EP 216 - The Lost Souls of Market Square ft. Crystal Quin | Houston, TX
Hometown Ghost Stories
This episode explores the haunted history of Houston, Texas, focusing on the landmarks of Market Square and the Hotel Icon. The hosts recoun
Key takeaways
- The Hotel Icon, a former bank, features a preserved vault and reports of a man in a brown suit appearing to walk into walls.
- The ghost of Carl, a former bar manager at La Caroffe, is frequently seen by staff and patrons.
Main topics
- Haunted landmarks in Houston
- History of Market Square
Notable quotes
Houston is a city that rarely looks back. It builds up, tears down, and then builds the next greatest and latest thing for the city.
Conclusion
A fascinating blend of Texas history and urban legend that highlights
Transcript preview
Speaker 4 (0:00) I'm John Grylls from Creepy, and I listen to the Be Afraid Podcast Network. Speaker 4 (0:30) turned luxury hotel, is reported to have the ghosts of men who may have lost everything during the Great Depression. Above every arch on its front stands Mercury, the god who guides souls to the underworld. But has Mercury left a few of these souls behind? This is Hometown Ghost Stories, The Lost Souls of Market Square, Houston, Texas. Speaker 1 (1:00) Hometown Ghost Stories contains serious and often distressing events and is not intended for all audiences. Viewer discretion is advised. Speaker 5 (1:11) It was right before 10 when Courtney headed downstairs to clock in for her overnight shift. Below the lobby of the Icon, it felt like a different building. One the guests were never meant to see. She punched in and when she looked up, a man was standing down the hallway, maybe 20 feet from her. He was wearing a brown suit jacket and his black hair was slicked straight back. Every so often, a guest will wander down there after making a wrong turn and someone on staff would walk them back up to the lobby. Courtney figured this was just one of those nights. She started walking towards him and asked if he needed any help finding something. He didn't answer and he didn't look at her. He started walking away, slow and easy, like a man out for an evening stroll. She picked up her pace to catch up to him, but somehow the gap never closed. Sir? She called out a little louder this time. At first, she figured she was just tired and judging the distance wrong. She was moving fast as she could without breaking into a run, and he was still exactly as far ahead as when she started, even though he never seemed to hurry. A knot started forming in her stomach, but she kept telling herself there had to be a simple explanation. The longer she followed him, the less he looked like a guest. His clothes were a little too old and his hair was a little too neat. Like he stepped out of a photo that hung somewhere upstairs. Her shoes echoed off the walls. His didn't make a sound. Part of her wanted to stop and go back. But the thoughts of not knowing where he was going felt worse. He reached the corner and disappeared around it without a backward glance. Sir, wait! By the time Courtney was nearly running, her heart was pounding and she wasn't sure anymore if she was trying to catch up to him or just trying to prove to herself he was real. She came around the corner and found him halfway down the next hallway, still moving at that same unhurried pace. Then he turned to his left and walked straight into a wall. It swallowed him a little at a time, his face and chest first, and then his arms and then the rest of them. Just before he was gone, his head leaned back out. He looked at her and grinned, a small grin that tugged up only one corner of his mouth. Then he slipped back in and the hallway was empty. A few minutes later, one of her co-workers came around the corner and nearly tripped over her. Courtney was sitting on the floor with her back pressed up against the wall, wide eyes staring at the blank stretch across from her. Her co-worker bent down and asked what was wrong. Courtney didn't answer right away. She just kept watching the spot, waiting for something to lean back out of it. I'm Crystal Quinn, and this is Hometown Ghost Stories, Houston, Texas. Speaker 2 (5:01) Before the skyscrapers and the oil money, Houston was nothing more than a muddy bayou and a big idea. And like a lot of Texas, its story starts with a war. Houston was founded in 1836, just months after Texas won its independence from Mexico. Two brothers from New York, Augustus and John Allen, bought land along Buffalo Bayou and named their new town after Sam Houston, the general who had just won that war. For a couple of years, Houston served as the capital of the Republic of Texas until the government moved to Austin in 1839. Life in the young city was hard, and yellow fever kept sweeping in again and again. In 1839 alone, it killed about one in every eight people that resided in Houston. By the time of the Civil War, Houston had become the rail center of southeast Texas. Shipments from local farms would come in by railway and wagon, pass through Houston, and then end up in the rest of the world. And from there, the city never stopped growing. Oil was struck