116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Time Machine: Haunted houses
Cedar Rapids Jaycees ran spooky venues for 15 years
The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
Publicity for the first Cedar Rapids Jaycees Haunted House in October 1971 was minimal.
The Gazette ran City Briefs ads, spread over a few weeks in late October into early November. The haunted house was a project of the group’s On To Club. It merited a “scary” photo on Oct. 29 of two little boys peering from a dark opening, flanked on one side by an ominous “BEWARE” sign.
That was the beginning of a 15-year tradition of the Cedar Rapids Jaycee Haunted Houses.
Each year, the Jaycees would lay claim to a vacant house or building and begin to transform it into a scary adventure full of eerie features and dark mazes. Proceeds from the haunted houses went to Jaycee charitable activities and organization expenses.
Other places
In 1975, the Jaycees took over an abandoned office building at the Allis-Chalmers plant, First Avenue and 30th Street Drive SE, for its haunted house. In March 1976, five months after Halloween, fire gutted the three-story structure.
In 1977, the Marion Jaycees sponsored a Haunted Farm. A hayrack ride took participants through the woods on the Granger property, north of Indian Creek Bridge, over 10th Street. Spooky characters portrayed by students from Marion’s schools confronted the riders. Tom Costell of the Granger family cooperated with the Jaycees.
A house across from Coe College, at 1308 First Ave. SE, was transformed into 1978’s haunted house. A crew of Jaycees worked five days a week to get the structure ready for its Oct. 15 opening. Proceeds were tagged for “community charities and activities.”
Attitudes change
The haunted event moved into the old Magnus Hotel on Second Avenue SE in 1979. It could have been the last Jaycee Haunted House, according to the organization’s Vice President Thomas Hart.
“When we started haunted houses,” Hart told The Gazette, “it was a novel idea in the city. But the attitudes of the kids have changed. Instead of coming through once and enjoying it, they’ve gone to coming three, four, five and six times and abusing the people (workers). We used to have women working, but we can’t now because of the abuse – verbal, spitting and punching.”
Similar problems arose at another haunted house in southwest Cedar Rapids run by the Multiple Sclerosis Society, including “kids coming through and breaking things.”
Hart balanced his views by saying he believed a lot of good came from the houses. Assistant Police Chief Wallace Johnson said the venues were “usually a good thing, because they’re for a good cause.”
Area attractions
Gazette regional reporter Dave Rasdal wrote about the haunted houses that were open in Eastern Iowa for Halloween weekend in 1983 – Jesup, Elkader, Fayette, Waukon, Cedar Rapids, Tipton, Toledo and Monticello were among them.
He focused on Toledo’s. “I chose two floors of horrors at Toledo, because the newspaper ad sounded horror-endous, especially the spiel about a human turning into a monster. And, holy Toledo, I was right. A trip through the Tama-Toledo Jaycees Haunted House … sure isn’t bobbing for apples.”
Hauntwood Manor
Back to Cedar Rapids in 1984, the site of the former children’s home at 15th Street and E Avenue NE became Hauntwood Manor, providing “chills and thrills for everyone.”
Project Chairman Ken Springer said, “Visitors to the manor will often walk in complete darkness with spooks lurking around every corner. It will definitely be scary.”
“All proceeds go to the Cedar Rapids Jaycees,” The Gazette reported. “Much of the money is returned to the community through such projects as the Christmas toy project, soap box derby, all comers track, junior golf and tennis and the Eastern Iowa Band Festival.”
The end in 1985
The Cedar Rapids tradition ended in 1985.
The Fire Department said the project was too dangerous, and the City Council passed a resolution in September allowing one more Haunted House, with the stipulation it would be the last. The 10-day 1985 Hauntwood Manor returned and raised $26,000 for charity and expenses.
“It’s something we’ve been real nervous about for years,” Fire Chief Edsel McMickle told The Gazette.
“Ironically, one of the foes of the project, Fire Marshal Saunders, is a former Jaycee who helped create one of the most successful houses ever in the early 1970s,” The Gazette said in an October 1986 story about the end of the Jaycees’ haunted houses.
Surrounding communities, including Swisher, Center Point, Monticello and Iowa City, continued their Jaycee Halloween traditions that year.
Cedar Rapids still had a scary event that year. Indian Creek Nature Center and the Cedar Rapids Community Theatre Youtheatre co-sponsored a “Haunted Halloween Barn” at the Nature Center.
According to America Haunts, most commercial haunted houses charge less than $20 per visitor. There are over 1,200 of them across the country. And there are more than twice that many charity haunted houses.
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