Warren ghosts: Fact or fiction? Published July 13, 2007 By Airman Alex Martinez 90th Space Wing Public Affairs F. E. Warren AFB, Wyo. -- Loud, horrifying screams of a young woman bellowed throughout Warren's FamCamp. The shrieks and screams rang thick with desperation and despair. The noise awoke Airmen in the nearby dormitories who alerted Warren authorities. Under a canopy of stars, police began a four-hour search following the screams they could still hear. At the moment they neared the source of the screams, the noises would stop and start again, shifting to a different, farther location. The police never found the source of the screams. Later research discovered that in the 1920s, a young Indian woman was brutally raped and murdered by cavalry men at White Crow Creek, Warren's present day FamCamp. "I think the reason Warren has so many ghost stories is the fact that it is so old," said Jill Pope, Cheyenne Area Convention & Visitors Bureau. Mrs. Pope assists with the ghost trolley tours offered throughout Cheyenne, and one of the tour destinations is Warren. Established in 1867, Warren was known initially as Fort D.A. Russell, named after Civil War Brig. Gen. David A. Russell, and is the oldest continuously active military installation in the Air Force. The need for a military base here was apparent to President Abraham Lincoln and Congress when the decision to construct a transcontinental railroad was made. The installation's main purpose at the time was to protect the railroad workers. Stories of unexplained occurrences and reports of mysterious aberrations appearing and disappearing have been documented continuously since the base first opened. Some stories involve cavalry men being seen in full dress around base. One occurrence involved a security forces member who was working a night shift. As he came around the side of a building, the Airman noticed a soldier, dressed in an old cavalry uniform and standing at attention on the side of the building. As the security forces member neared him, the man disappeared. Warren's Bldg. 34 was home to the base hospital before it became the security forces headquarters building. Many of the ghost stories originate from this location. The basement of Bldg. 34 used to be the hospital morgue and has been the place of many ghostly sightings. There have been multiple sightings of a woman ghost who walks from room to room as if she is checking on patients. She is believed to be a nurse. Could this be a result of years ago when, allegedly, a mental patient escaped from the hospital, killing six nurses in their living quarters? This occurred in Bldg. 233, now home to the Wyoming Wing Civil Air Patrol. "It doesn't really bother me to work in here knowing what happened," said Michelle Schein, who works for the CAP. "In fact, it's kind of neat." One of the most famous ghost stories on base takes place in Quarters 80, often referred to as the "Gus Quarters." During the early days of the fort, Quarters 80 was home to a young officer. He was away a lot of the time on military maneuvers. One day he came home early, only to find a soldier entertaining his wife in an upstairs bedroom. With his escape route blocked by the angry husband, the soldier took an alternate route by leaping out of the second story window and accidentally hanging himself on the clothes line. Since then, Gus has been notorious for moving objects around in the house, opening cabinets and re-arranging furniture. Maybe it's true what some say he is doing: looking for his trousers. The book "Ghosts on the Range: Eerie True Tales of Wyoming" by Debra D. Munn, exposed many of Warren's ghost stories in the late 1980s and many of the ghostly encounters mentioned are still reported today.