. Tonight, we're
- 2:44Speaker 4: going to stay in Holbrook to a place where you
- 2:50Speaker 4: would imagine. Let's take you back to the old west
- 3:02Speaker 4: and we're going to a house where a simple warrant
- 3:15Speaker 4: for arrest that eventually became the deadliest shootout in Holbrook
- 3:25Speaker 4: history We are talking about the ghost of the Belevin's
- 3:33Speaker 4: house in Holbrook, Arizona. There's a place where history feels dead.
- 4:25Speaker 4: Old buildings, abandoned streets, forgotten graves, places where the people
- 4:36Speaker 4: who once lived, fought, suffered, and died have disappeared into
- 4:44Speaker 4: the pages of history. And then there are places where
- 4:51Speaker 4: the history feels like it's still breathing. Here in the
- 4:56Speaker 4: silence seems to remember where the walls seem to hold voices,
- 5:05Speaker 4: where the darkness feels as though it was waiting for
- 5:10Speaker 4: someone to come through the door. Tonight, we travel to Holbrook, Arizona,
- 5:17Speaker 4: a railroad town born in the rough and violent days
- 5:22Speaker 4: of the Old West, a town that once had a
- 5:27Speaker 4: reputation for bloodshed so severe that violence was almost an
- 5:35Speaker 4: ordinary part of life. And standing within the history is
- 5:42Speaker 4: an old house. It's called the Blevins House. Today is
- 5:49Speaker 4: a historic landmark. But on September 4th, 1887, it became
- 5:54Speaker 4: one of the scenes, of the most infamous gunfights in
- 6:04Speaker 4: Arizona territory in history. A sheriff walked to the foot
- 6:12Speaker 4: door carrying a warrant. Inside were the members of the
- 6:18Speaker 4: Blevins family and their companions. Within seconds, the peaceful Sunday
- 6:26Speaker 4: afternoon became a storm of gunfire. When the shooting stopped,
- 6:34Speaker 4: three men were dead. Another was wounded. And the sheriff,
- 6:42Speaker 4: Commodore Perry Owens, is still standing. But some people believe
- 6:48Speaker 4: that something else remained inside the house. Something that would
- 6:54Speaker 4: not die when the gunfire ended. Something that still walks
- 7:01Speaker 4: in the rooms, still waits near the doorway, and still
- 7:10Speaker 4: remembers those guns. This is a story of the Holbrook shootout.
- 7:20Speaker 4: The people cut inside it. Sheriff Commodore Perry Owens and
- 7:26Speaker 4: the ghost stories surrounding the Blevins' house. To understand what
- 7:42Speaker 4: happened inside the Blevins' house, we have to go to
- 7:47Speaker 4: understand Holbrook in the 1880s. This is not the quiet
- 7:56Speaker 4: Arizona community. travelers know today. Holbrook was a frontier settlement.
- 8:04Speaker 4: Cowboys passed through. Railroad workers arrived. Kettlemen, ranchers, gamblers, drifters, merchants, lawmen,
- 8:19Speaker 4: and outlaws all crossed paths. The town was small, but
- 8:26Speaker 4: its reputation was enormous. According to the Homework Chamber of Conference,
- 8:34Speaker 4: the town recorded 26 shooting deaths in 1886 alone, despite
- 8:37Speaker 4: having a population of only about 250 people.
- 8:39Speaker 5: 26!
- 8:39Speaker 4: Imagine that! The community, only a few hundred people, and
- 8:59Speaker 4: gunfire became part of everyday life. Holbrook was dangerous. In
- 9:07Speaker 4: the middle of the violent frontier, the world came a
- 9:10Speaker 4: lawman named Commodore Perry Owens. Commodore Perry Owens was not
- 9:26Speaker 4: the kind of sheriff who needed a large posse to
- 9:30Speaker 4: make an arrest. He had a reputation as formidable gunman.
- 9:38Speaker 4: And he has something else. Confidence. But confidence in the
- 9:44Speaker 4: Old West can and could be deadly. Owens had an
- 9:50Speaker 4: arrest warrant for a man named Andy Blevins, who was
- 9:58Speaker 4: also known as Andy Cooper. Blevins had associated with the
- 10:06Speaker 4: violent Graham side of the Pleasant Valley conflict. He also
- 10:12Speaker 4: accused of cattle and horse theft. And after a deadly
- 10:17Speaker 4: aftermath near the Pleasant Valley region, Levins was reportedly heard
- 10:25Speaker 4: bragging in Holbrook about killing two men. The situation becoming explosive.
