'Ghost'lahoma City: 5 tales of ghosts and spirits from the OKC metro area
As the Oklahoma wind blows, a shiver creeps up your spine. You get the distinct feeling that you're not alone, but when you look around there's nobody there, or perhaps they simply can't be seen. Is it the ghost of someone who once inhabited the same space, or a loved one come to visit? In Oklahoma, tales of the haunted date back to well before the state's founding and the state capital has more than its fair share of alleged spirits.
Research compiled by Porch Group, a multi-service software company for homeowners, could explain why the hair on the back of your neck stands up while traveling the Sooner state. According to studies published on the company's site, Oklahoma has the third-highest number of haunted structures per capita, and also ranks third for the most ghost sightings per capita. So that feeling of not being alone just might have some merit.
Perhaps the most well-known Oklahoma City ghost story is that of "Effie," the spirit said to haunt the Skirvin Hilton Hotel in downtown. Many, including a number of NBA players, have cited strange occurrences while staying in the hotel. Effie was said to have been a maid, and the pregnant mistress of hotel owner W.B. Skirvin. Locked away on the hotel's 10th floor until she gave birth, she eventually jumped from the building with her baby in her arms, according to legend.
While there's nothing to point to that version of the story being true, Jeff Provine, author of several books about Oklahoma hauntings, said there are a number of other theories on who Effie really was or why she might not have been openly spoken about. They range from her true job possibly being as a prostitute, to her involvement in confirmed Prohibition Era shenanigans on the hotel's top floor, to her racial background.
"I did have a guest on a ghost tour a couple of weeks ago who, from the version of the story that he heard, she was mixed race, so [Skirvin] wouldn't have been able to marry her, just in social standing things," Provine said.
What ghostly tales exist beyond Effie and her untimely end? Turns out there's a lot. Provine, who leads ghost tours in downtown Oklahoma City, downtown Norman and on the University of Oklahoma campus, walked us through some of the standouts from across the metro area.
1. The Headless Ghost of Trosper Golf Course
The origins of the headless ghost's story begin on prom night in the 1950s, according to Provine. A young woman and her date were in the area when her beau upset her, causing her to leave the truck and begin walking home. Ignoring his pleas for her to return to the car, she continued walking away. The young man decided to "rev the engine to spook her and the clutch slipped," causing the vehicle to decapitate the young woman.
"They say that there's a lady in a prom dress carrying her head walking out there and (people experience) engine trouble, the radio turns to static and all kinds of fun stuff," Provine said.
2. The Kingman-Moore Agricultural Implement Co.
Another of Oklahoma City's oldest ghost stories dates back to the Kingman building in what is today Bricktown. Provine writes in his book that among Bricktown destinations, no building is more haunted. The stories of the building include a poltergeist in the Bricktown Candy Co., said to hold doors closed or open them mysteriously as if "pranking staff and customers."
More perplexing, though, is the "apparition of a big man in a long, black coat." Many believe this to be the ghost of a man who attempted a botched robbery on the Kingman and its "well-stocked safe" that despite having a steel door, was lined with wood inside.
"This guy schemed to get himself locked in and then he was going to burn his way out, but he picked the wrong wood lining and hit the brick on the other side and it back-burned and got him," Provine said. "The legend is that he is still trying this robbery. They have this repeating phantom of a guy with kind of shaggy, dark hair wearing a long, dark coat who walks into Yucatan Taco Stand and turns the corner to where the old safe used to be."
That area is now the kitchen, and when employees, thinking the man is a lost customer, tell him he can't come in, he simply vanishes, according to lore.
3. Deep Deuce's Haywood Building
A few years newer and just up the road from the Kingman building stands the Haywood Building in Deep Deuce. Now home to Deep Deuce Grill, the Haywood was purchased in the late 1930s by Oklahoma's first Black doctor, William Lewis Haywood. Haywood renovated the space for use as a shop and medical practice. His spirit is said to remain to this day, as if watching over his beloved building.
"He keeps them on their toes. They'll lock the front door, close off the lights and everything for closing, go in the kitchen and clean stuff up, and as they're heading out, the lights are back on and the front door is open," Provine said. "That's Dr. Haywood saying 'Oh hey, it's early. We can still make some money, open back up.'"
4. Mex, the University of Oklahoma ghost dog
One of Provine's favorite tales of an Oklahoma City metro-area spirit isn't the ghost of a human at all. The first mascot at OU was actually a dog named Mex. He found a home at the university from 1915 to 1928. For OU home games, Mex would don a crimson and cream sweater and hat and sit on the sidelines. His job? To keep varmints and stray dogs off the field.
"[They] trained him to bark every time there was a touchdown and howl every time there was a kick," Provine said. "He was their good luck charm up until he passed away in 1928."
Mex was so beloved at the time of his death that the university closed for his funeral, and thousands attended a funeral procession on Lindsey Street. He was placed in a casket and buried under the 50-yard-line "so he could still come to all the home games," Provine said.
"They say you can still hear him howl and bark during games," he said. "I've had students who are football players and several of them have said they'd be sitting on the bench and they'd just kind of let their hands dangle and they'd feel this little dog come up and lick the sweat off their fingers."
When the players would look for the dog, there wasn't one. Similarly, a sports photographer once told Provine that he felt a small dog sit next to him and lean against his leg during a game, the same way his own would at home. He, too, saw nothing when he looked for the dog.
5. Stone Lion Inn Bed & Breakfast — Guthrie
Provine said one thing that could contribute to hauntings is "something for the previous energy to attach to." Perhaps that's why in Guthrie, just north of Oklahoma City, ghost stories abound. Provine said because the city's downtown was essentially frozen in time when it lost the claim to being Oklahoma's capital city, story after story exists. The leader of one Guthrie ghost tour told Provine she knew 66 different Guthrie ghost tales.
One of the most well known of those is the tale of 8-year-old Irene Houghton. The Houghton family mansion, now the Stone Lion Inn, is also where Irene met her demise. The child, sick with whooping cough, was accidentally given an overdose of medication by her nanny, according to the story.
Visitors to the inn report hearing footsteps between the second and third floors, the sounds of children playing and even toys left out in the playrooms. Others report feeling a child's hand touching them or tugging their feet while they sleep.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: 5 stories of ghosts and hauntings in the Oklahoma City metro area