in the early 1900s. The Houston Ship Channel opened in 1914. And by 1930, Houston was the largest city in Texas. Today, it's the fourth largest city in the country, a place that has spent nearly 200 years tearing down the old to make room for the new. But a few of these older buildings are still standing. And in one, not everybody who stopped by for a drink has left. Before the Civil War, Houston's first commercial district grew up around Market Square. And one building from that time is still standing on Congress Avenue. It's a two-story brick building that's one of the oldest in all of Houston. And today, it's the home of La Caroffe. It was originally built for an Irish baker named John Kennedy. Not that one. In fact, there's no relation to the president. Kennedy ran a bakery on the site. He also made it a trading post. But after a fire is when he built the two-story brick structure. The building would morph into a long list of businesses over the next hundred years, until eventually in the 1950s, it would become Lee Karoff. That's when James Harrison turned it into a bar. But he started to think. Lee Karoff didn't have the pizzazz he was looking for. So he thought long and hard of a name and changed it to... La Karoff. And that's when he started to fill the building with paintings and trinkets from his travels. Since then, the bar has changed hands. But the pictures, the paintings, the trinkets, they all remain. And if you ask some of the patrons and workers of La Karoff, some of the old guests and even the staff have never stopped showing up or working there. The most famous of them is Carl. He managed the bar for a while after the current owner took over. and he passed away around 1990. Not long after, the story started. The following is a quote from the current owner. One of my bartenders happened to see him in the window one night, out here in the front, and recognized him. And then I had another bartender here. He did not know Carl. He saw him in the front window one night and described him to a T. Some nights people hear his voice carrying through the whole building, deep and booming. calling out, last call, last call. But Carl isn't the only one that stays after hours. And a lot of the other activity in this building is held on the second floor, where for years, every October, seances have been held. In the upstairs bar, a little boy has been seen chasing a ball towards the staircase. Staff working after closing on the first floor have reported hearing a woman singing from the second floor. and when they go up there, no one is there. But not every spirit there is so friendly. Patrons have watched a woman and white ghost walk slowly down the upstairs bar towards the top of the staircase. When she reaches it, she vanishes, and then she starts the same walk all over again. Most people are perfectly content watching this happen from a distance, but the ones who get too close, especially women, say that once they get to the top of the staircase, they feel a pair of invisible hands push them back down. In the downstairs of the bar, the old cash register has been known to open and slam shut on its own. And then there's the story of one man who stepped into the men's room and felt a hand tap on his shoulder. That restroom is barely big enough for one person. And when he turned around, he was the only one in there. He walked up to the bartender, told them what happened, then walked straight out of the bar. And as far as the staff knows, that man has never returned. When you step outside of Lockerhoff, you're looking directly at Market Square. When Houston was laid out in 1836, this block was set aside to become the capital of the Republic of Texas. But within one year, it had become the town market. For nearly 100 years, this was the center of the city, with farmers coming in to sell their wares, as well as City Hall sitting right there. But the City Hall had a bad habit. And that bad habit was burning to the ground. It burned in 1876 while a crowd of people watched. It burned again in 1901. And long after City Hall had moved out and the building was repurposed, that old building went up in flames one last time in 1960. Today, the block is a park. But pieces of Houston's history still sit within the Market Square. And Market Square... also has its ghosts. On the Travis Street side stands a building that had been there since around 1870. When a restaurant moved in, one of the cooks started seeing someone who shouldn't have been there. When he described him to the owners, they recognized him right away. It sounded exactly like Mr. Danowitz, an elderly tailor who had shared the building with them when they first opened. But the ghost most people see in the square is also a lady in white. When Houston was the capital, A woman named Pamela Mann ran a hotel called the Mansion House at the corner of Congress and Malam. It housed congressmen and army officers, where important business was conducted, but there are also reports that it was one of the rowdiest spots in all of Houston. Pamela would find herself in some legal trouble and be in and out of court constantly, and in 1839 she was convicted