- 10:35Speaker 4: Owens knew it. The Levins knew it. And Holbrook was
- 10:40Speaker 4: just waiting. The sheriff had been taking other men with
- 10:46Speaker 4: him The sheriff could have taken men with him. He
- 10:52Speaker 4: could have surrounded the house. He could have waited. Instead,
- 10:58Speaker 4: he went alone. The Holbrook Police Department still identifies the
- 11:04Speaker 4: Blevins House shootout was one of the most defining moments
- 11:10Speaker 4: in the town's law enforcement history. And that decision to
- 11:16Speaker 4: walk alone towards the The house would become legendary. September 4th, 1887. Sunday.
- 11:34Speaker 4: Inside the Blevins family home. The atmosphere was completely different
- 11:41Speaker 4: from the violence brewing outside. People were eating. Children were present.
- 11:50Speaker 4: Family members were gathered together. Historical accounts place several people
- 11:58Speaker 4: inside the small house, including Annie Belevins, John Belevins, young
- 12:05Speaker 4: Samuel Houston Belevins, Mose Roberts, members of the family, women,
- 12:12Speaker 4: and children. And then, Came the knock. Imagine being inside
- 12:29Speaker 4: that house. You hear the knock. You stop beating. Someone
- 12:35Speaker 4: looks towards the door. Maybe a child asks, Who is it?
- 12:42Speaker 4: And then comes the voice. Sheriff Commodore Perrin Owens. He
- 12:50Speaker 4: has come for Andy. He has a warrant. But Andy
- 12:55Speaker 4: Blevins does not simply walk outside. And now, the tension
- 13:00Speaker 4: inside the little house becomes unbearable. Then, everything happened. Accounts
- 13:17Speaker 4: differ from the details. exactly how the confrontation began, but
- 13:26Speaker 4: the historical records is clear about what followed. Gunfire erupted.
- 13:33Speaker 4: Owens was confronted by the man inside, and in an
- 13:40Speaker 4: astonishment short period of time, the sheriff fired back. The
- 13:47Speaker 4: Arizona Highways account crying upon witnesses' testimony, saying that the
- 13:54Speaker 4: entire drama unfolded in roughly one minute. One minute. Less
- 14:01Speaker 4: than one minute according to some accounts. A lifetime of
- 14:05Speaker 4: terror expressed in two seconds.
- 14:11Speaker 1: And another.
- 14:11Speaker 4: And another. And there's also.
- 14:21Speaker 4: The middle house became a battlefield. Furniture.
- 14:27Speaker 1: Walls.
- 14:28Speaker 4: Doors. Windows. People scrambling for safety. Children scrambling. Women crying.
- 14:38Speaker 4: Smoke filling the room. In the middle of it was commoner,
- 14:44Speaker 4: Perry Owens. Many beloveds. one of the most notorious members
- 14:54Speaker 4: of the Bilevens family. He also used the name of
- 14:58Speaker 4: Andy Cooper. According to historical accounts, he had changed his
- 15:03Speaker 4: name after coming to Arizona because the trouble and outstanding
- 15:09Speaker 4: warrant connected the crimes in Texas. By the time Owens
- 15:16Speaker 4: came to arrest him, Andy had come down deeply involved
- 15:21Speaker 4: in violence surrounding the Pleasant Valley conflict, and now he
- 15:28Speaker 4: was trapped inside his family's house. The man standing outside
- 15:33Speaker 4: the door was not backing away. The sheriff had come
- 15:38Speaker 4: to arrest him, and neither man was willing to surrender.
- 15:43Speaker 4: Then the gun spoke, and Hannibal Evans was struck. He fell.
- 15:54Speaker 4: The outlaw, who frightened people across the territory, was suddenly silenced. Dead.
- 16:05Speaker 4: He would not be the only one. One of the
- 16:19Speaker 4: most disturbing stories is the age of Sammy Houston Blevins.
- 16:28Speaker 4: He was only about 15 years old. Historical accounts identify
- 16:33Speaker 4: him as a youngster, a younger member of the family
- 16:37Speaker 4: who had become involved in a gunfight. Think about it.
- 16:42Speaker 4: 15 years old. a teenager, and now he was holding
- 16:49Speaker 4: a weapon in the house filled with gun smoke. When
- 16:53Speaker 4: Samuel fired at Owens, the sheriff fired back. Samuel was dead.
