Latest / Hidden Creatures: Stories, Sightings, and the Search for What Hides in the Dark / Episode 1: Barber's Bookstore and the 3rd Floor Ghost

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Episode 1: Barber's Bookstore and the 3rd Floor Ghost · Hidden Creatures: Stories, Sightings, and the Search for What Hides in the Dark

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Hidden Creatures, Stories Sightings, and the Search for What Hides in the Dark.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: Join us as we explore mysterious encounters, legendary creatures, and unexplained stories from around the world.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: From eyewitness accounts to local folklore, we'll follow the clues and search for the truth behind the unknown.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_03: Some stories may be unsettling, eerie, or hard to forget.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_03: Listener discretion is advised.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Something is out there.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Waiting.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Join us as we step into the shadows and follow the trail into the unknown.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is Hidden Creatures.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Let's begin.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_04: Hello to everyone out there listening.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_04: I'm Lori Chen.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome to the Hidden Creatures Podcast.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_04: This is our very first episode, and we're thrilled you're here as we step into the world of the unknown and that uneasy feeling of having more questions and answers.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_04: Have you ever been walking alone, maybe out in nature or just in your own neighborhood, lost in your thoughts, thinking about the groceries, when suddenly something shifts.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_04: The air just feels different.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_04: A prickle runs up your spine.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_04: You turn around, certain that someone is behind you, but there's no one there.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_04: You keep walking, but the feeling doesn't leave.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_04: Somehow you just know you're not alone.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_04: Most people have had a moment like that, a flash of instinct that doesn't fit neatly into logic.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_04: On this podcast, we'll be sharing stories from people who've experienced strange phenomena and we'll dig into news reports, folklore, and the historical accounts connected to these sightings from around the world.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_04: Now, let me introduce my co-host, the ever-curious Kristen Jones, the superior researcher on this podcast.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_03: Hello, everyone.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_03: Before we move on, Lori, I wanted to say something about your opening.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_03: That feeling of walking alone and suddenly getting a bad vibe.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_03: I've had that happen when I was growing up and as an adult, and I've never really talked about it before.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_04: That's exactly why we're doing this podcast, to create a space where people can talk about these experiences and connect our stories so that no one has to feel alone.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_04: I remember watching a documentary about Bigfoot researchers, and one of the hosts called himself a cryptozoologist, which I'd mistakenly assumed to mean someone who's studied make-believe creatures of myth, but he explained that crypto simply meant hidden.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_04: It's the study of creatures living or extinct that haven't been officially discovered or documented yet.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_04: And that changed how I understood what cryptozoology was and the paranormal in general.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm really glad that it did.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_03: I've seen things I can't explain that made me question things in myself because sometimes you'd feel like you're crazy.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_04: Which brings us to today's topic.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_04: For our debut episode, we're diving into the oldest bookstore in Texas, Barbers Bookstore, an amazing collection of nonfiction and historical books, and home of the third floor ghost.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_04: It's a case that's fascinated researchers, terrified locals, and left behind more questions than answers.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_04: Can you give us a rundown, Kristen?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_03: Well, this bookstore was first established in 1925 and was originally located on East Ninth Street in Fort Worth's infamous Hell's Half Acre.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: Apparently, it was very rowdy around that time.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_03: Barbers books moved to 8th and Throckmorton in the 1930s and later destroyed by a fire.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_03: The final location is in its present address across the street on Throckmorton, where many people have encountered the third floor ghost.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_03: As a side note, the third floor is actually the second floor when you enter from the ground level, but there's a basement level too.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: When I was researching, I found out that the third floor, before it was stocked full of books, was a boarding space for transients.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: Some called it a bordello, or a more common term that you and I have heard before is a brothel.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: Now, this was a low-cost place with thin walls and only 16 rooms, which is fitting for its location in Hells Happacre, the most notorious entertainment and red light district in the American West at that time.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_03: That had all changed for good when Brian Perkins Sr.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: bought the establishment.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_03: However, as you're about to hear, the happenings from the past didn't leave the building.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: And now here's our interview as we sat down with Brian Perkins Jr.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: at the end of a busy Saturday with the door to the public locked for the evening.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: Here's what the owner of the Lone Star State's oldest bookstore had to say.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_04: What do you wish people understood about your family's history with the bookstore?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: Oh uh my father got home from Korea and he figured out that uh accounting made you the most money for the least effort.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: So he became a CPA.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: And uh he didn't really like working for other people, though.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um anyway, and he he did the books for Irene Evans, who was the owner of the bookstore at that time, and he could see that she was doing pretty well.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: So uh she was at the point where she wanted to retire.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh her husband had uh come down sick and she wanted to take care of him.