of forgery and sentenced to hang before the president of Texas pardoned her. She died of yellow fever the next year. Some believe the lady in white seen around Market Square is Pamela. Her hotel stood on the same stretch of Congress as Lockeroff. So when a woman in white appears at the top of Lockeroff's stairs, some think it's just Pamela checking in on her old block. Just down Congress from the square sits a building that was designed to impress. It opened in 1912 as the Union National Bank. which was one of the biggest banks in all of Texas. Jesse Jones, one of the men who built much of downtown Houston, sat on the board and hand-selected architects himself. The bank took the Grand Lobby at street level, and offices filled the floors above it. For decades, it sat at the center of Houston business. But by the 1970s, the offices upstairs had emptied out, and by 1975, every upper floor had been closed off. and they would stay that way for more than 25 years. In 2004, the building reopened as Hotel Icon, with the bank's original vault still sitting behind the front desk. A lot of the bank's old details still survived. Massive stone columns still line the main street side, and above every arch is a carved head of mercury. To the Romans, mercury was the god of commerce, a fitting choice for a bank. But he was also the god of trickery. and he served as the messenger of the gods, usually shown with wings on his sandals and carrying a staff with two snakes wound around it. And with that staff, he had one more job. Mercury was the god who guided the souls of the dead down to the underworld. But if it's true, not every soul that has passed through this building has made that trip. Most of the ghost stories associated with this building go back to October of 1929. This... is when the stock market crashed, and the investment men that worked in those offices upstairs, well, they watched fortunes disappear in days. Some of those men couldn't face what came next, and took their own lives inside this building. Late at night, guests have called down to report gunshots. Sometimes they describe a second sound right after, something heavy hitting the floor. But when staff go up to check, the hallway is quiet. Room 415 carries one of the heaviest stories associated with this building. It's believed that one of the managers of the bank kept his office there, and when the stock market crashed, he went up to that office, grabbed a gun, and shot himself in the face. Guests who have stayed in that room say they have awoken to hearing the shot and the sound of voices, even though nobody else is there. Others have experienced it in an even more terrifying way. Some have woken in the middle of the night to a man standing over their bed, holding a revolver, with half of his face torn away. And then there's the 10th floor. For years, guests and staff have reported a man up there in a brown suit with black slicked back hair. Possibly a former employee who looks like he just walked straight out of the 1930s. He's been seen sitting on a guest room windowsill, facing out over the city. before he pushes himself off the ledge. The ones who have seen it rush to the window or run downstairs to the street, but there's never anyone on the ground. Now think back to that opening ghost story. Same ghost, on a different floor, so he clearly wanders. But that story from the beginning you won't find on any website or hear on any tour. I got that story when I went to the hotel icon itself, and the employee that I happened to told me it directly at the bar in the lobby. Houston is a city that rarely looks back. It builds up, tears down, and then builds the next greatest and latest thing for the city. But there are those buildings that refuse to move on, and the ghosts of the past linger. And if you ever find yourself in one of those late at night, be careful who you follow down a hallway. Speaker 4 (16:06) What is going on, folks? Welcome into Hometown Ghost Stories, episode number 216. I'm Jesse Wilkins, joined as always by Rob Coakley. Hello, Rob. Speaker 2 (16:15) This episode brought to you by a bird. Speaker 4 (16:20) Yes. A Speaker 2 (16:21) dead bird. Speaker 4 (16:24) Hmm. Speaking of dead birds, we're also joined by Dave. Yes, Speaker 3 (16:30) here I am. Speaker 4 (16:31) And we have a special guest today, the one and only Crystal Quinn. Hello, everyone. Welcome back. Speaker 5 (16:38) Thank you. Speaker 4 (16:39) Welcome back indeed. For those of you unfamiliar with Crystal Quinn, she's been on the show multiple times, joined us for some horror movie reviews and some regular episodes. Tell the audience a little bit about yourself if they don't know you already. Speaker 5 (16:52) Yeah. So right now I do a lot of co-hosting on the podcast YouTube show Hack the Movies. That's where most people know me from. I've been doing that for I don't even know how long at this point. So that's always a fun thing. Plus I stream on Twitch and have a lot of fun on social media and always on adventures. Speaker 2 (17:13) Yes. And it's quite sad that we haven't been invited to go join Hack the Movies, but I'll yell at Tony myself someday. