The Ghosts of Texas

The Catfish Plantation Restaurant is located in Waxahachie, Texas not far from Dallas. The town of Waxahachie can be seen in such movies as “Places of the Heart”, “Tender Mercies”, and “A Trip to Bountiful”. It has also been filmed in other TV movies and television series because of its historical buildings, houses, and courthouse. The restaurant itself is popular because of the spirits that inhabit it.

The Catfish Plantation Restaurant is housed in an 1895 “gingerbread-type” Victorian house. It was built by a farmer named Anderson and bought by the Bakers in 1984. In the front of the restaurant is a large, bay window that looks down on the street that goes through the main part of downtown Waxahachie. There is a large, front porch and a big, front yard enclosed by a white picket fence. The house was a private residence until 1970 and then used as a doctor’s office after which it became the home of several unsuccessful restaurants before Tom and Melissa Baker bought it. The restaurant has 3 dining rooms with wood-burning fireplaces.

In 2007 the Bakers sold the restaurant to the Landis Family, who invited the nationally acclaimed Association for the Study of Unexplained Phenomena to re-investigate the locale. It was confirmed that there are several spirits, which are categorized as “friendly and positive”.

The spirits are 2 women and one man

Caroline is described as a woman who lived in the house from 1953 to 1970 with her husband and family. She died at the age of 80 and doesn’t know she has passed on.

Elizabeth Anderson was the 20-year-old daughter of Farmer Anderson. Tragically she was strangled on her wedding day by either her ex-boyfriend or an old girlfriend of her future husband.

Will is a quiet ghost who was a farmer living in the house during the Depression years.

Ghostly Brewed Coffee

When the Bakers first bought the property, Mrs. Baker commuted to Waxahachie to work on the restaurant while Mr. Baker still worked in Dallas. At this time Mrs. Baker was the only one who had a key to the place. She was the first on there in the morning and the last one to lock up at night. Unlocking the door one morning she smelled the tantalizing aroma of freshly brewed coffee and found to her surprise a pot of fresh brewed coffee in the kitchen. It appeared that the entity of Caroline was being very hospitable, however, three weeks later Mrs. Baker found the restaurant’s large, stainless steel iced tea urn sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor with all of the coffee cups neatly stacked inside as if the entity wanted to say now take your things and go.

Flying cups and food

Then restaurant employees started telling Mrs. Baker about how coffee cups flew through the air by themselves all the way across the rooms and how a can of freeze-dried chives transported itself from the kitchen shelf flew across the room spewing out chives as it flew by. Food has flown out of nowhere and hit employees. Wine glasses have smashed at a very quick rate making it hard to keep up with the restaurant supply. It was apparent that Caroline didn’t approve of alcohol in her house.

The Ghostly Bride

Elizabeth first appeared during a séance which was held in the dining room. It was led by a woman, Ruth Jones, a local with psychic talent. There came a knocking on the wall, dishes rattled in the kitchen and the candle in the middle of the table came up “like an explosion of light”. Suddenly the kitchen door burst open with a bang and a young woman in an old wedding gown floated into the room. Psychics identified her as Elizabeth. Her presence has come to be detectable by the sweet scent of roses, moving cold spots, and appearances. This entity especially likes to materialize by the front bay window and wistfully looking out in the direction of downtown, either standing or sitting at a table near this window.

Elizabeth also likes reaching out to people, touching them, and has been known to follow customers home. One evening Mrs. Baker was doing some paperwork and felt a gentle, cold sensation on her right hand. She thought that Elizabeth was holding her hand for about 15 minutes. One day a family – mother, father, and their baby Alicia sat down at a table near the bay window. While eating her dinner the mom happened to look up and saw that the name Alicia had been written in the mist on the window. It was confirmed by the waitress and Mr. Baker. This couldn’t have been done by anybody living because they would have been seen doing the writing.

Another time Elizabeth followed a lady customer home for a short visit. This may have been because the lady expressed sympathetic thoughts for Elizabeth during her meal. At 11:30 at night Elizabeth appeared by her bed. This gentle entity woke up the lady and gave her as a gift an old-fashioned powder box shaped like a lady. The startled woman heard a kind voice saying, “Here you are,” and then saw a solid apparition of a 20-year-old woman from the waist up, between the bed and the bedside clock. The woman’s face could be seen clearly she had gentle brown eyes, and straight brown hair worn close to her head. She was wearing a 1900 afternoon beige frock with a low, round neckline decorated with lace and embroidery.

Spirit on the Porch

The third ghost, Will likes to be around the big, front porch but does cause some cold spots in the restaurant. Pulling up to the restaurant police have seen a man dressed in overalls, standing on the front porch. When they get out of the car and walk over toward him, he disappears right in front of them.

Other happenings at the restaurant that point toward haunting are cold spots moving about the restaurant, broken clocks that chime, doors that lock and unlock themselves, lights that go on and off by themselves, water faucets turning on and off, and refrigerator doors opening and closing.