- 17:01Speaker 4: The shooting continued and another man, Mose Roberts, entered the
- 17:08Speaker 4: daily exchange. Mose Roberts said, was associated with the Blevins family.
- 17:17Speaker 4: He was inside the house when the shooting erupted, and he, too,
- 17:24Speaker 4: fired at Owens. The sheriff returned fire. When the gunfight
- 17:32Speaker 4: finally ended, Andy Blevins was dead. Samuel Houston Blevins was dead.
- 17:42Speaker 4: Mose Roberts was dead. John Valevans had been wounded. Somehow, someway,
- 17:51Speaker 4: Commodore Perry Owens survived without being killed, not even get wounded.
- 17:58Speaker 4: Historical sources include the University of Arizona Historical Index describe
- 18:05Speaker 4: the event as Owens bringing down some multiple adversities with
- 18:14Speaker 4: only a handful of shots. There's nothing. No gun power.
- 18:37Speaker 4: No shooting. Just silence. Imagine standing outside the house after
- 18:45Speaker 4: the shooting. A few seconds earlier, there had been chaos. Now,
- 18:54Speaker 4: three men were dead. Someone was wounded. People were crying.
- 19:00Speaker 4: Blood was everywhere. The smell of gunpowder filled the air
- 19:06Speaker 4: and the walls. had just been witnessed one of the
- 19:10Speaker 4: most violent moments in Holbrook history. The Arizona Highway's account
- 19:15Speaker 4: describes the eyewitness recollections of this horrific aftermath inside the cottage.
- 19:26Speaker 4: It was not a Hollywood gunfight. There was no dramatic music,
- 19:34Speaker 4: no clean ending, just dead bodies. wounded people, terrified families,
- 19:43Speaker 4: and a sheriff standing in the aftermath. Owens had come
- 19:49Speaker 4: to make an arrest. Instead, he had created a legend.
- 20:00Speaker 4: Commodore Perry Owens did not become famous because he carried
- 20:06Speaker 4: a badge. He became famous as he walked into a
- 20:10Speaker 4: house alone, faced with several armed men, and walked back
- 20:17Speaker 4: out alive and unwounded. The story became part of Arizona's
- 20:24Speaker 4: Old West mythology. The shootout was over, but the violence
- 20:30Speaker 4: of the Pleasant Valley War continued. The bloodshed surrounding the
- 20:35Speaker 4: feud would claim many more lives. And the Blevins' house
- 20:41Speaker 4: remained quiet, waiting. Today, the Blevins' house remains a fiscal
- 21:04Speaker 4: reminder of that terrible afternoon. It was listed as a
- 21:10Speaker 4: historic property in Holbrook. The house was built in the 1880s.
- 21:17Speaker 4: And it's associated directly with the 1887 shootout. And this
- 21:23Speaker 4: is where the story takes a darker turn. Because history
- 21:28Speaker 4: tells us what happened. But folklore asks a different question.
- 21:35Speaker 4: What happened afterwards? What happened? when a building becomes a
- 21:41Speaker 4: scene of sudden violence? Do the memories disappear? Do the
- 21:48Speaker 4: voices vanish? Does the fear leave the people? Or does
- 21:56Speaker 4: something remain? There are stories. and local legends associated with
- 22:13Speaker 4: the old Holbrook and his violent frontier history. But it
- 22:18Speaker 4: is important to separate those legends from documented historical facts.
- 22:26Speaker 4: There was no reliable historical evidence proven that the Blevins
- 22:34Speaker 4: family will slowly haunt the house. It exists in an
- 22:40Speaker 4: atmosphere of the place, the history, the violence, and the
- 22:46Speaker 4: ghostly stories that have grown around the infamous location. And
- 22:52Speaker 4: perhaps it makes the story even more frightening. Because when
- 22:59Speaker 4: people enter an old building where men died violently, they
- 23:06Speaker 4: sometimes Report sensations they cannot explain. A cold spot. A
- 23:14Speaker 4: strange sound. The feeling of someone watching. A sudden movement
- 23:21Speaker 4: from the corner of the eye. The door that seems
- 23:24Speaker 4: to move by itself. And sometimes, even the sounds of
- 23:32Speaker 4: distant gunshots. Imagine walking near the Blevins' house after dark.
- 23:45Speaker 4: Holbrook is quiet. The wind moves through the streets. You
- 23:58Speaker 4: hear nothing. Then another. Another. You turn around. There's nothing.
