Day 34: Bones Gulch Haunted Attraction in Castaic, CA

Tim Fowler: Bones gulch is a partnership with myself, Scott Sibley, Beware the Dark Realm, Greg Packard, Restless Souls Manor, along with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department Museum, and we're raising money for the museum. It's an Old West themed haunt that takes you through the town. You end up going through Bones Gulch into the cursed mine and if you make it through, you exit out into our scare zones. As you enter bones gulch, you're going to go to the hotel. It's the legend of Jack Bones, or Jack Ossos, mine. There's a cursed mine he was mining, opened up something bad, and it's kind of the town's either worshipping the mine or recruiting new worshippers. So, the deeper you get in, it gets darker and darker.

Philip Hernandez: And it seems like it's not really a jump scare, I would say. I would say it's a lot of theatrical moments.

Tim Fowler: Absolutely. I mean the actors we have are great. I mean, they adlib and add to the story so much. They get into character and yeah, we don't have a lot of jump scares, we do have some, but I think once you're part of the story, you're immersed in the environment. We try to create an environment here to where it looks great, it's not super dark, the characters are great, but everywhere you look there's something to look at. We made sure to create really detailed sets along with some scares along the way.

[Walk-Through Audio]

 Speaker 2 And finally, here's Michael to explain why this event matters for the community.

Michael Fratantoni: My name is Michael Fratantoni, I'm the curator of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Museum. I've been involved actively with the museum for well over 20 years, seven years as full-time with the Sheriff's Department, Information Bureau, and the museum. 

Michael Fratantoni: The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Museum basically covers the 172-year history of the Sheriff's Department, and we always say you can't talk about Los Angeles County, unless you talk about the Sheriff's Department. We've been here since day one, since 1850. Our museum actually highlights the history of the Sheriff's Department, also the history of Los Angeles County. We have photographs, documents, vehicles, relics from famous criminal cases, all the way up to some interesting oddball stuff. So, once the museum is open, we want to share it with the public, share that history and really build that bridge. 

Michael Fratantoni: We are now in the process of doing fundraisers, we want to do community outreach, our unit is actually involved with community relations and we figured, why not for Halloween? October is here, it's a fun time where we could all get together and enjoy the festivities, and it also goes to a great cause in funding our museum, keeping our doors open, helping us restore our vintage vehicles, helping us archive our amazing collection, and best of all, helps us interact with the community, and eventually bring them into the museum so they can learn about the great history of the Sheriff's Department.

Michael Fratantoni: Luckily, we were able to partner up with some great folks, Scott, Tim, and Greg all had haunts, they all came together, collaborated, their haunts are no longer competing, and they created Bones Gulch, which is the haunt you see here today. This equestrian center has a long history here, and we decided what better place to have it? We used to have our chili cook-offs and other events here, BBQs. Obviously, with COVID we've been shut down for several years. We figured, why not open it up with a Halloween event? 

Michael Fratantoni: We're glad the community came out, we were able to interact with them, talk with them. A lot of people were really appreciative, had fun, it's somewhat kid-friendly, so you can bring the family to enjoy, to have a good time, and know that the money goes to a good cause, it goes to the Sheriff's museum.

Philip Hernandez: You went to see Beware the Dark Realm last year?

Michael Fratantoni: Yes, yes.

Philip Hernandez: How did you get the idea? Like, I understand you're like, oh, we have the center, and you know, we want to do something for the families and all that. So how did you get from that to like, let's make a haunted house?

Michael Fratantoni: So, our headquarters is out of the Hall of Justice, which used to be the county coroner's office. That's where our museum is. All we get is phone calls from ghost hunters and all these paranormal shows wanting to come there because it's a place where Marilyn Monroe was autopsied, the Black Dahlia, and Bugsy Siegel, all these famous cases came through there, and everyone has this kind of interest in it. The ghost thing is very popular, we got a lot of phone calls, even though as museums we tend not to deal with that, that's kind of a separate category. But long story short, when it came down to it we're thinking about fundraisers we have to do a big fundraiser, what are we going to do? Every year, Scott lives near me, the block was backed up with people coming to visit, see Halloween stuff, so much so that it was becoming difficult for some of the neighbors, it was just hard to find parking. We said, well, we have this venue that hasn't been used in three years, let's do it. We just kind of put our heads together and we made it happen.

Michael Fratantoni: We were surprised it did happen because there was some red tape of course, but we had success. We had no issues. Everyone came out here tonight and had a good time. Our event on the 30th is going to be a big event because that's for the kid's trunk-or-treat car show. It's just our way for us to give back. We're so busy with all that's going on right now it's very hard for us to give back, we have to do it on our own time and, volunteer and kind of create these events, so this is why we do it.

Michael Fratantoni: I also want to give out thanks to The Scouts, the Boy Scouts, for coming out here today, our reserves, and all of our other volunteers. We really appreciate that.

Tim Fowler: We are open every Saturday in October from 6:00 to 10:00 PM and the last Sunday, October 30th from 6:00 to 10:00 PM. On October 30th from noon to 4:00 PM, we are having a family-friendly event, which is free. Tickets are available at bonesgulch.com. You can also search it up on Eventbrite.