Ghosts, ghouls and gore galore
The women behind Fairhaven’s haunted historical tours.
The Good Time Girls explain the history of the Masonic Hall building in Bellingham, Wash. on July, 1, 2022. Sara Holodinck (left) is holding a book of photos from years past to help the tour-goers visualize the building back then, as Wren Urbigkit (right) speaks on the history // Photo by Desiree Erdmann
Written by Ellie Coberly and Desiree Erdmann
A dizzy and unsettling feeling fills the air as Wren Urbigkit and Sara Holodnick relay the chilling stories that lie hidden within the Fairhaven Historic District’s vast history. From grim tales and gruesome deaths, to unnerving ghost recordings caught on tape, BellingHistory with the Good Time Girls unfolds a captivating and forgotten history in white-washed Bellingham. They dive into the historical background of several minority groups, who are often left out of the predominantly white-focused historical lens.
“Our tours focus on people from all walks of life, including sex workers, teetotalers, rough ‘n tumble laborers, immigrants, rum-runners and the traveling preachers, because their history is our history,” said the Good Time Girls on their website.
Dressed from head to toe in lavish apparel and spooky makeup, tour guides Urbigkit and Holodnick unveil pockets of “BellingHistory” unknown to many. Founded in 2011 by Holodnick and Marissa McGrath, the Good Time Girls are the only regular guided historical walking tour in Bellingham.
With academic specializations in history, the tour group brings educational value with a dramatic and personalized flare to Fairhaven. The name “Good Time Girls” is a spin on historic euphemisms, and the group prides itself on being a women-owned business.
Although they previously have only held their “Gore and Lore” tours during the fall, this year all tours are available from May through October. Those interested in attending have a choice of booking a Gore and Lore tour that either covers Fairhaven or Downtown Bellingham. While the tours do exude a spooky ambience, its guides are fun, quirky, up-beat and keep things entertaining.
Urbigkit (right) talks about the history of Dead Man’s Point as fellow tour guide Holodnick (left) walks around carrying a book with photos of how it originally looked in Bellingham, Wash. on July, 1, 2022 // Photo by Desiree Erdmann
“We feel history is extremely interesting and important, and often hilarious. Our goal is to get people [to have] as much fun with history as we do,” the tour group shared on their site.
Good Time Girls co-owner and Western Washington University alumna, Kolby LaBree, started working with the tour group as an intern in 2011 and joined officially in 2012. LaBree loves things that are fun, strange and unknown.
“I just love getting dressed up and talking about weird history stuff. It’s fun because I also draw on some of my own experiences having grown up in Bellingham,” LaBree said. She explains that, although she’s never seen a ghost herself, she’s told so many ghost stories on the tours and is fascinated with the cultural phenomenon behind the retelling of paranormal encounters.
The Good Time Girls keep things interesting with endless stories and character features. The guides explore important pieces of history, like “Deadman’s Point,” which is a mass graveyard out below the waters in Fairhaven. The girls also reference historical characters such as “Dirty Dan Harris” and “Coroner Warner.”
The guides explained some of the gruesome stories that lie behind the phrases carved into each plaque engraved on the streets of Fairhaven, like “Here is where Mathew was cut in two by a streetcar,” and “unknown dead men displayed here in 1901.”
The encounters don’t end with the Good Time Girls. Before joining the group full time, LaBree had her own strange encounter while working at The Black Cat restaurant and bar, a staple of Fairhaven history.
The restaurant got its name from the supposed cat farm owned in the late 1800’s by James Wardner, a wealthy Fairhaven investor and alleged cat farm owner. Although the cat farm was a hoax, Bellingham was home to many stray and feral cats, Urbigkit said.
The Black Cat is located in the Sycamore Square Building, which is rumored to be haunted. To this day, there are rumors that the restaurant and other businesses in the building have experienced some paranormal activity.
Widow Staircases that lead to the top floor of the Sycamore Square Building in Bellingham, Wash. on July 1, 2022. Upon entering the building with the tour group, Urbigkit explained that the Sycamore Square Building is supposedly one of the most haunted buildings in town // Photo by Desiree Erdmann
Olivia Hewett, an employee at The Black Cat, said that although she hasn’t had any paranormal experiences, she likes working in a building with so much history and the potential for ghostly activity.
“I’ve had a few customers tell me they have felt paranormal presences while in the building,” said Hewett. “It’s kind of fun working in a historically spooky place.”
Though not everyone who frequents the building has had an unexplainable experience, there is recorded evidence of something unusual happening. Ghost explorative organizations like Bellingham Observers of the Odd and Obscure (B.O.O.O.) stake out the haunted buildings around Bellingham’s greater area, and the Good Time Girls said that B.O.O.O. caught a glimpse of what seems to be ghost activity.
One of the ghosts some believe roams Sycamore Square Building is the Green Lady. Urbigkit said many of the workers and attendees of the building have seen this infamous guest.
Urbigkit explained that the Green Lady is said to be a woman named Flora Blakely, whose husband was the town marshal. Blakely lived in room 404, on the top floor of Sycamore Square Building, and was said to be mentally distraught due to the death of her child.
The cause of her death was never clearly reported, but the Good Time Girls and local historians believe she died by suicide. This claim is based on how quickly her funeral was conducted after her untimely death, and that the funeral itself was conducted in the Sycamore Square Building.
The Good Time Girls “hope to get people thinking about the past, how it has shaped the present, and what it teaches us going forward … all while having a good time.” Their tours remind attendees that local history is quite often left unknown and unspoken.
Bellingham and Fairhaven have much more history to offer than many of us are aware of.