- 24:12Speaker 4: You listen. Silence. Then another sound. Perhaps it's the railroad.
- 24:25Speaker 4: Perhaps it's a truck. Perhaps it's nothing. But you in
- 24:35Speaker 4: your mind knows the history. You know that What happened here?
- 24:42Speaker 4: And suddenly, every sound becomes suspicious. Every shadow looks like
- 24:49Speaker 4: a person. Every creak of wood sounds like footsteps. And
- 24:55Speaker 4: then you wonder if that was a gunshot. Someone had
- 25:00Speaker 4: died here. Still searching for a moment when the shooting
- 25:05Speaker 4: finally ended. If the legends are true, who would haunt
- 25:16Speaker 4: the house? Perhaps Andy? The man who refused to surrender?
- 25:23Speaker 4: The man who became trapped in a confrontation with the sheriff?
- 25:29Speaker 4: The man whose final moments were filled with gunfire? Imagine
- 25:35Speaker 4: his spirit still standing somewhere inside the house. Still angry.
- 25:41Speaker 4: Still frightened. still wondering why the sheriff came, still hearing
- 25:51Speaker 4: the knocks. Maybe every unexplained sound at the house is
- 26:07Speaker 4: Andy remembering the moment when his life ended. Maybe every
- 26:15Speaker 4: shadow is another outlaw who never accepted that the gunfight
- 26:21Speaker 4: was over. Perhaps the saddest possibility is young Samuel, only
- 26:30Speaker 4: 15 years old, a teenager caught in a violent world,
- 26:36Speaker 4: a young man who died with a gun in his hands.
- 26:41Speaker 4: If the ghost could remember, would Samuel remember that gunfight?
- 26:48Speaker 4: Would he remember the people screaming? Would he remember his family?
- 26:53Speaker 4: Would he understand that he was dead? Or, he still
- 27:03Speaker 4: believed that the fighting was to protect his home. That
- 27:11Speaker 4: is the part of the legend that makes the story
- 27:15Speaker 4: so disturbing. Because sometimes the most frightening ghost stories weren't
- 27:25Speaker 4: about monsters. They were about people who never got to
- 27:31Speaker 4: finish living. And there are others inside the house. Women. Children.
- 27:48Speaker 4: Family members who had nothing to do with the gunfight.
- 27:53Speaker 4: They were simply there when the sheriff arrived. Imagine being
- 28:00Speaker 4: a child in the room. One second. Sunday dinner. The next. Gunfire.
- 28:08Speaker 5: Home.
- 28:10Speaker 4: It's filled with smoke, people falling, adults screaming, a mother
- 28:19Speaker 4: trying to protect her children, and then silence. Those memories
- 28:29Speaker 4: will never leave, even if the dead are gone. The
- 28:35Speaker 4: survivors carry the memories And perhaps that is the true
- 28:42Speaker 4: haunting of the Blevins' house. Not necessary ghosts, but memories
- 28:50Speaker 4: of terror. And then there's another possibility. What if the
- 29:00Speaker 4: ghost wasn't one of the men who died? What if
- 29:04Speaker 4: the figure had seen walking through the darkness? Is the
- 29:08Speaker 4: sheriff Commodore Perry Owens. The sheriff survived the gunfight, but
- 29:15Speaker 4: carried the memory of that day for the rest of
- 29:18Speaker 4: his life. He became a legendary lawman, but legends often
- 29:24Speaker 4: leave out the human cost. Imagine standing outside that house
- 29:32Speaker 4: after the shooting. You are alive. The people who came
- 29:37Speaker 4: to rest are dead. Your ears are still singing. The
- 29:47Speaker 4: smell of gunpowder is everywhere. You know that people will
- 29:55Speaker 4: talk about what you just did and they will talk
- 29:59Speaker 4: about for generations. Perhaps the footsteps heard on the darkness
- 30:06Speaker 4: are not the footsteps of the dead outlaw. Perhaps they
- 30:11Speaker 4: are the footsteps of the sheriff, forever returning to the
- 30:17Speaker 4: scene of the gunfight. During the day, the Blevins' house's history,
- 30:27Speaker 4: at night, Your imagination could transform into something else. Picture
- 30:35Speaker 4: the house beneath the Arizona sky. No crowds. No voices.
