Whether fact or fiction,
ghost stories seem to be fun
By Rhonda Watters
Battalion Reporter
“We do not believe in ghosts,
but to talk about them scares us."
E. W. Howe
The house looks like it could
come straight out of an old horror
film.
Set far back from the street, its
huge yard is overgrown with
weeds and tangled bushes, and
large trees cast, shadows on its
old Victorian frame. An unnatural
silence, broken only by the creak
of a board or the sudden howling
of the wind, surrounds the house.
And the many windows are so
dark that someone could be look
ing out and the outside world
would probably never know.
Perhaps its the atmosphere
alone that makes some people
believe the house is haunted.
This house may sound like one
out of “The Legend of Sleepy Hol
low,” but it can be found right
here in Bryan. The story sur
rounding it is one of several local
stories of ghosts or strange
phenomena that, common in
most small cities and towns, have
intrigued some of the residents of
the Bryan-College Station area.
Are the stories true? No one
knows for sure, but if they aren’t,
maybe someone should tell the
ghosts...
Although there are several
houses in this area that are ru
mored to be haunted, the one de
scribed above is more well-
known than the others. It is lo
cated in an older section of
Bryan, around 29th Street, and
has been empty for some time.
As the story goes, the house
belonged to two sisters who lived
in it by themselves until they both
had to be committed. By looking
in the windows one can see
magazines and newspapers lying
about waiting to be read, clothes
hanging up and even place set
tings still out on the table. It looks
as if one day the residents just
vanished, right in the middle of a
day’s activity.
Some local high school stu
dents claim that at times they see
lights going through the house.
There is one light in the back of
the house that stays on all the
time, though by looking in one
can’t tell where it comes from.
The house has never been sold.
It remains in the two sisters’ fam
ily, exactly as they left it.
Not all ghosts like living in
houses, or so it seems from a
story about a ghost in the base
ment of an old local church build
ing. According to a former janitor
of the church, every time a per
son got down to the bottom of the
stairs in the basement, he could
hear footsteps.
No one could explain the phe
nomenon until one day when the
cleaning woman was down there
and saw an apparition of an older
lady who had gone to that church
for more than 40 years. The
cleaning woman spoke to the ap
parition, but it did not answer her.
Instead, the image turned and
went slowly up the stairs.
No collection of ghost stories is
complete without a story about a
cemetery, and Bryan-College
Station has one of those stories
too. According to some local resi
dents, if one goes out to a certain
cemetery on Leonard Road late
continued
Photos by
Lee Roy Leschper Jr.
THE TUMBLING PORCH of this uninhabited “haunted”
house in Bryan, left, is in contrast to the inside, which is
arranged as if someone is living there. These benches, be
low, may have been the favorite summertime knitting spots
for the two sisters who used to live in the house.