Kings Island's Ghastly Girl in Blue

Originally published 12-27-2017

Late one summer night at Kings Island, a tram driver has just dropped off his last batch of guests. It's been a very busy evening for him and he is relieved to be finished. However, he decides to take one last sweep through the parking lot to make sure that no one is left. He turns around and begins driving back around through the lot. Just a few cars are still left. Behind him, the Eiffel Tower lights up the otherwise dark sky.

The driver begins to pass through the Barney Rubble section of the parking lot, which is what the farthest section to left is called at this point in time if you are standing on Kings Island Drive facing the park. To his right, he can see one of Kings Island's best kept secrets: the ancient, tiny cemetery located between this section of the parking lot and what is then the campground. This driver has heard many stories about this cemetery from other tram drivers...that is, GHOST stories. He slows the tram down to a crawl as he peers out at the graveyard. The edge of his headlights dimly illuminate this small patch of hallowed ground. The longer he stares, the more it appears as though something is moving inside the cemetery. Strange shadows are appearing. At first, the driver can't believe what he is seeing. But then he realizes that it's just the shadows of the graves from his headlights. Silly me, he thinks. Sure, the cemetery is creepy, but haunted? He chuckles at himself for once believing the other driver's story. He turns to face the main parking lot area.

At the exact moment he looks up, his headlights suddenly illuminate a young girl in a blue dress as she runs in front of the tram. In a split second, the driver slams on the brakes and looks away, for the girl is too close to the moving tram to not be struck.

But no sound comes. No scream, no thud. Nothing.

The driver turns back around. The parking lot is empty, just as it was a moment before the girl appeared. There is no damage to the front of the tram and there's nothing underneath it. The girl has disappeared. Poof. Right into thin air. She has vanished just as quickly and suddenly as she first appeared.

Maybe those stories really DO have some credence, the shaken tram driver thinks.

The next day, he hands in his resignation.
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 This tram driver is not the only person to have experienced this strange apparition. Dozens of reports of this little specter have been recorded since Kings Island opened. Who is this ghost, and why is she haunting the park? To answer this question, let's take a look at the history of the aforementioned parking lot cemetery.

THE HISTORY

While most websites refer to this graveyard as "the Kings Island Cemetery," or the "Dog Street Cemetery," the cemetery's official name is Union Cemetery (Hoff), with the Hoff used to distinguish between this graveyard and other Union Cemeteries. It was affiliated with the Union Methodist Church (hence the name) and was founded in 1803. Most of the burials occurred from the 1820's through the 1880's. There was a burial in the 20th century, but it's not marked with a headstone. Records show at least 79 burials in the cemetery.

When Kings Island was being built, construction workers had to figure out what to do with the cemetery. By 1970, the cemetery was forgotten and overgrown with weeds. Many tombstones had toppled with age. It was so overgrown and neglected that the construction workers had a hard time locating it so that excavation for the parking lot could begin.

A construction worker stands in

the cemetery in 1970. Photo from the Cincinnati Enquirer.

The cemetery was preserved where it was, and it was cleaned up quite a bit. It's currently under the care of the Deerfield Township Trustees.

Despite Union Cemetery's proximity to the road (especially with the road to the new tollbooths winding right past it), many people don't realize it's there.

While some people like to visit the cemetery to do genealogical research or take photos of it with roller coasters in the background to post on their urban exploration websites, most come to visit the grave of the cemetery's most infamous resident: Missouri Jane Galeener.

What is known about Galeener is that she was the daughter of Stephen and Nancy Galeener and had at least one sibling, a younger brother named William. She was born June 27, 1840 and likely lived on part of the land that would later become Kings Island. She died on March 10, 1846 at the tender age of 5 years and 8 months. She was buried in Union Cemetery, where she remains to this day. Her brother outlived her by 76 years.

    

Missouri Jane Galeener's tombstone in Union Cemetery. Photo by the blog administrator.                                     

One question many people have posed is: how did she die? The popular story is that she drowned in a lake where White Water Canyon is currently located (thus explaining why she is particularly active in that area of the park). Unfortunately, I could find no record of her in 1846 editions of the Cincinnati Enquirer or the Cincinnati Post. Due to time constraints, I was unable to check through 1846 editions of Lebanon's Western Star newspaper. So, for now, the official cause of her death remains a mystery.

THE SIGHTINGS

Shortly after Kings Island opened, security guards reported some very strange experiences. These encounters still continue to this very day. Due to the age and style of clothing she is wearing, most believe that the ghost is that of Missouri Jane.

Interestingly, the apparition is always reported looking the exact same as other sightings of her, down to her eye color. She is always described as having blonde hair, blue eyes and her trademark blue dress.

Over the years, Jane has been seen almost everywhere over the park. Let's go over some of the areas where she is most often encountered and some of the more unique encounters.