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: So my uh father ended up buying the bookstore.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Well, um if you've got uh if you've got books and no one wants to buy 'em, you can always take them home and read them.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_04: I've heard others talk about, you know, it's haunted, there's ghosts, you know, I'm in the bookstore.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think is I I went and I reconstructed it with my mom and my dad.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: My mother would have been the first one to have heard the ghosts.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: This would be about mid-60s.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: She's up painting the bathroom and she hears someone run up the stairs on the opposite side of the wall, which would have been Bell Reproduction at that time.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: And uh she went around and said, Yeah, somebody ran up your stairs over the weekend.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: They said, We didn't have anyone here.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: So uh a little later, uh dad was uh doing one of his 60-hour weeks, and he happened to be uh he happened to be wrapping mail at about three in the morning in uh we're at the little area which is Christianity now.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: That was our mailroom, and uh he heard a bumping up on the third floor, and there was a little uh light shaft you could look up, and he saw shadows moving back and forth over that uh little ray ray of light.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: And uh anyway, that startled him.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: He left quickly, came in the next day, and uh books had been thrown around.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: Excuse me.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: This would have been okay, my father didn't buy the book building until 69, so this anyway, a little after that, uh I was fifteen, I was on the third floor, which is where everything is that we've ever heard.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I was in this hall here, the West Hall, and I heard bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, five steps, heavy steps, going from the middle of the bookcase of the books of the stairs to the top.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, someone's running up the stairs.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: Sounds like a big man in boots.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so I thought, well, there shouldn't be anyone up here.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I gritted my little teeth and I went around the hall, and uh, sure enough, I was the only one there.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: This was about three in the afternoon on Saturday.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: Second time I heard the ghost was about two years ago.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sitting right here in this chair, uh looking much like I am now.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: And uh the again, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's loud.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: It went from that connection box there to this connection box here.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, uh as best I can tell, it ran through a wall.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: So it doesn't have to care about architecture, apparently.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh let's see, Wesley uh Clay saw what looked like a tall white man in a beard walk past one of those rooms up there about two in the morning one morning.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: Brother Wesley heard uh the running running up the stairs uh this shaft.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm thinking maybe something is uh my theory is something had something terrible happen, you know, and so they're they're reliving it again and again or something.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever it is, I don't think I'm not sure it's even aware of modern human beings or the present day or anything.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: I uh I have been up there now I'll occasionally hear very quiet footsteps.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: But like I said, I say, go easy on me, Mr.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: Ghost.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: I gotta work up here and I don't think whatever that is is hostile in any way.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: I've never gotten the cold air on the back of the neck or anything like that.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: And like I say, I thank heaven I've never seen anything.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: That would greatly upset me.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: If you could describe it not using the word ghost some disturbed entity running for some reason.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: If we've got five people that have hurt him over uh six incidents over sixty year history, so he's a very much a part-timer.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_04: Do you ever wish that people didn't know about it?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: No, it doesn't bother me.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's alright.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: I just uh like I say, I don't I um I I I've had okay.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: I I I actually wrote a post on my barber's bookstore Facebook post setting all this straight.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: And uh most people that ask us about the ghost get parts of it wrong.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I uh I recounted it as accurately as I could.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: He's a part-timer and he's real.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know if I should wish for him to come come back or not.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'd I'd be happy for him to come back.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: That'd be fine, preferably not at two in the morning.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: But funny thing is, uh I've always heard him in the daytime.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we've always only heard him from the third floor.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: So uh, you know, it's it's never down here, it's always on the third floor.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: I've been here 60 years.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's you know, it's uh I'm not real now I do have people that come in and say they say they feel the presence.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: They're they're these are people that are on a different wavelength than me.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they can they can feel stuff like that, but I'm just you know, uh that's just not not what I'm I pick up.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_03: Wasn't there a hotel?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, it was uh the Adams Hotel.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: It was uh not a high-end place.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: Sixteen rooms, two bathrooms down the hall.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: The uh entrance was uh on 8th Street, I believe, and uh when my father bought the the building in 69, there were uh there were some odds and ends left up there that I cleared out, including a bunch of blankets.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, in the old days now the the doors were louvered and uh and there I think probably at one time they might have had transoms over the doors, but if uh people were getting friendly behind that door, you sure would have heard it.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: But uh anyway, uh uh it was not a prestige address, never was.