10/15/2026
From the Files: Dispatches from Peter White Public Library’s Local History Research Room 📜
Do you believe in Ghosts? As you probably know, October is dubbed by many as “Spooky Season.” In this spirit comes this month’s Throwback Thursday:
Paranormal Enthusiasts, rejoice! For we live in an area with ample tales of ghost sightings. In the Local History Research Room we even have a file titled “Ghosts.” It was here I found GHOST SAID TO WALK IN SOUTH MARQUETTE, a Mining Journal article from February 1909.
Abridged: “The residents of South Marquette who live near the ruins of the burned convent on Rock Street are agog over a ghost, which is said to have made its appearance in that locality on several occasions within the last two or three weeks. The apparition is said to have frightened several people returning home late at night, when it stalked through the convent gate. Only a few night ago a woman, who had but recently gotten out of the hospital, was so badly frightened by the apparition that she fainted and had to be carried into a nearby home. A little girl returning from the theater recently had a similar experience with the ghost, fell into a dead faint and did not revive for twenty minutes after she had been taken into a nearby residence. One of the students at the Ferguson Business college told the following story of his experience with the apparition: “I was going home rather late a few nights ago, when I noticed a tall, white figure, covered from head to foot with something resembling a sheet, standing in the old convent gate. I was on the opposite side of the street and stopped to look at the strange sight more closely. Just then the figure started across the street towards me and I started for home as fast as I could run, too frightened to desire any further knowledge of what the specter might be or what it would want from me.” As prints of a woman’s shoe have been found on the ground near the convent, some believe the so-called ghost is of the female s*x. The police have been notified on the ghost’s repeated appearances, and are also on the lookout for it.”