- 30:43Speaker 4: Just darkness. The moon hangs over Holbrook. The wind moves
- 30:50Speaker 4: across the old streets. Somewhere in the distance, a train passes.
- 31:04Speaker 4: And just for a moment, you can imagine yourself standing
- 31:08Speaker 4: in 1887. You hear boots approaching. The sheriff, one man, alone,
- 31:21Speaker 4: towards the door. He raises his hand. And suddenly, you
- 31:38Speaker 4: hear voices inside. Then silence. Then... The Holbrook shootout lasted
- 32:00Speaker 4: only moments. But its legend lasted more than a century.
- 32:09Speaker 4: Three men were killed. One was wounded. A sheriff walked away.
- 32:15Speaker 4: And a small frontier house became forever connected to one
- 32:24Speaker 4: of Arizona's most famous gunfights. The Navajo County Historical Society
- 32:30Speaker 4: describes the Owens' 11th shootout as one of the asthmatic
- 32:38Speaker 4: and gripping episodes in Holbrook's history. The house remains a
- 32:45Speaker 4: tangible connection to that story. And today, visitors interested in
- 32:53Speaker 4: history can learn more at the Navajo County's Historical Museum,
- 32:59Speaker 4: housed in the Holbrook's Historical Courthouse. But the ghost stories
- 33:06Speaker 4: Those belong to the realm of legend. And perhaps exactly
- 33:12Speaker 4: where they come would remain. Because sometimes we would need
- 33:18Speaker 4: to prove of a ghost. We only need to stand
- 33:24Speaker 4: in place where something was terrible happened and wonder whether
- 33:29Speaker 4: the walls remember. Tonight, if you stand near the beloved's house, listen.
- 33:48Speaker 4: Don't look. Just listen. Listen to the wind. Listen to
- 33:56Speaker 4: the distant railroad. Listen to the silence. Because somewhere beneath
- 34:05Speaker 4: the modern town of Holbrook, there's another Holbrook, the Holbrook
- 34:13Speaker 4: of 1887, Holbrook of cowboys, outlaws, lawmen, and bloodshed. And
- 34:25Speaker 4: somewhere inside that memory, a sheriff walks towards the door,
- 34:30Speaker 4: raises his hand, A voice answers. The sheriff answers why
- 34:48Speaker 4: he's come. And then the past comes alive. Then silence. Perhaps.
- 35:13Speaker 4: The science has never truly came. Perhaps the house still remembers.
- 35:22Speaker 4: Perhaps somewhere in the darkness, Annie Belevins is still waiting.
- 35:29Speaker 4: Perhaps young Samuel is still wandering through the rooms. Perhaps
- 35:36Speaker 4: Mose Roberts is still standing somewhere in the doorway. Perhaps
- 35:41Speaker 4: John Belevins is still searching for the moment before the
- 35:46Speaker 4: shooting began. Or perhaps, the footsteps belong to Sheriff Commodore
- 35:53Speaker 4: Perry Owens, never entirely, never returning to the place where
- 36:00Speaker 4: he became a legend. Three men are dead there. One
- 36:07Speaker 4: man walked away. But, the story, Never did. And if
- 36:19Speaker 4: the ghost of the Blevins' house really stayed still there,
- 36:24Speaker 4: perhaps they're waiting for someone to.
- 36:31Speaker 1: Knock.
- 36:42Speaker 4: You're listening to the story of the Blevins' house, the
- 36:49Speaker 4: place where guns once spoke and where some believe the
- 36:57Speaker 4: dead stopped listening.
- 37:00Speaker 5: Thank you for listening to the Blevins' shootout story here
- 37:11Speaker 5: on ghost stories and the unusual paranormal.
- 37:14Speaker 4: Podcast where we try to make things become real and
- 37:25Speaker 4: if there's any ghost to step forward and be announced
- 37:34Speaker 4: until next time this is your wonderful neighborhood investigator Joe
- 37:42Speaker 4: the Ghost Guy, saying, keep it spooky, my friends.
- 37:54Speaker 6: If tonight's story got under your skin, good. That's what
- 38:01Speaker 6: we do here. You can find every episode of Ghost
- 38:07Speaker 6: Stories and the Unusual Paranormal Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube,
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- 38:35Speaker 7: Got a story of your own? Email us at theparanormalghoststories
- 38:40Speaker 7: at gmail.com, we read every single one of your emails.
- 38:51Speaker 6: Until next time, as Joe the Ghost Guy says, stay spooky, friends.