Union Cemetery

When an exit to Kings Island Drive used to be located next to the cemetery, drivers would often report seeing a little girl in a blue dress walking through the cemetery after dark or peering through the fence toward the park. A tram driver once saw this girl in his mirror, but when he turned around, the cemetery was empty.

Parking Lot

As mentioned earlier, this is where tram drivers would often see the ghost of Jane walk or run in front of oncoming trams. This happened so often (reportedly almost nightly) that park employees began calling her "Tram Girl." Tram drivers would also sometimes report seeing her sitting in one of the seats on the tram. These types of occurrences caused many tram drivers to quit. Trams were removed from the park several years ago, unfortunately ending these kinds of stories.

Front Gate

While most stories from the front gate area are pretty "ordinary" for Missouri Jane sightings (i.e. a security guard sees a little girl in a blue dress standing by herself after closing and when the guard walks up, she disappears), there is one story that is particularly interesting from this area.

Deborah Lantz is an area psychic who has participated in one of the several paranormal investigations that have taken place at Kings Island. "On my way out, I was walking with a gentleman named Eric Balding and he was on ‘Ghost Hunters Academy’," Lantz said. "He was a finalist, and as we were walking out, we both heard a little girl giggling behind us. It totally freaked him out! He was like 'Holy crap this has never happened before!’ because he’s skeptical. I started laughing at him because that stuff happens all the time with me."

International Restaurant

While the most often reported ghost in the International Restaurant is that of a chef, Missouri Jane has also sometimes been spotted as well. The International Restaurant gained infamy as one of Kings Island's haunted hotspots on a 2012 episode of SyFy Channel's "Ghost Hunters." The team recorded one of their best-ever Electronic Voice Phenemona (EVP) recordings while up in the restaurant: that of a little girl saying, "Trying to find my mom."

Kings Island and Miami Valley Railroad

Missouri Jane has reportedly often been seen around Fort Coney, which the train passes. It's possible that she lived in that area. Former supervisor Austin Eversole recalls, "I hear she’s seen...in the woods, like there’s an opening in the woods, a pathway, and when the train is going by, they [train employees] say they see her running back there on the pathway. Or, she’s just seen standing there, watching the train go by. And they say she’s in a little blue dress every single time.” 

I interviewed Eversole in 2015; apparently sightings have died down as every train employee I talked to this season (2017) told me they had not encountered anything out of the ordinary.

White Water Canyon

Tower 2, where employees operate and supervise the ride, is reportedly one of the hotspots of activity on Kings Island property. Many employees have reported encounters with Missouri Jane's playful ghost while in the tower. The most famous account of ghostly activity involves rocks being thrown at the side of the tower. Only problem is that there is no one around the tower when these things happen. Especially unnerving is that some employees actually see the rocks being picked up by an invisible being and thrown at the tower. Riders have occasionaly reported looking up and seeing the actual apparition of the girl looking out the window of the tower. Other employees have reported hearing the sounds of a little girl giggling or singing when no one else is around.

Austin Eversole reported, "While I was up top working, we [supervisors] all got a call that there was a child left on White Water Canyon--there was a rides girl and she was letting all the little rafts go by, making sure there was no one on it, and she thought she heard a girl talking and she thought she was on the ride, so she stopped the entire ride and she did an emergency call and we all had to run down there to make sure there was nothing going on. It ended up [that] there was nobody there."

A personal favorite story of mine was told to me by Paranormal investigator Lee Allen. Allen said, "We were in White Water Canyon Tower 2 and she [Missouri Jane] was actually there...We locked the door, the little latch, and me and him [fellow investigator Jim] and another investigator, we were investigating the tower because they say they see her up there...We would ask her to speak and we would hear someone on the other side of the door, there’s like 13 steps and then a platform, we could hear her outside on the platform. And we were trying to open the door, but we couldn’t open the door. and when we were trying, we could hear her giggle, so she was holding the door. And all we heard was three steps and then gone. So it was like ‘boom boom boom’, but 13 ‘boom boom booms.’ Outside the door, there was 13 steps and then a platform, we could hear her outside on the platform. And then we heard the [footsteps in the] gravel, and then it was gone.”

A recurring phenomena throughout the park involves worried adults who tell ride operators late in the evening about a little girl in a blue, "old-fashioned" dress walking around without her parents. This girl can never be located. In other accounts, security guards will see a little girl playing by herself long after the park has closed. This girl disappears into thin air when the guards try to get closer.

With all these stories, that leaves one question: why? Out of all the people buried in the cemetery, why is Missouri Jane the one who is most frequently spotted in the park? Several other children are buried in the cemetery, so dying young does not seem to be the reason. Maybe she is searching for her parents, who are buried in a cemetery far away from her in Illinois or perhaps she, like so many other people, just comes to the park to enjoy a day of fun.

An unusual juxtaposition.

Photo by the blog administrator.