STILLWATER, Minn. - The Warden's House Museum. It's where the watchdogs of Minnesota's earliest prison once laid their heads. The museum is home to the history of prison terrors long ago, but it is also home to apparitions that terrify visitors to this day.
The home was built in 1853 to house wardens of the Minnesota Territorial Prison, which became the Minnesota State Prison once Minnesota became a state in 1858.
The last warden to live in the home was Henry Wolfer, who lived there with his daughter Gertrude, or Trudy. Trudy moved to Blue Earth, Minn., where she had a son and died shortly after from appendicitis. Henry Wolfer took the young boy in and raised him in the Warden's House.
Visitors to the museum report seeing a woman in the master bedroom. Local legend says that the woman is Trudy, searching for her baby. The entity is sometimes seen holding her stomach in pain, as if suffering from appendicitis.
During a tour, a young girl is said to have asked "Is the woman always there?" after leaving the master bedroom. Others see Trudy staring out of the windows upstairs, or claim she is the one rocking a cradle in an upstairs bedroom when no one else is around.
Some people say they can hear sounds of shoveling coal coming from the basement. Others say the family phone will ring by itself. But there is no other story from the Warden's House that strikes more fear than the one of Trudy and her young son.
Flashlight tours are available sometimes at the Warden's House, where tour guides will take you down the servant's staircase and into the basement. Those areas of the house are not usually open to the public. The most previous flashlight tour was on Oct. 20.