It was business as usual on a Thursday evening at the Arthur Johnson Memorial Library, the one night of the week that the library extends its hours to 9:00 p.m. Library director, Thayla Wright, now retired, was working the late shift, along with a co-worker, who was shelving books on the upper level. The building was silent due to a temporary lull in patron activity. Seated at the front desk, Thayla was facing a shelf of children’s mystery books just inside the front entryway. A few books were free-standing on top of the shelf, creating a display to attract the attention of young readers. She vividly recalls, “That evening I looked up and out at the juvenile section and saw a book sail off the shelf in an arc and land eight feet or so away from the shelf. There was no one but me on that floor. While books very occasionally overbalanced and fell off the top of the shelf, landing on the floor directly in front of it, they did not sail through the air as though thrown or tossed. There was only one possible reaction – I put it back on the shelf. I was not the only staff member to see this phenomenon, usually reported with the opening statement of ‘You won’t believe this…’”.
Another eerie ghostly experience was shared by Dennie Gum, current library director, “One time I was on vacation and had to come in after hours to work on the deposit for the next work day. I sat at a table next to the checkout desk and felt a faint breeze on my cheek. I didn’t think anything of it at first but then it felt like someone was lightly pulling on my hair. Again I chose to ignore it. I think this angered the ‘ghost’ so it decided to start lifting strands of my hair up in the air, letting them fall and picking them up again. At this, I knew for sure I wasn’t alone. So, I stated, ‘Cut it out, I’m just here to do this deposit and then you can have the library back to yourselves.’ My hair fell completely still and I was able to finish what I was doing and leave”.
WHOOOOO BELIEVES IN GHOSTS?
The above baffling episodes fall into the realm of paranormal activity, which by definition describes “any type of unexplainable phenomena that falls outside of the parameters of human experience”, according to RJA Ghost Tours, an Internet source. The Ghost Tours site says that the phenomena “can vary from minor, harmless events to those that are more serious in nature”. The web page lists the following common signs of paranormal activity: frequently feeling that you are not alone in a room, odd noises that appear to have no explanation, hearing voices or whispers when you are alone, changes in temperature with no apparent cause, mysterious physical reactions, e.g. hair pulling, and inexplicable occurrences, e.g. lights turning on and off, or cupboards opening and closing.
A current study by Pew Research shows that one in five adults in the United States (18%) say they’ve seen or been in the presence of a ghost. According to a recent Gallup poll three in four Americans profess at least one paranormal belief – for example, that spirits of dead people can come back in certain places or situations, or that houses can be haunted.
THURSDAY PRANKING
BUT WAIT….There’s more!
On another Thursday evening, previous to Thayla’s retirement, she went upstairs to shelve books, check the rooms, and turn off the lights. She was working the shift with Nena Lopez, who was downstairs manning the checkout desk. Thayla recalls, “While I was shelving I heard a very loud ‘THUNK’ in the meeting room as though a chair had fallen over. I took a few steps and went in to warn whoever was still in there that we were closing. Not only was no one there, all the chairs were upright and nothing had fallen on the floor. I then went to the periodical room after checking the microfilm room and heard that loud ‘THUNK’ again, just like a chair or something heavy hitting the floor in the meeting room. I checked again, and nothing had fallen. The room was as it had been the first time. When I went back downstairs, I asked Nena if she ever heard a loud noise in the meeting room when shutting down upstairs, with no evidence of anything happening, and she said casually, ‘Yes, just the ghost’”.
At the time of a renovation and construction project in the 1990s, patrons were met at the front door with their requests, and no one was allowed in the building. During a Thursday evening shift, the two employees working reported seeing a man going up the west staircase. He was halfway up the stairs when spotted, with only his legs showing as he walked up the flight of steps, but he never put in an appearance at the top of the stairs. The building was thoroughly checked since it was supposed to be empty and found to be exactly that – empty.
Still, another Thursday incident, related by Thayla, involved a calm older employee who did not believe in ghosts and a teen who seemed to attract these anomalies. She recalls, “Both employees were in the front office. The old post office vault in there was always kept open and used as a storage supply. There were accordion folders on a shelf with colored copy paper in them, probably at least half a dozen. To their amazement, they watched those folders slide out one at a time and tip over onto the floor. It wasn’t a cascade effect, one folder causing the next to fall – just one at a time, going down the line individually. The calm, older employee called her husband to come and stay with them until the end of the shift”.
GHOSTS ON SNAPCHAT
Dennie’s most significant experience occurred when she and a co-worker were experimenting with Snapchat, a messaging app that lets users exchange pictures and videos. She says, “When I faced the lens toward my co-worker, it said, ‘found a face’. The face was not my co-worker’s face so I hit the capture button and ‘captured’ a ghost on a Snapchat picture”!
