Volume 6 , Issue 43

Duchess & Oakie's NW Corner

With Halloween just around the bend, have you decided what your costume will be to greet the ghosts, goblins and spirits that come calling this year? We would love to know and need some suggestions for ourselves! Duchess and I thought about switching skins -- BUT... that would get a little messy! Anyone have any other ideas for Halloween costumes?

Speaking of Spirits & Halloween... One of our readers suggested for this Halloween season that we might keep the "Spirit" alive and highlight some of the ghost towns of Oklahoma (or ghost towns in your area). If the spirits of our ancestors and small ghost towns could tell us something about their past today, what would they be saying? Would the spirits give us some insights into the mysteries that they left behind? Would Mabel Oakes spirit of 1910 give us all another side to the Old Opera House Murder in Alva, Oklahoma? Would the 1956 spirit of Mildred Ann Reynolds that lingers, haunts the Old Avard Gym, in Avard, Oklahoma give us some clue as to who her killer might have been? OR... will we have to wait until some witness on their deathbed leaves us a clue in future years?

Then there is the mysterious glowing tombstone and flashing red light that Alva teenagers use to view from the vantage point on the east side of the Alva swimming pool. We would love to know if today's kids still know about this tradition.

AND... What about the man that attended a Saturday night party in Avard in 1920's or 1930's and became quite inebriated. When he left the party he headed west and ended up in the Avard Lake without anyone knowing his whereabouts for awhile until they found his body and car at the bottom of the lake. Is his spirit one of those that haunts the Old Avard Gym, in northwest Oklahoma?

If you have a particular ghost town that you would like to see highlighted, please send it along. Thanks for all your help and suggestions! Meanwhile... checkout the Mailbag Corner for these and other ghostly spirits, glowing tombstones and spooklights. Especially, about the mysterious spooklight (also known as Devil's Promenade) that has a nomadic history that may go back over 100 years in an area on either side of the Missouri-Oklahoma line, about three miles west of Hornet, a small community south of Joplin.

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