Warning– this is a long post– but for those of you interested in this sort of thing, it will make for intriguing reading.
MANY people approach me, particularly this time of year, looking for “ghost stories” or “tunnel stories” for The Grand. Following is an excellent article written for us in 1998 by Karen Sage. It is meant for your entertainment, so please, respect her copyright. Enjoy!
MYSTERIES OF THE GRAND
A woman in Victorian dress appears in the box section, or moving about in the Grand… A headless male figure looms in the balcony… the spirit of a benevolent stagehand protects actors and stage technicians from possible mishaps… A barking dog even roams the basement…
Real or imagined? These and other stories have circulated among past and present performers and visitors of the Grand Opera House in Oshkosh. Such apparitions have stymied those who have witnessed them, attracted the attention of experts on the supernatural, and even brought a group of students to camp out in the building in search of these ghosts.
Witnesses have seen hazy audiences seated in the balcony and figures sitting in old theater chairs stored in a dark basement area. Some have heard doors opening and closing in the basement, and a dog barking there late at night.
During the 1970s, theater operators Bill and Linda Seaton claimed that steel bars and a heavy chain were ripped away from an interior door one night, even though all of the exterior doors remained locked. Linda Seaton said that this damage must have occurred from inside the empty opera house.
Bill Seaton also said sandbags from the old backstage hoist system had mysteriously dropped onto the stage (Dave Curran, Oshkosh Advance-Titan 11/30/78).
“‘It’s haunted as a bedbug,’ Seaton once claimed. ‘Everyone who has worked here has heard them; doors slamming, dogs barking, footsteps. You get used to it’” (Michael Bever, Advance-Titan 2/26/76).
One university student involved in the filming of the 1976 horror movie Exit Dying thought he saw a figure move toward him in a hallway near the dressing rooms. Another student felt someone or something grab at her as she walked down the same hallway (Dave Curran, Advance-Titan 11/30/78).
Some other members of the crew reported seeing a man exit the orchestra pit and disappear after entering a small room (Arthur Myers, “The Stage Manager Who Won’t Retire,” The Ghostly Register). And one young woman became separated from the rest of the film group when she felt something clutch her ankle and restrain her at the bottom of the basement stairs near a coal bin (Bob Jacobs, Phantom of the Opera House Fate magazine).
Bob Jacobs, who produced the film “Exit Dying” at the Grand, said he saw the deceased Percy Keene, a stagehand for more than 70 years at the opera house (Dave Curran, Advance-Titan 11/30/78). He said the smiling, bespectacled, grey-haired spirit of Keene appeared in the balcony shortly after the first private showing of the movie.
Jacobs said such a benevolent spirit must have watched over a stage assistant as he hung from a supporting rope during the filming of the movie, for although Larry Schroeder had been suspended above the stage for over an hour, the rope snapped only as his feet safely touched ground (Myers, Ghostly Register).
Bill Seaton claimed that when he was in the balcony, he often was tapped on the shoulder by Keene (Dave Curran, Advance-Titan 11/30/78). And it was reported that a picture of a “faintly visible old man” believed to be Keene was taken during the filming of “Exit Dying” (Charity Brand, North Star, Oshkosh North High School 10/19/90; also Curran, Advance-Titan 11/30/78). (Jacobs includes this “photo” in his Fate magazine article).
A member of a local theater group told of his encounter with an apparition as he came around a corner on his way from his dressing room to the stage. This mysterious figure of a man in turn-of-the-century dress held up an old playbill from the Grand.
An acquaintance of Bob Jacobs’, who had not yet heard of the Grand’s ghosts, once reported seeing a “night-watchman” peering out a window of the opera house late at night, although there never was a watchman on duty there (Myers, Ghostly Register).
In 1984, a Connecticut couple who research psychic phenomena visited the Grand before arriving at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh campus for a presentation on apparitions and exorcisms they had experienced, including the famed Amityville, N. Y. “horror.”
Lorraine and Ed Warren came into the opera house, which then was in the process of being restored, and awaited the presence of the Grand’s alleged ghosts. Mrs. Warren, a clairvoyant, said she felt a pervasive sense of sadness while she stood on the stage of the Grand. She also saw a woman in a rose-colored dress carrying something like a cane, and a dog with a large ruff (Oshkosh Northwestern 2/9/84).
The Warrens returned to the newly-restored opera house in 1987 to give a formal talk on their studies of supernatural phenomena. Lorraine Warren said she still felt the presence of a female ghost there, and that not only were the ghosts yet remaining at the Grand, but were even more likely to be there than during the days of the building’s disrepair (Jaye Alderson, ON 2/26/87).
Oshkosh resident Betty MacNichol, who was involved in the theater’s restoration, recalled Lorraine Warren’s description of the “kind” lady ghost wearing a dress made of an iridescent material that first appeared pink, then blue. Mrs. Warren also said that the spirit of the headless man in Shakespearean costume still was present in the balcony during her second visit. The presence of the dog, however, was no longer there, according to Mrs. Warren. Some recent performers, though, have claimed hearing the faint clicking sound of a dog padding across a floor (Sandy Mickelson, ON 10/31/90).
A group of Winneconne High School girls braved such rumors and camped out overnight in the opera house for the second year in 1992. The eighteen students of Peter Hansen’s psychology class and three chaperones spent the wee hours searching for evidence of spirits at the Grand, and some of them came away with stories of their own.
One girl said she saw the figure of a middle-aged man dressed in blue pants and a red shirt in the balcony, and although none of her classmates saw any ghosts, many felt the presence of someone and experienced the feeling of being watched. Some members of the group also reported hearing a dog barking inside the building (Doug Zellmer, ON 3/22/92).
In November 1994, two researchers of ghostly phenomena, Timothy Harte and Mike Hollinshead, toured the Grand with Scotty Rorek, who owned a nearby comedy club. Harte said that he felt as if someone was watching him from near one of the box seats as he climbed the balcony steps, and that he saw “a globe of light” there; at the same time, Hollinshead’s camera malfunctioned, emitting noise and failing to focus on the peculiar light. Harte heard “an old man coughing” in the basement, and Hollinshead found a 1978 newspaper that suddenly appeared in an area the researchers had already passed several times (Timothy Harte letter, 8/23/99).
Performers also have described ghostly encounters they experienced. Most say the spirits are friendly ones who even applaud performers. One woman claimed that she once tried to sit in an empty seat during a rehearsal, and felt like she’d sat down on someone’s lap (Sandy Mickelson, ON 10/31/90).
Such stories are well-known to the volunteers and docents who donate their time at the Grand. Usher and docent Shirley Anderson recalls that in the 1980s, some Oshkosh university students rehearsing in the theater saw “an older woman in a purple dress in the balcony,” and that one of the students later felt that she might be the spirit of his grandmother, who had passed away in Indiana shortly before this event (Shirley Anderson — Ghost Story).
Volunteer Kay Wickert said that she and another volunteer were watching the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar” in the spring of 1998 when the house lights flickered and then went out for a few seconds. Wickert wonders whether this might have been a religious sign, or perhaps “our famous spooky electrical man,” Percy Keene.
A volunteer named Lorelei remembers a small boy, at the Grand for a tour, describing a lady “ghost” in Victorian dress that he saw standing in an aisle while the boy’s group was practicing for a play. Lorelei also related a story as told to her by a man on a later tour. The man claimed that a “psychic” acquaintance of his had also seen a woman in Victorian dress in the crowd at one of the Grand’s events during intermission (Lorelei — Ghost Story).
In addition to the rumored ghosts at the Grand, some local citizens also debate the past existence of tunnels beneath the opera house, especially one which was supposed to have run underground between the Grand and the since-razed Athearn Hotel across the street, once the lodging of stage greats who performed at the Grand during its earlier years. Some claim that this tunnel was simply a practical mode of transportation for performers.
Others relate tales of underground shops, mysterious meetings, and even Prohibition-era speakeasy parties in the reputed tunnel.
Bill Seaton, who operated the opera house during the 1970s, claimed that an arcade once ran underneath the sidewalk on Market Street and housed small shops during the turn of the century (Diana Kipp, Advance-Titan 1/30/75; also Edith Bock, Appleton Post-Crescent 2/23/75).
Seaton and others involved in the project of uncovering old features in the opera house in 1975 maintained that stoned-over areas were once windows, restrooms and doors leading to the shops (Oshkosh Daily Northwestern 2/25/75). One 1976 photo taken in the basement of a building adjacent to the Grand shows what is said to be the crumbling remains of an old kitchen area from an underground café (Mike Bever, Advance-Titan 2/19/76).
