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"Next Monday is the anniversary of this time-honored day, which as a church festival is celebrated as the All Hallow's Day. In Scotland and England it is celebrated more generally than in the United States, though on the eastern seaboard and in New England, it is quite generally observed. Boys are wont to play pranks and practical jokes on this eve and girls and young ladies love to try their destinies by all sorts of eerie methods..."
From the San Antonio Daily Light, Saturday, October 29, 1887
The funeral of W.R. Robinson in Abbott, Texas, 1910. Source: T. B. Willis Collection and Portal to Texas History.
While Halloween as we know it today is quite different from the celebration of All Hallow's Day described above, there are some elements that have persisted. No doubt, 19th-century 'pranks' and 'eerie methods' were thrilling insofar as they conjured the inexplicable—an enchanted object that seemed to move on its own or a fortune that exposed a secret desire.
Though it's harder to come by these days, we still seek out the same mystery during Halloween season, the same horror at a world unseen just beyond our own. A century ago, the author Edith Wharton lamented our appreciation for ghost stories "being gradually atrophied by those two world-wide enemies of the imagination, the wireless and the cinema." Just imagine the damage the internet has done to our sixth sense!
But one place where you can still access a bit of the unfamiliar, the confounding, and the oddly prescient? History, of course. There's a reason so many haunted history tours flaunt their authenticity and their basis in fact. There is no place more haunted than the past.
Stories awful and true abound in Texas history, and our partners across the state have unearthed some of them just for you. We've assembled a list of over 25 haunting history events happening this month. If you dare...
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Stories from the Grave
Historic Texas cemeteries reveal their secrets this October as preservation groups retell and occasionally reenact the fascinating and sometimes tragic stories of the interred.
From small family plots to expansive city cemeteries, these hallowed spaces invite the public to come out and meet the dead!
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Pictured above: The first hearse used by Flores Funeral Home, circa 1915. Epitacio Flores began his business, originally called "Agencia de Inhumaciones, E. Flores y Cia" as a cabinet maker who applied his carpentry skills to make wooden caskets. Flores is a 2023 Texas Treasure Business Award recipient.
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