Deschutes Historical Museum

A museum housed in the 1914 Reid School building, a three-story stone schoolhouse containing exhibits on Deschutes County history.

The Deschutes Historical Museum occupies the Reid School, a handsome brick building completed in 1914 as Bend's first modern school. Named after Ruth Reid, the city's pioneering first high school principal, the three-story structure was revolutionary for the young lumber town, boasting central heating and indoor plumbing at a time when most Bend buildings had neither. The school served the community for sixty-five years before the Deschutes County Historical Society converted it into a museum in 1979, preserving both the building's educational legacy and, according to many witnesses, the spirits of those connected to its past.

The museum's primary ghost is George Bernard Brosterhous, one of the contractors who built the school. During construction in 1914, Brosterhous fell from the third floor through an open stairway shaft and died from his injuries. Staff members have long attributed unexplained occurrences to George, coining the phrase "George moments" for incidents they cannot otherwise explain. His presence manifests in several ways: objects move from where staff placed them, misplaced documents and artifacts are later found in obvious locations as if someone helpfully relocated them, and at least one museum visitor has reported seeing the full apparition of a man observing them from across a room. George is generally regarded as a benign, even helpful, presence who seems to maintain a proprietary interest in the building he died constructing.

A second spirit, given the name Margie, appears to be a young girl of about six or seven years old dressed in clothing from the 1910s to 1920s. Her name was discovered when a museum intern, working late one night, captured an EVP recording in which a cryptic voice repeated the name Margie. Some researchers speculate she may have been a Reid School student who died during the devastating 1918 influenza epidemic that swept through Central Oregon, though her identity has never been confirmed. Margie is playful and mischievous rather than frightening. She has been heard giggling in empty hallways, and she is blamed for turning water taps on and off and repeatedly flushing toilets in the ladies restroom. Staff have also reported the sound of small footsteps running through the exhibits and the sensation of being watched by someone much shorter than an adult.

Paranormal investigators from Otherworld Travels conducted an investigation at the museum and documented several findings. Their EVP recordings captured multiple words across different rooms, including wife, finger, like, happy, discuss, two, Janell, and Willie. The team also experienced an unexplained video glitch in the toy and home exhibit room and perceived movement that prompted them to begin recording. They concluded that with all of the individual accounts, the footage, and EVPs they captured, it was likely there was some unexplained energy present in the building. The Deschutes County Historical Society embraces the building's dual identity as both a repository of regional history and a location with genuine paranormal activity. Each year the museum offers the Historical Haunts of Downtown Bend Walk, a guided tour that interweaves Bend's frontier history with its ghost stories. As museum manager Vanessa Ivey has described it, the tour is ninety percent history, ten percent paranormal, and one hundred percent fun.