Galena’s Murder Bordello

From the moment I saw the house, I was transfixed.

Maybe it was the sinister gray and black exterior, a stark contrast against the muted colors of the vacant fields that surrounded it.

Maybe it was the wooden crow sculpture next to the sidewalk, an ominous sign to those who dared to enter the house.

Whatever it was, it was drawing me towards the house, so I stopped my car in front of it for a closer look.

“It’s disturbing,” said a small voice from the back seat of the car.

That accurate assessment was uttered by my daughter. It was a pretty big statement for a four-year-old, but she was right.

The house was disturbing.

And I wanted to know more about it.

No Wonder it Looks Foreboding…

This house, I found out, is Galena’s Murder Bordello. Located 7 miles west of Joplin in Galena, Kansas, the building was constructed in 1890 by the Galena Mining Company as a brothel for its employees to use (interesting company benefits).

In recent years, it had fallen into a dilapidated state, but was resurrected through extensive renovations and reopened in 2013.

Today, visitors can tour the bordello to learn about its colorful history – and to perhaps experience something paranormal.

I’d wanted to see the inside of the bordello since my daughter and I first drove past it more than a year ago. Last week, I finally got the chance to tour it with a group of ladies from the Joplin Convention and Visitors Bureau. Our tour guide was Linda Watkins, who works across the street from the bordello at Cars on the Route, an attraction on historic Route 66 that also offers tours of the bordello.

Our experience kicked off with a bang – literally. We arrived early, and while we were standing outside waiting for Linda, we heard the upstairs door rattle, like someone was trying to get out. Then we heard it one more time. When Linda arrived, we asked her if there was anyone already inside the house. 

The house was empty, Linda assured us. And the doors were locked.

Well, alrighty then.

Shaking that off, we went inside. I saw that the crow theme was echoed throughout the interior of the house; in decorations on the furniture, in the stained glass, and even in one of the light fixtures.

We paused in the dining room where Linda pointed out several photos and illustrations of the notorious Steffleback family members, whose murderous tendencies are tied to the bordello.

Nancy, also called Ma Stefflebeck, was known as “Galena’s Bloody Madam.”

Ma and her sons were purported to have killed clients at the bordello, taking all of their money, and then dumping their bodies in the nearby mine shafts. They are believed to have gotten away with killing over 30 people. George Steffleback’s wife Cora witnessed them killing miner Frank Galbraith, and that was the only murder of which they were convicted.

Of course, a story about a century-old bordello wouldn’t be complete without some modern-day controversy. There are some historians in town who claim that there is no proof that this structure was the Steffleback bordello, nor that the murders occurred on the actual property. During our tour, Linda made it clear that while the Stefflebacks ran the bordello, they didn’t live there; they lived in a shanty by the rest of the miners, and it burned down.

You’ve got to have a red light in a bordello, right?

But there is one thing that can’t be disputed: the paranormal activity in the house. Linda has been accompanying paranormal investigative teams during their investigations at the bordello for the past 6 years and has quite a collection of stories. I know what you’re thinking: Of course she tells great ghost stories – she’s a tour guide at a haunted house!

Yes, that thought came to my mind, too, and I would have dismissed her stories as pure entertainment had we not experienced odd occurrences during our own tour. More about those in a minute.

Linda’s Stories

Here are some of the strange things that have happened at the bordello, according to Linda: electrical disturbances, doors slamming shut, beds moving away from the wall (that one made me laugh), a rocking chair that rocks by itself (someone captured an image of a child sitting in the chair), and lots of orb activity.

One story involves an ax that is displayed on a bed upstairs. Shortly after the house was renovated, someone walked into the room and found the ax up against the wall with the blades sticking straight out, and there were feathers on the bed, on the floor, everywhere. From a chicken? Nope. These were boa feathers.

Our stories

I do not have any photos from the ax room because my camera refused to work in there – and in several other areas of the house (cue Twilight Zone music…). I asked Donna from our group to send me the photos that she able to take of the ax room, but when she went to send them, she noticed they were missing from her phone (more Twilight Zone music…). 

We felt several cold spots throughout the house and, no, these weren’t located beneath air conditioning vents, and, no, they weren’t drafts of cool outside air because it was a balmy 80 degrees on the day we went.

Downstairs in the card room there’s a creepy mannequin sitting at a card table. When I first walked in the room, I jumped. I don’t do well with mannequins. Or clowns. Especially clowns.

While we were in this card room, Carrie from our group started to get the chills and felt something next to her. I tried to take a photo of her while she was feeling this, but my camera wouldn’t work.

Linda mentioned that there’s always a lot of orb activity around the bath tub upstairs, so we had Carrie climb inside of it. Apparently, she’s a magnet for ghosts, because Linda snapped some photos of her while she was in the tub and orbs seem to be encircling her.

Or maybe those are dust particles?

I didn’t capture any orb photos myself because I was too busy trying to get my camera to work and restarting my audio recorder (which had repeatedly stopped working while Carrie was sitting in the tub).

But when I was reviewing my audio from the tour, I heard what sounds like a man’s voice whispering while Carrie and I were the only ones upstairs taking photos in the bathroom. I think it’s saying something about the mirror, which is odd because Carrie had asked Linda if the bathroom mirror was a fun mirror because it had appeared wavy to her. It was just a normal mirror, though, although you can’t tell from my photo of it (many of the photos that I took when my camera actually started working turned out blurry like this).

In the 1900s, this building served as a nursing home, and there’s a small room upstairs that served as the holding room, a place where the bodies of the deceased were kept before they were brought down a flight of stairs outside the house so that the residents didn’t have to see them. The door that we heard rattling before our tour is the one that leads to the holding room. Carrie snapped a photo of orbs in this room. 

The End of the Tour

As I emerged from the dark house into the warm, sunny day I paused to look at the sculpture of the crows. Linda had told us that it had been carved from the trunk of a dead tree by a local man who does chainsaw carvings. The crows were not painted; they were burned until they turned black.

There are nine crows in the sculpture, grouped together in a flock,

Do you know what a group of crows is called?

A murder.

Is this bordello really haunted? Decide for yourself: contact Linda at 417-499-3700 to schedule an appointment, or join the Paranormal Science Lab on one of their investigations of the bordello.

Follow Galena’s Murder Bordello on Facebook, or see it in person at 206 North Main Street in Galena, Kansas. Look for this beautiful stained glass piece on the second story.

To Carrie: Notice the resemblance between your pose on the settee and the woman’s pose in the stained glass. I guess that’s what happens when I tell you to assume a relaxed posture rather than sit upright.

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This article was commissioned by the Joplin CVB, however the opinions expressed are purely my own. The purpose of Joplin MO Life is to highlight all the best that our area has to offer, and when an article is written about a restaurant, business, attraction, or event, it is because I have had an enjoyable experience and want to share it with others.

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Living Life to The Fullest!

I love seeking out new experiences and finding places off the beaten path. I started Joplin MO Life in August 2013 as a way to share my discoveries with others in the Joplin community so that they can learn about the resources that exist right in their own backyards.

I have worked in education and event planning, and have always loved to write. I hold a master's degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma and a bachelor's degree in marketing from Tulane University.