As the holiday season kicks into gear, spooky chills come to a close but still linger in downtown Chico with Chico Haunted Tours.
Local community advocate and filmmaker Dustin Vaught leads the way for the final date of the season as the guide of the haunted tour. It takes place on Thursday, Dec. 11.
Vaught partnered with his wife, Anna Rose, who is a professor of history at Cal State East Bay, along with friends from Ghost Poppy to offer the 90-minute walks through the city's eerie history.
“We have a deep love and affinity for all things spooky,” Vaught said.
The concept originated as a collaborative project among friends, intended as a fundraiser for the effort to preserve the El Rey Theater.
“If you don't know the area and you're wanting to learn more about Chico, it's a good introduction and crash course on a lot of the myths and things that people talk about in everyday Chico,” Vaught said.
The tour has been completely booked throughout the fall in Chico.
It delves into everything from Masonic symbols hidden on historic buildings to secret downtown tunnels to police reports of local sightings of the "Chico Chupacabra."
“It’s a Mexican folklore, and it's actually, since 1978, there's been 17 police reports of a chupacabra sighting in downtown Chico,” Vaught said.
Rose utilized one of her courses, collaborating with her students, to help develop the walking tour.
They gathered information from special collections, archives and independent research to uncover local narratives.
“We then vetted all of that information, and then I integrated it into creating the story that everyone hears, and they go on the tour,” Vaught said.
Each tour accommodates 15 people and downtown locations, from the Naked Lounge to the Stansbury Home.
The funds generated from the tours go toward the Save The El Rey campaign, which is working to restore and maintain the historic El Rey Theater.
Vaught's lifelong love for cinema, particularly horror, is the source of his fascination with the spooky and supernatural, and it was this passion that motivated him to help create the tour for Chico.
“Horror has always been a genre to me that is able to talk about social issues in a way that no other genre can without it feeling too melodramatic or overwrought,” Vaught said. “The ability to touch on deeply intimate issues within our culture and our society is a particular lens that I love to look through, and I think horror is the best tool for that right now.”
Another reason for creating the tour was his deep admiration and love for the downtown area.
He finds that many residents who rarely visit downtown are surprised when they view the area through the eyes of a tourist.
“They'll leave our tour, they're going to The Banshee to have drinks, they're going to Momona, they're going somewhere else to have dinner, and so it's just beautiful to see our downtown activated in such a unique way,” Vaught said. “I think it's a good reminder that we don't need these massive, big festivals and events happening downtown, but these small activations can really be a great economic driver for our downtown community.”
