SCHUYLKILL HAVEN — With hammers and nails, wooden beams, crosses and coffins, workers are turning the former Meck Knitting Mill into a haunted attraction.
“It’s going to be ‘The Meck Haunted Mill.’ And we’re doing a vampire theme this year,” Ed Wenrich, 29, of Schuylkill Haven, the producer and director of the project, said Wednesday.
It will be open from Sept. 19 to Nov. 2 at 101 W. Main St. Admission will be $13 per person, according to Wenrich.
“The first two weeks, we’ll be open Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And every week in October will be Thursday through Sunday,” Wenrich said.
The building is owned by Lori Michael, owner and executive director of Lori’s Angels, Schuylkill Haven, according to Wenrich.
According to the online Schuylkill Parcel Locator, the building at 101 W. Main St., built in 1906, has been owned by JLSKM Properties LLC, Auburn, since June 15, 2012.
In June 2012, The Shoppes At The Meck Knitting Mill opened there. It featured spaces vendors could rent.
Earlier this year, The Shoppes moved to 25 W. Main St. inside the Lori’s Angels Conference Center, according to its website.
“It was too expensive to keep the building open,” Michael said.
According to Wenrich, it was Michael’s idea to turn the two-story mill into a haunted attraction.
“Actually, it my son, Stephen, who suggested it. And hopefully it’s going to bring a lot of people into the county too,” Lori Michael said Thursday.
The future of the building at 101 W. Main St. is uncertain, but Michael said she hopes the Halloween haunt is a hit.
“We’re looking at doing this haunted house every year,” she said.
The Meck Haunted Mill will feature a cast of 19 actors and six people working behind the scenes, Wenrich said.
“This year, we’re going to hold the haunted house in the basement and the first floor. Next year, if we do it again, we’d like to incorporate the whole building. I think it’s a 14,000-square-foot building. This year, we’ll use about 8,000 square feet of it for the haunted house,” Wenrich said.
There are sections of the building that easily fit into Wenrich’s vision, including one room the basement. Its brick walls have a black tinge.
“This might have been a coal bin. And when I saw it, I thought, ‘This is awesome!’ This will be the first room people walk into,” Wenrich said.
On Wednesday morning, Wenrich’s crew had four wooden coffins down there.
“We built them two weeks ago. Each one is 6 feet, 2 inches tall,” he said.
Members of his crew were putting up new walls in the basement, building new rooms to showcase scenes to dazzle and stun the senses.
“I think we’re going to have 16 scenes. There will be guides throughout who will tell you where to go. And we’re working to tell a story through this. At your normal haunted attraction, it’s just scare, scare, scare. We want you to learn about our characters,” Wenrich said.
The “Joseph H. Zerbey History of Pottsville and Schuylkill County,” published in 1936, includes a bit of history of the mill:
“Walter Meck started business in 1900 with D.D. Coldren. It was called the Meck and Coldren Mill. In 1906, Mr. Meck started business on West Main Street in a two-story frame building, together with Harry Reber and Milton Meck. In 1926, Mr. Reber and Milton Meck discontinued in business leaving Walter Meck the sole owner,” according to the Zerbey History.
In 1936, 40 people were working there making cotton underwear, according to the Zerbey History.
In August 1947, the Meck Knitting Mills Inc. sold the property to Timothy P. and Candace L. Osborne for $325,000, according to the parcel locator.
After relinquishing ownership to the Fessler family for about 50 years, the Meck family reacquired the plant in 1994, according to the newspaper’s archives.
In December 2010, the Osbornes sold the property to Meck Realty Partners LP for $325,000. And in June 2012, Meck Realty sold the property to JLSKM Properties LLC for $225,000, according to the parcel locator.
JLSKM Properties LLC is Lori Michael and her husband, John.
A native of Berks County, Wenrich said he’s worked as an actor and a set designer for Shocktoberfest, Sinking Spring, Berks County, from 2001 to 2003. Then, he worked as an actor with Entourage Entertainment, Reading, from 2001 to 2007.
He moved to Schuylkill Haven last year and works as a sales clerk at Radio Shack at Fairlane Village Mall, Pottsville.
For more information, visit The Meck Haunted Mill Facebook page.