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I I do every once in a while I try to find photographs of this bookstore, the building across the street before it burned down in '55 was interesting.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I've got photos of that, including Houdini hanging upside down by his feet right across the street there.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: Eamon Carter uh invited him to town.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm sure he paid his rate.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so Houdini hung up from uh from his feet and wiggled out of the uh out of the strait jacket, which was old hat for him.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, my brother Clay says he has a photograph of him doing that.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, at that time Barber's bookstore was in the basement, so you went you walked down to get the barber's bookstore.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: This is the third location.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: First it started on East Ninth, where it's which was kind of the what was left over from Hell's Half Acre, still a grubby neighborhood, so they just elected to bulldoze it and put it underneath the flying saucer there.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: Then they moved across the street, then it burned in 55, and then it came here.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_04: I appreciate it, Brian.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_04: This has been uh it's been a neat experience uh getting to know you and just being here.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm sorry he's not very interesting, but like but he is real.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_04: You know, Kristen, I have a law enforcement background, and I'm comfortable saying that Brian Jr.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_04: doesn't only seem credible, but I believe he's telling the truth.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_04: There was no playful exaggeration or attention-seeking behaviors.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_04: In fact, rather the opposite in every encounter we've had with the longtime bookstore owner.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_03: I agree.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_03: He seemed protective of the ghost.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe it was much a part of his family's bookstore as the books themselves.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_03: I'd admit, when we walked toward the back of the store, I felt okay.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_03: But as we went upstairs, I felt dizzy and a little bit nauseous.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_03: The third floor air felt heavy, and I wouldn't want to be up there alone.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_04: We posted Instagram videos of us inside the bookstore on the third floor.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_04: And if you listen, you'll hear me describe the way the air felt, just as Kristen said, it was different.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_04: I got a headache.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_04: I don't really get headaches, so that really stood out to me.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_04: Whatever it was, it was palpable upstairs.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_04: But once we came back downstairs, my headache went away.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_03: There are a lot of others who've experienced it.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: We interviewed a woman who entered Barbara's bookstore a few years ago in the mid-afternoon with her husband.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: Her husband stayed on the first floor.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: But when she ascended the stairs, well, I'll let you hear it for yourselves.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we were in Barbara's bookstore several years ago.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Wandered around for quite a while, didn't have any strange happenings or anything.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: But then I decided to go up to the second story.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Second floor and started up the steps and got a very strange feeling.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Just very negative.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: I I just didn't didn't go up to the second floor.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's the first time I've ever felt like that.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then when Bill and my husband and I were leaving, I told him about my experience and he started to laugh and said that he had read on a piece of paper in the book in the bookstore that there was a shooting up on the second floor.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: And uh back in the 1800s when it was a uh pretty wild place down in the Fort Worth district.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: So uh and that supposedly there was a ghost of the woman who was shot who lived or would had been seen several times on that floor.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I assumed I just didn't want to go up there and see anything unusual.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: It was pretty strong because usually I'm kind of adventurous and I'll go ahead and do things, but but that day I just I couldn't make myself go upsturved.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_04: This is another witness who seemed genuinely disturbed when approaching the third floor.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_04: This is consistent with what Brian Jr.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_04: recounted as the only floor his family had ever heard the ghost.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_04: So Joanne's encounter is consistent with others, and she remembered it in vivid detail even years later.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_04: It stuck with her and is a memory she'll always have.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_04: But I hope it's some relief for her to have spoken about it with us.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_04: I believe some people are more sensitive to paranormal activity than others, and I want to thank Joanne for coming on the podcast to talk about it.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: There are many other accounts of these types of experiences at Barbers Bookstore in downtown Fort Worth.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_03: If you'd like to follow Brian Perkins Jr.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_03: on his social media, his Facebook page is Barbers Bookstore.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_03: If you want to stay up to date on our paranormal happenings, follow us on Hidden Creatures Podcast on Instagram.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_04: Please like and follow us as we dig to uncover more truths.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_04: I promise we have more stories in the works that you won't want to miss.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_04: One last thing before we leave you with your thoughts.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_04: These are the encounters as they happen, told by the people who live through them.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_04: Whether they reveal the unknown or simply deepen the mystery, that's for you to decide.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_04: And if you've had a paranormal experience you'd like to share on this podcast, email us at hiddencreaturespodcast at gmail.com.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_04: Until next time, stay safe and don't wander too far alone in the dark.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_04: We have plenty more thrilling stories to share with you, and maybe one day we'll share your story too.