October. Spooky Season commences across Town. As you stroll the streets of Downtown Wake Forest, you’ll notice various Halloween window decorations. The cooler air is settling in while homes are preparing for goblins and ghouls to trick-or-treat at month’s end. Wake Forest’s historic district has become a local tradition for such excitement. Downtown Wake Forest, a National Register Historic District, is indeed known for being charming and quaint.
But putting its big city energy and small-town charm aside, the district also has an eerie side. So much history surrounds the Town, with some homes dating back to as early as the 1820s and many buildings well over a hundred years old - with their tales of terror, to boot.
The Historic Preservation Commission is well versed in stories of the Ghosts who haunt North Main Street. The Calvin Jones House, for instance, was built around 1820 and is known for a figure in a heavy winter cape - perhaps clothing from the Civil War era - to appear roaming around the property. Tales have said he appears and will disappear into the brush without a trace. The John F. Lanneau House comes with its own stories of intrigue. Once used as a hospital for Confederate soldiers during the Civil War, a previous owner has also shared smelling perfume downstairs and recalled two women who quickly vanished when searching for the source of such an aroma. Then there’s the Robert Powell House, with a Casper of sorts. As legend has it, there is a friendly ghost who sits by the bedside of children to ensure their safety. Was there tragedy long ago with a child?
Away from the residential historic area comes ghost stories of yelling wanderers throughout Glen Royall Mill Village. Now residential apartments, the original village was built in the late 1800s and was once home to a textile mill and all the employees who worked there. Once a very tight-knit community, an attempt to unionize the mill in the 1950s brought violence. Ed Morris, Director of Wake Forest Historical Museum, shared history about a mass shooting during a neighborhood picnic amidst that tumultuous time. One is left to wonder - are these shooting victims the yelling wanderers that have haunted the village?
When you turn onto White Street going toward Downtown, the first cluster of buildings on the first block is called Victoria Square and was once the home to Hardwicke’s Drugstore. A family-owned business during World War II, the building became notorious for being the victim of several train derailments, as the train station was located right across the track. During the last accident, sometime in the mid-1900s, a steam locomotive crashed through the drugstore and dropped into the basement of the building. One of the engineers was burned severely by the steam. As a local doctor treated the unfortunate soul with morphine, he finally passed away from burns (and probably morphine, too!) Reports from the older generation in town claim that when you opened the front door of the old drugstore, you ran directly into the smokestack of the engine. Some say they hear mild screams from below. Could it be the engineer who met his fate during that tragic accident?
Town history buffs probably recall the two movie theaters Downtown that fell on very hard times in the late 50s. Once a bustling scene for college students, both struggled to keep their doors open once the college left town. The largest theater, called the Collegent Movie House, sat where the present-day Fidelity Bank is. If you look at the wall of the building next door to the bank, you can still see the shadow of the screen where the building burned away and the screen left an imprint of that building. Fire, you say? Ah yes, a lot of suspicion behind those theater fires. “There are theories and gossip around the Town of what happened, but nobody can prove what started those fires,” says Morris. “But is it just a coincidence that when there’s nobody around to go to the movies, they both mysteriously burn in the middle of the night?”
For eerie places that leave a chill up your spine, there is also the building at the corner of Jones Street and White that was once home to the TE Holden’s Drugstore. Thomas E. Holden ran his drugstore for many years, and that was one of the first businesses in town. Subsequently serving as a few different restaurants over the years, it now sits empty and has a Dodge City-like feel. Do you dare to test paranormal activity at that corner?
Regardless of whether the old town tales are all just a bunch of Hocus Pocus or if you are a believer in the supernatural, the Wake Forest community works hard at keeping its old town charm. “Even with the fact that we’re becoming a big city, the downtown area and the historic district area of North Main Street maintains its small-town charm,” says Morris. “If you come to the area, you would assume you’re in a town of 5,000 people, not 50,000. It’s a very close-knit community.”
Jason Cannon, President of the Wake Forest Business and Industry Partnership, agrees. “The voluminous history of Wake Forest substantially adds to the value and quality of life in Town,” he says. “The community - both businesses and residents - work together to maintain the small-town feel. Proof of the passion for the community this time of year is the Town’s annual Spirits of Wake Forest ghost walk along the streets of historic Downtown. It’s bittersweet, but within mere days, the over 800 tickets to this year’s walks were sold out!”
“It very much is that small-town; everyone knows everyone sort of feeling,” says Morris. “We’re just the nucleus of a giant egg that surrounds the old part of town. But I think that the old part of town is going to maintain that historic charm. Everybody here works hard at keeping that going.”