Dennie also witnessed an incident similar to Thayla’s “sailing book”. She remembers, “A co-worker and I were standing at the front desk, which at the time was a tall counter. We were standing there reading a new book that we both couldn’t wait for. It was a Thursday night and there was no one in the library at the time. Suddenly a book from the kids’ bookshelf by the front door flew off the shelf and hit one of the columns in the middle of the room. We both saw it fly. We looked at each other in amazement and asked each other ‘Did that just happen’? We giggled and brushed it off as another story we could truthfully tell about the library ghosts”.
Dennie has observed other curious paranormal activity while involved in her library work. She says, “Some late nights you can hear things like chairs or footsteps moving upstairs across the floors but when you look on the cameras, nothing is moved and no one is up there, or if you are filing in the art or history room you can hear whispers of two people talking. If you strain to hear the conversation it stops, again with no one around”. She also reports smelling sulfur or other scents at times, giving the impression that someone is milling about, but no one is.
Thayla described additional out of the ordinary experiences taking place while she was still on the job, that was collaborated by several library employees. For instance: lights that were turned off came back on shortly thereafter, books were found stacked on the floor after an employee had shelved in that area before opening or had put the books in order to start the day, chairs were rearranged in the children’s section after being tidied before opening, and children were heard laughing one evening during a false activation of the burglar alarm.
WHO ARE THESE GHOSTIES?
Who are these specters that are seemingly “haunting” the library? First, some backstory on the building, which is slightly over 100 years old. Construction of the building, located on the corner of Third Street and Cook Avenue, began in the fall of 1917. A contract was awarded to George A. Shaul, a building contractor headquartered in Seneca, Kansas, by the U.S. Treasury Department, for the construction of a post office building in Raton. Postmaster William C. Brannin, the Assistant Postmaster, clerks, carriers and department heads moved into their new quarters in July, 1919, and were open for business on July 20, 1919. The two-story building was outfitted with new furniture and office supplies and boasted two vaults with safes for the storing of stamps, money, registered letters and other valuable papers.
Fast forward to the year 1969. As a post office, the fifty-year-old building had outlived its usefulness and Raton was earmarked for a new post office. When a new post office was built, the United States government leased the old building (still in good condition) to Raton for $1.00 for thirty years, with the proviso that it remained a library during that time. The widow of prominent Raton banker, Arthur Johnson, donated $10,000 to the library for new furniture. Previously known as the Carnegie Public Library, the name was changed to Arthur Johnson Memorial Library. The move from the old Carnegie building in Ripley Park to the former post office building took place in the spring of 1969. As a result of the change to a better location, the library became more significant in the life of the community. Once the thirty-year obligation was fulfilled, ownership of the building was officially ceded to the city of Raton.
There appears to be a pattern emerging from the spooky stories of spectral phantoms reported by Thayla and Dennie. Foremost, it has become apparent that paranormal activity in the library is most likely to take place during the scheduled Thursday evening hours, or quiet times when the library is closed. The antics of the spirits indicate that they tend to be more playful than menacing. As to the identity of the library spooks, perhaps they are some of the hundreds of post office employees or library workers connected with the property through their employment in the building during the century of its existence. Speculatively speaking it could be one of Raton’s prominent historical figures, such as librarians Evlyn Shuler or Tillie Burch, banker Arthur Johnson, or Postmaster Frank Bissey. Thayla says, “I cannot tell you that I think these manifestations represent former people who worked in that building or even lived in the house that once, very long ago, stood on that site. There is a theory among ghost hunters and writers that public buildings such as theaters and hotels, public buildings where people congregate, tend to attract spirits because of the higher energy levels available to them at those times. Of course, I only noticed things when people WEREN’T around, so don’t ask me. But when you experience a few things yourself, you wonder”. Dennie states, “I would say I think that they are children, just wanting to play. I say this because none of what they do seems harmful, just that they want some attention or for you to play along with them”.
JUST PART OF WORKING AT THE LIBRARY…
Is the library a haunted ghoulery? Both Thayla and Dennie shrug off any fear over being employed in what appears to be a spooky work environment. Retiree Thayla observes, “ I seemed to notice less than some others have. It took quiet time to get my attention at all, I was too busy with the aspects of work otherwise. Also, I tended to ‘hear’ and only had one time where I ‘saw’, while others heard, saw, smelled, or felt more. My experiences and those of others didn’t bother me much as nothing was ever damaged and there were no personal attacks. Once I realized it was just part of working at the library, there wasn’t any real creep factor for me”. Dennie says, “I was more stunned than afraid. Then after the incidents, I felt amused that the ghost wanted to come out and play”! She continues, “When I first started working here the activity was more apparent, but since I have been here so long they seem to not be as active. I guess after all this time, now they know that they can’t scare me off. Only once in a while, like when we are changing the library, do they seem to fuss, but just a bit. So, my guess is they are happy with the changes so far”.
