Byrd Park Pump House

A Victorian-era pump house built in 1883 that once supplied water to Richmond. The Romanesque Revival building was also used as a social hall for city events.

Rising from the wooded banks of the James River like a medieval fortress, the Byrd Park Pump House has earned a reputation as "Disneyland for ghost enthusiasts" and one of the most haunted places in Richmond. Built between 1881 and 1883 and designed by Colonel Wilfred Emory Cutshaw—Richmond's city engineer and Confederate artillery veteran whose letter of recommendation from Robert E. Lee helped secure his position—this Gothic Revival masterpiece served dual purposes that made it unique among American municipal buildings.

Constructed of local granite with steep gables, pointed archways, and lancet windows, the Pump House drew water from the James River and Kanawha Canal, pumping it uphill to Byrd Park Reservoir to supply Richmond's growing population. But above the grinding machinery, Cutshaw designed an open-air dance hall that transformed this industrial facility into one of Richmond's most glamorous social venues. During the Gilded Age, debutantes in Victorian hoop skirts and gentlemen in evening dress would board flat-bottomed bateaux at Seventh and Canal Streets, arriving by mule-drawn canal boat to dance on the pine dance floor while overlooking the gentle rapids of the James.

The building ceased operations in 1924 when newer technology made its pumping machinery obsolete. The equipment was later scrapped for metal before World War II, and the city planned demolition in the 1950s. First Presbyterian Church purchased the abandoned structure for just one dollar, saving it from destruction. The building sat deteriorating for nearly a century until the nonprofit Friends of Pump House began restoration efforts in 2017.

The paranormal activity at the Pump House allegedly stems from its unique physical properties. Paranormal investigator Robert Bess of the Foundation for Paranormal Research—inventor of the Parabot device featured on Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures—has conducted extensive investigations here. He rates the location as "extremely haunted" and theorizes that the combination of running water, steel, slate roofing, and iron throughout the structure creates a perfect "conductor" that acts as a portal to the other side. During a March 2010 investigation called "The 3 Mile Lock Experiment - Conquest," which drew over 100 participants, Bess declared the paranormal activity so intense it overloaded his Parabot system.

Several distinct spirits reportedly inhabit the deteriorating structure. Daniel Tetweiler is perhaps the most tragic—a man who allegedly hanged himself inside the Pump House. Believers describe his sorrowful presence lingering within the building, with figures seen dangling or drifting in the shadows, forever bound to the site of his death. Elizabeth manifests differently, appearing as what Bess calls "the most fantastic orb you will see"—a floating sphere of light that drifts through the darkened corridors. Most dramatic is Spectra, an apparition of a woman in white who allegedly "cuts loose with her energy force." Bess claims twenty-three different spiritual groups travel within her aura.

Volunteers and visitors have reported specific encounters. On one occasion, workers on the second-floor dance hall heard distinct conversations emanating from the machine room below. When one volunteer descended to investigate, his flashlight suddenly extinguished and all sounds ceased. Retreating back upstairs, his light mysteriously relit—only to die again when he attempted another descent, the disembodied voices resuming as soon as he withdrew.

Interestingly, the Friends of Pump House organization—which spends more time in the building than anyone—maintains a skeptical position. Their official statement reads: "Is the building haunted? As best we can tell, no, and we spend a lot of time there! We are aware of stories floating around on the internet stating otherwise, but we have been unable to find any evidence of such in our research, and have never experienced it directly ourselves."

The Pump House was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. Today it hosts occasional events including "Poe at the Pump House" each October, where Edgar Allan Poe impersonators read ghost stories in this appropriately Gothic setting. Restoration continues, with an estimated eight to twelve million dollars needed for full rehabilitation. Whether the spirits of Daniel, Elizabeth, and Spectra still roam the granite halls—or whether they're merely the product of imagination running wild in atmospheric ruins—the Castle on the James remains one of Richmond's most intriguing architectural and paranormal landmarks.