Jacobs is convinced that tunnels once ran beneath the streets of the city, connecting the Grand to other downtown buildings. He said two female Oshkosh university students entered one of these tunnels to hunt for ghosts during the time of the movie’s filming, and were terrified to see a human-shaped aura rising from the tunnel’s dirt floor (Jacobs, Fate).
Oshkosh resident Lillian Fraser once worked at the Athearn Hotel and later cared for Dolly Athearn, daughter-in-law of original hotel owner George Athearn. Mrs. Fraser related Dolly Athearn’s insistence that the tunnel between the Athearn and the Grand was real, although kept somewhat hidden
Mrs. Athearn told stories of drinking and gambling that went on in the tunnel during Prohibition. She also claimed that showgirls staying at the hotel used the underground passage to go to the Grand for their performances, rather than going through the lobby (Mary Ann Koene, ON 12/16/84).
The late Percy Keene also said there was a tunnel leading from the Grand to the Athearn, as well as underground shops. Joanne Alderson saw evidence of this underground arcade when she first entered the Grand in 1958 (Jo Alderson notes).
But late local historian Carl Steiger, who knew both George Athearn and Dolly’s husband Fred, denied the existence of the tunnel, as does Oshkosh resident Tom MacNichol, who was involved in the restoration of the Grand. Workmen reported an archway and recessed wall area in the basement of the Grand on the south wall, facing the direction of the Athearn, but Richard Kempinger of the architectural firm hired to restore the Grand said this was simply a remnant of old shops that were once outside the building’s basement, accessible from a stairway from the street (Koene, ON 12/16/84).
During the 1980s Julie Krysiak hoped to discover the facts behind the rumors of underground passages in Oshkosh, including the tunnel that may have connected the Grand Opera House and the Athearn Hotel. In May 1996, Krysiak led members of the Winnebago County Historical Society on a cavern-seeking tour of the Market Street area.
Bob Jungwirth, a former mayor of Oshkosh, insisted that the tunnel once existed, and said that he went about 20 feet into this tunnel as a child in the 1930s, while his mother worked cleaning the Grand in the evening. Jungwirth and several other area citizens who claim that they also stood inside the tunnels are vexed by the insistence of other residents who deny the existence of such underground passageways in the heart of Oshkosh.
Another Oshkosh citizen, Robert Zellmer, said that in the late 1940s, as a teenager, he and two of his friends entered the tunnel after hearing about its existence from two construction workers who were doing repairs in the basement of the Grand. The three high-school boys claimed that the tunnel extended from the Grand to the Athearn, and that when they told their teachers of this discovery, none of them seemed surprised.
Local resident Bill Shepherd said that, in the late 1950s, he was in the corridor that led to the Grand from a hallway near a barber shop in the basement of the Athearn. According to Shepherd, this concrete passageway extended at least 30 or 40 feet, and was used for storage. Shepherd said he and some other men entered the passage to retrieve folding chairs needed for a Jaycees convention at the hotel, but said they didn’t go all the way into the tunnel.
“Nobody questioned that the tunnel was there back in those days,” he added.
Local author and historian David Langkau also said that he stood in one of the reputed tunnels in 1967, after a Main Street business where he was employed was burglarized by way of a basement door. Langkau described the passageway as about eight feet wide, constructed of dirt, rock and concrete, but said that the officer recording the burglary report wouldn’t allow him to explore the tunnel. Langkau surmised that city officials may have denied the existence of these tunnels because of such risks to downtown businesses with access to underground corridors.
Today, all of the entrances to these reputed tunnels are bricked over. Many city residents, as well as downtown business owners, say that the rumors of such passageways are simply that. Tom MacNichol said that such rumors have persisted for years. He also denies the claims of those who say that past prominent members of the community kept the tunnels hidden because they may have been the site of speakeasies, criminal hideouts and other corrupt activities.
MacNichol and others say that what some people claim are tunnels actually are merely old underground storage rooms and coal bins (Ed Lowe, Oshkosh Buyers’ Guide Sunday 5/26/96).
Copyright © 1998 by Karen Sage
