Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.
They Don't Report the News Like They Used to
Coming up with four Friday the 13th-themed news blurbs in a single day is tough, so we scoured the Star Tribune archives to see if anything spooky had happened on that date in Minneapolis history. And what we learned was: You used to pretty much be able to put anything in the paper. For instance, the Minneapolis Morning Tribune of Saturday, August 14, 1926, reported on how much bad luck had befallen the city the day before and determined… not much!
The biggest news was that Clarence Jones, a 19-year-old from Washington state, arrived in town and slept in a Minneapolis cemetery. “Why?” you might ask. “I sleep in cemeteries because it’s easy to scare prowlers away.” Oh wait, you mean why was he here? Well, he’d started hitch-hiking about a year earlier when doctors told him he would die from tuberculosis in three months, and he was collecting governors' signatures and sleeping in graveyards. That explanation doesn’t really clear much up, but that’s what the Trib had to offer.
Later in the story, we learn “There were few fires Friday the 13th, but that served to remind firemen of one of the greatest fires that ever occurred in Minneapolis.” (Is that how it works? On slow days do firefighters think of past fires?) That fire ravaged the city in 1893, but the paragraph describing the destruction begins with a stray sentence from another paragraph, “The first Friday the 13th baby born,” so it sounds like a fiery infant somehow ran along Nicollet setting the city ablaze.
Anyway, reading this story, we feel less guilty of foisting our own Friday the 13th nonsense on you on a day we didn’t feel like working terribly hard.
Regional Hauntings in the News
Extra! Extra! Dying industry begs to be taken seriously by flooding the internet with paranormal claptrap! We kid, we kid: It's arguably the most spooktacular date on the calendar, and we applaud our local peers for churning out so much haunting news. On this Friday the 13th, let’s do a speed round of recent ones: USA Today, the everyman newspaper known for keeping its reading comprehension level accessibly low, named Cottage Grove's Haunting Experience the No. 6 "Best Haunted House in the U.S."; Fox 9 issued this fun report on the notoriously haunted First Avenue; that very same TV station committed to the beat with a segment on a haunted Victorian home in Boyd, Minnesota, that’s owned by a paranormal investigator/Airbnb host; and, finally, Bring Me the News brought us the news of this year’s new creepy activities inside the haunted and harbored Duluth ship the William A. Irvin. That latter story inspired us to reach out to our Twin Ports correspondent Kaylee Matuszak, a Canal Park park ranger by day and musician/dive bar connoisseur by night. Matuszak, who actually once worked on the Irvin, told us this of the eerie ship-turned-museum...
I 100% think it’s haunted. I was the executive museum assistant there for a couple years. So, so scary to lock up at the end of a shift. There was this one time that me and some other tour guides were hanging out in one of the cargo holds after a shift, and we heard a woman singing clear as day from the next hold over. I have never run faster in my life... it was so deeply bad.
Frightful Food and Drink
Halloween is always a terrifyingly good time at Twin Cities restaurants and bars, but some of the spots that used to go all out—Psycho Suzi's, Lawless Distillery—have recently passed from this mortal plane. So let's check out some new spots that are keeping the scary spirit alive! Everybody's getting in on the fun at Eat Street Crossing's Friday the 13th party tonight: There's a bright-green Slimer Roll from Sushi Dori, Bebe Zito's got this horrifying burger and all kinds of creepy ice cream options, and you'll find lots of frightful, horror movie-themed cocktails at the bar. (A friend and I tried It, Jaws, and Candyman last weekend... they've all got a cheeky themed garnish or other twist.) It's time for Tiki Terror at the Apostle Supper Club, with spooky specials and haunting decor galore. Meteor's Black Lagoon pop-up is running now through October 31; tonight they're also screening the Friday the 13th franchise. And we've already told you about the Haunted Basement Bar at Travail Kitchen and Amusements, with a multi-course tasting menu great paired with cocktails... and frights galore.
Important Reminder: Jason Voorhees Is at the Bottom of a MN Lake
In 2013, horror fan/scuba hobbyist Doug Klein decided to pay homage to Friday the 13th by building a Jason Voorhees statue and chaining it to the bottom of Louise Mine Lake. Over the last decade, the sculpture has evolved, rusting and collecting algae that gives him an even creepier look. Getting him to stay 113 feet under the surface isn't a scary story though, it’s actually pretty hilarious. “The rope broke, and because he was so buoyant, he shot to the top like a Polaris missile," Klein tells KARE11 of his installation snafu.
Jason is mostly made out of wood, bubble wrap, plastic, and second-hand clothing, so he’s actually pretty light. "All I could think when I was down there is, as he was going up, I’m thinking, 'Ah, I hope there’s not a kayaker or a tuber up there, because it’s gonna scare the crap out of them.'" The freaky piece has made the Crosby, MN, lake a diving destination, with folks from all over the U.S. paying a visit in hopes of spotting him in the depths. Jason is in good company; Klein has also placed a handful of pink flamingos, a few pirates, and a mermaid down there.
