Ghosting group delves into the frighteningly active historical site and contemporary art gallery.
January 8, 2011: 7 pm – midnight
518 2nd Street SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414
by Christine Goodrich
The History of the Soap Factory:
The Soap Factory is located in the historic Marcy-Holmes neighborhood in Minneapolis. It was first part of St. Anthony, incorporated in
In the lower left hand corner a faint shadow of a person appears. At the time of the picture being taken there was no one present in the basement.
1855, which is located to the east of the Mississippi River. St. Anthony was eventually absorbed by Minneapolis in 1872. This area was home to the first neighborhood community and commercial center in this part of the region, utilizing the river as its main power source. Many flour and lumber milling companies sprang up in this area, beginning what would later become Minneapolis’ historic warehouse district in 1971.
Built in 1892, the Soap Factory was first constructed as a one-story warehouse for H.R. Carpenter’s Union Railway Company, with another story added a few years later. The building changed hands a few times in the early 1900s, first becoming a syrup manufacturing company and then a battery company. In the 1924, General Chemical and National Soap Factory (later National Purity Soap Factory) bought the building and began manufacturing commercial soap and detergents from animal fats until they moved to Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, in 1992.
Across the river in 1988, No Name Exhibitions was born, a non-profit organization founded by a small group of emerging artists dedicated to exploring new genres of artistic expression. In 1995 they stumbled across the opportunity to purchase the vacant soap factory building from Pillsbury, which they acquired as-is for one dollar. Using only volunteers and salvaged materials, they began the painstaking process of rehabilitating the building. It reopened in 2005 as The Soap Factory and is now the third largest contemporary art gallery in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.
Today, the 48,000 square foot warehouse is split into three unique areas. The top two floors are dedicated to studio space for the artists who volunteer there. The first floor is a unique “raw” space to showcase many different types of artwork during shows. And once a year, the basement transforms into The Haunted Basement, a disorientating theatrical maze put on by the artists of the building. It is designed for an adult audience, using disturbing sights and smells, and requiring a signed waiver before you enter. It is definitely not for the faint of heart! For more information visit: www.soapfactory.org
The Investigation:
Sunset: 4:49 pm
Outside Temp: 2 degrees
Inside Temp: 32 degrees
Average Wind Speed: 2.8 MPH
Average Humidity: 70%
Weather: Light snow, fog, and haze
Waning Moon
Investigators Present: Eric, Christine, Jesse, Tina, Tracy, and Teri, with special investigators Sarah and Danny
Grand Avenue Paranormal Society was granted to access to all three floors and the basement. Our investigation began at 7:30 p.m., after a brief tour from Executive Director Ben Heywood. We split into two groups, each consisting of four members, and to put a floor in between each group as a buffer to make sure any noises that were heard were not contamination from the other team.
The first team started on the third floor. On the way up to the third floor, Jesse and Tina felt light-headed, as though they had walked through a moving energy field. We did a walk-thru of the floor then settled in around a conference table. We seemed to get intelligent taps as answers to questions, until I investigated further and discovered it was just wind against one of the windows. However, after I debunked the noise, Tina heard an audible “hey” as though something was trying to let her know it was there. Eric set up an infrared trap camera and walked away. The camera took 6 pictures: three were of an investigator walking by, and three seemed to be nothing. However, after the last three pictures were taken, the camera switched itself off.
On the second floor, when I was investigating a back room by myself (which was part of the addition in the 1940s) I heard an audible breath in my ear. I spun around and no one was there.
The second group spent the first round in the basement. Their main report from this time was the sound of footsteps that they heard beginning on the first floor and leading down the back wooden stairs. There was no one anywhere around the vicinity when they heard the noises. Tracy also caught a very interesting EVP during this round: it was almost as though something knew what she was going to say. An unexplained voice asks, “Is there somebody in here with us?” a moment before Tracy asks the same question.
Around 8:30 both groups took a break and took some time to get some coffee, except for Sarah and Eric. They spent some time wandering around the basement maze. Their only report from this time was hearing scuffling of feet and trying to follow the noise. It led them to the boiler room, though found no reason for the noises. It couldn’t have been anyone else as the rest of us were out of the building.
At 9 o’clock we switched up the groups. The first group investigated the second and third floors while the second group took the basement again. After a half hour of investigating the third floor, Sarah said, “Well I guess there aren’t any shadow people up here” when all four of us heard a distinct “Yes!” The second group didn’t get anything in the basement.
During round three, Eric, Danny, and I headed down to the basement, while the rest of the group headed to the second floor. Though nothing seemed to be happening for the first twenty minutes or so, suddenly the walkie-talkie in my pocket started mumbling in a woman’s voice, then distinctly said, “Help me!” I immediately thought it was the other group and radioed over right away. Tina answered and said no, they hadn’t said anything over the walkie-talkie, but they had heard a man’s voice ask, “Where’s your twenty?” The experience gave everyone the chills.
During this round Eric also set up the infrared trap camera again near the front stairs of the basement. We left it alone for an hour and it took 10 pictures in all. Three of the pictures have an odd shadow anomaly on the left side of the frame. Since no one was in the basement during this time, there is no way to explain what could have set it off, or what the shadow could have been. After the pictures were taken, the camera shut itself off again. This was very unusual and something that we could not explain.
During the final round of our investigation, the eight of us headed back down to the basement for a group session in the “doll room.” We used our digital recorders and an ovilus. The ovilus continuously gave us the name “Peter,” and oddly enough Eric also heard the name being said over the walkie-talkie in his pocket. Then to amp up the energy in the room, the girls all started singing and Sarah got the only female voiced response on the ovilus that said, “Happy!” On more than one occasion I saw a black shadow peek in from a doorway and a few members saw a white mist move from one side of the room to the other. We also caught unexplained footsteps and a bang on a digital recorder.
All in all, I have to say this is one of the most haunted locations that we have ever investigated. We had many EVPS on our digital recorders, audible sounds and voices, footsteps, and each one of us walked away with a personal experience. It was an honor to investigate such a rich piece of Minneapolis history.