A lot of psychic research has been done to identify the entities. When the Bakers still owned the restaurant they started handing out leaflets that gave explanations of the ghostly inhabitants to the patrons so that they would feel free to tell of any ghostly experiences while dining there. A sign was put up at the entrance to the restaurant saying: “If you have a ghostly experience, please tell us!”

Now for a trip to Texas and a delicious catfish dinner with delightful ghostly company.

The Alamo is located in the heart of San Antonio. The Alamo building is made of stone and was built in 1718 -24 by the Franciscan Monks who called the mission San Antonio de Valero. For about 70 years they ministered to local Indians.

In 1793, Spain “secularized” the five missions in Texas, giving the land to Indian farmers and turning the mission over to the military to use as a military post. In the early 1800s, a cavalry unit was stationed there and the first recorded hospital in the Long Barrack was opened. The soldiers stationed there renamed the building, The Alamo (meaning cottonwood in Spanish), in honor of their hometown, Alamo De Parras Coahuila.

The Alamo and San Antonia became the focal points in the upcoming Mexican struggle against Spain for independence. At various times both the Revolutionaries and the Loyalists fought for and took over the Alamo. The Mexicans won the Alamo military post and quartered their troops in San Antonio.

Texas's struggle for independence from Mexico came to a head in 1835. In December of 1935, Ben Milam led the Texan and Tejano volunteer army in a house-to-house battle in San Antonio, which lasted 5 days. They forced General Marin Perfecto de Cos and his men to give up and the Texas freedom fighters took over the Alamo.

On February 23, 1836, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and his army of 4000 men arrived to take back San Antonio and the Alamo. The only reinforcements that came to help the Alamo defenders were 32 men, who showed up on day 8 of the battle. Among the 200 defenders were Davy Crockett and James Bowie. They held out for 13 days and finally, the Mexican army overran the Alamo early on the morning of March 6, 1836, killing all the defenders and some of the women and children hiding there. About 20 women and children survived. Generally, it was a massacre.

Since 1905, The Daughters of the Republic of Texas have managed the Alamo preserving its place in history.

The manifestations started soon after the bloodbath at the Alamo because the defenders and others killed inside the Alamo were dumped into a mass grave and other civilians, soldiers, and defenders killed in other places around San Antonio were not buried at all.

Ghostly hands and voices

General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna ordered Mexican engineers to tear down the Alamo to the last brick. When the engineers started tearing down the walls they saw ghostly hands reaching out from the walls to stop them. The end result was that a loud, ghostly voice warned them to stop tearing down the Alamo or they would face a terrible death. There are those who think that it was the founding monks who scared the engineers out of their wits but whatever saved the Alamo completed its mission and the Alamo was eventually rebuilt.

Spirits emerging from walls

Many apparitions have been seen, some deformed emerging from the walls during the evening by guests staying at the nearby Menger Hotel, which has become a temporary resting place for spirits who wander in from the Alamo.

Many apparitions

One apparition has been seen running along the top of the Alamo looking for a way out. There is an entity dressed in a black cloak, who is soaking wet. In solid form and looks like a real person. When questioned he simply disappears. The sounds of laughter from the spirits of the murdered children could be heard during the night. The apparition of a monk was spotted in the courtyard on the north side of the church. He was going about his business walking into a wall that was once a doorway. In the gift museum, voices can be heard, and the sobs of a woman as well as the sounds of footsteps and heavy pounding on the doors. In the Alamo Hall furniture shakes by itself and the apparition of a young cowboy dressed in the Western attire of the 1800’s appears in solid form. Windows and doors open and close and lights go on and off.

At the Menger Hotel:

The Menger Hotel was built just steps away from the Alamo and just 23 years after the bloody massacre. It is home to many apparitions. A hotel maid Sallie White was murdered by her husband. She was buried at the hotel's expense. Now she walks about the hotel corridors dressed in an old, gray skirt with a bandana about her head carrying towels she never delivers.

Captain Richard King, founder of the King Ranch appears now and then in his room, the King Suite. Guests and employees alike have seen him. The strangest thing is that he never uses the suite door but goes through the wall where there used to be a door to the suite when Captain King resided there.

A guest came out of the shower and walked into his bedroom to find the figure of a man in a buckskin jacket and gray trousers speaking to someone in the room who could not be seen. The man in the buckskin jacket asked 3 times: “Are you gonna stay or are you gonna go?”

A hotel employee saw a lady sitting and knitting in the original lobby of the Menger Hotel. She was wearing a dated blue dress and a beret with a tassel. She had on small glasses in a metal frame. The employee asked her, “Are you comfortable… May I get you something?” To which the lady replied in an unfriendly tone “No” and promptly disappeared.

So as the saying goes, “Don’t forget the Alamo!”