A group of historic abandoned buildings sits on the outskirts of the Santa Clarita Valley to this day, and the ghost town of Mentryville has long held rumors of being “haunted” by the spirits of its former residents.

After exploring Mentryville’s deserted buildings with a paranormal investigator back in 2016, the KHTS Features team has returned once again, this time with the help of a spiritual medium. 

The History

Named after its founder, Charles Alexander Mentry, Mentryville was an oil boom town established in 1876 after Mentry built California’s first commercially viable oil well in Pico Canyon when he was 30 years old. 

Charles Alexander Mentry sitting on the porch of Pico Cottage. Photo courtesy of SCVHistory.com.

It was home to about 100 families until the 1920s, when production began to slow. Most of the oil workers who lived in Mentryville left the area with their families by the 1930s, and many even tore down their homes piece by piece to take with them to their next settling place.

Related: The Mysteries Of Mentryville: Inside The ‘Haunted’ Ghost Town With A Real-Life Paranormal Investigator (VIDEO)

Mentry died from an insect bite in 1900, which historians say “only hastened the decline” of Mentryville. In the following decades, three superintendents oversaw the town in Mentry’s place before the oil well was finally “capped off” in 1990.

The remaining buildings at Mentryville were damaged during the 1994 Northridge earthquake, a brush fire in 2003 and extensive flooding in 2004, resulting in a number of demolitions. Only a one-room schoolhouse, a barn and Mentry’s former home — a 13-room mansion known as Pico Cottage — still stand today. 

A Spiritual Medium

The KHTS Features team obtained special permission to enter Pico Cottage last week, and was joined by a spiritual medium who conducted a paranormal investigation while KHTS’ cameras rolled. 

Yesenia Berbiar has been a spiritual medium for 18 years, and has partnered with her husband to conduct paranormal investigations at “haunted” locations all over the world for almost as long. 

Yesenia Berbiar conducting a paranormal investigation inside Pico Cottage with KHTS.

“He helps me really well on the scientific side of things with paranormals, where we bring in the EMS and the recordings,” Berbiar told KHTS from the porch of Pico Cottage. “Whereas I come in on the spiritual side and I speak to the spirits, just like you and I are speaking right now.” 

Related: KHTS Investigates Canyon Country Road ‘Haunted’ By Teens Killed In Crash On Prom Night (VIDEO)

The goal of Berbiar’s paranormal investigations is to discover what’s keeping the “spirits” on earth, and then to bring peace to both the space being inhabited and the spirits themselves. 

However, in the case of “negative” spirits that don’t want Berbiar’s help, she calls on her “spiritual warrior,” Archangel Michael, to protect her from harm and “block” the spirit so she can leave safely. 

But as Berbiar shared her story with the KHTS Features team outside Pico Cottage, she noted she was being welcomed inside by a male spirit who was eager for her to meet his family and hear their stories. 

“I don’t know anything about Mentryville and its history,” Berbiar said. “I don’t want any outside influences, and I am just really excited for the spirits to come out and tell me their story… It’s basically like meeting up with old family or visiting a family, and just hearing about their history and what it was like to live here.” 

The Paranormal Investigation

As Berbiar walked through each of the deteriorating rooms of Pico Cottage, she pointed out a number of things she said the spirits were sharing with her, and even noted she felt the physical ailments that she believed the spirits had experienced during their lifetime.

Pico Cottage in Mentryville.

The first thing Berbiar felt the male spirit communicating to her was that there had been a suicide or death by hanging in or near the house, which was evidenced by a “tightness” she felt around her neck, though the KHTS Features team was unable to find any record of such an event in their research. 

Berbiar also noted that the spirits had likely experienced head trauma and a stomach disease while living in Mentryville, which she said explained the headache and nausea that she felt the night before the investigation, and continued to come and go throughout her time inside Pico Cottage. 

She later attributed these ailments to what she believes was some form of poisoning that originated in a nearby water well, though no record of such an event exists. 

“I hear a lot of crying, like there wasn’t enough help,” she said. “I keep hearing disease. And he’s telling me, ‘I want you to meet my family,’ so there’s definitely a family of five, and the kids are looking out the windows right now actually.”

Yesenia Berbiar continues her paranormal investigation inside Pico Cottage with KHTS.

Though historical records show that Mentry lived at Pico Cottage with his wife, Flora May Lake, three sons and a daughter, totalling six people, Berbiar later shared she was told that a child had died there, another assertion that could neither be confirmed or discredited through research.

Related: Is Santa Clarita’s Heritage Junction Really Haunted? (VIDEO)

In addition, the superintendents who oversaw Mentryville after Mentry’s death lived in Pico Cottage as well, and very few details about their families are available today. 

Berbiar accurately sensed that a number of buildings were missing from the town, and said a saloon was repeatedly mentioned to her by the spirits. Research revealed that Mentryville had been a “dry” town, and so no saloon had existed there, but that Mentry’s wife had worked at the Derrick Saloon in downtown Newhall, which was frequented by many of the oil drillers. 

Four specific details stood out to Berbiar during the investigation, all of which did, in fact, correlate with historical records: the names John and Mary, as well as the years 1937 and 1954. 

Records show that the last superintendent of Mentryville was John Blaney, who lived at Pico Cottage from 1937 to 1938 with his family. An “Aunt Mary” is listed in the caption of a historical photo of the Mentry family, and Mentry’s son, Arthur Charles Mentry, died in 1954 in Santa Barbara at the age of 73. 

Charles Alexander Mentry with family. Photo courtesy of SCVHistory.com.

During the investigation, Berbiar even sensed that the spirits occupying a specific room were telling her about a “new life,” and she asked a member of the KHTS Features team behind the camera if she was newly expecting a child. The answer was yes, and Berbiar felt the spirits were happy for her, but were concerned about the safety of the house.

Other observations made by Berbiar that couldn’t be proven or disproven included a “very abusive” man, whose children would hide in the pantry; an older woman with incredibly painful feet that wanted Berbiar to leave her room; and an alcoholic who Berbiar said she could feel touching her hair.

Berbiar asked the spirit of the alcoholic man to make a noise to indicate his presence, and a mysterious tapping at the window could be heard a few moments later, which could not be easily explained.

As the paranormal investigation wrapped up, Berbiar said she was able to bring peace to the spirit of a woman who had lost her baby, and was still “very angry” to this day.

“I wanted (the woman) to know that I wasn’t here just because I wanted something, but my goal was to at least help her and let her know that I feel her pain,” Berbiar said. “So that was really good.”  

The schoolhouse at Mentryville, which has been boarded up due to recent break-ins.

Do The “Spirits” Remain?

After witnessing signs of modern-day vandalism and break-ins throughout Mentryville, which left the agency overseeing the town with no choice but to board up some doorways and windows, Berbiar made the decision not to ask the spirits to leave. 

“I know the spirits are still here because they protect their home,” she said. “This is a historical place and a historical home, and there was a lot of sweat and blood and desires of making this town prosperous. So when you have people that come in and disrespect the home, obviously that’s one reason why the spirit would hang out.”

She continued, “So for that reason, I did not ask the spirit to leave. This is his home and he’s going to protect it, and as long as he’s okay with that and I know he’s in a good place, I’m okay with that.”

Ed. Note: KHTS and the spiritual medium mentioned in this story obtained special permission from Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) officials to access areas of Mentryville that are permanently closed to the public, and did so under the supervision of park rangers assigned by the MRCA.

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