Ghosts, Spooks, & Big Foot, Oh My!

Tall Tales come to Jefferson October 26 

Marcia Thomas/Contributing Writer

Jefferson’s community theatre, the Opera House Theatre Players, is having a “spook-tale” event on Saturday, October 26, at Tony’s Italian Restaurant in downtown.

The evening will be a sort of story-telling event where anyone can get on stage and tell the listeners about the strange encounters and happenings they have witnessed in their old homes or in the communities of Jefferson and Marshall over the years.

Remember the 1960s when UFO’s were reported? And what about  the monster of Caddo Lake.

And that’s not to mention when a famous Hollywood director/producer came to stay in the famous and very old Excelsior Hotel in the 1970s but quickly checked out following an unexpected visit.

According to theatre president Marcia Thomas, the group thinks it will be a fun and different evening of real scared-stiff stories that sometimes people dont want to tell out loud for fear of being ridiculed and brushed off.  

Thomas says that she, herself, has some “unexplained” happenings in the beautiful, historic 1869 building she and  her late husband renovated for a town house in the early 1980s and lived there until the last two years when she moved into the old family homeplace, itself being built in 1885 on what was reported to be the highest point in town (to escape annual flooding of the city in its first 100 plus years}.

The Players also have John Nance, former owner of the history boat tour on Big Cypress River, who will tell his stories and might even sing a song or two from the appropriate early days of the old town.  At least one person from Marshall, a sister community to the south nearly as old as Jefferson, will also be telling a few stories about “haunts and unexplained happenings” in that community in its early and later days.

The thespian group invites anyone who is interested in participating in this special “get ready for All Hallows Eve” event to contact them at 903-665-8243 so that their name can be added.  They can also be reached at JeffersonTheatre@aol.com.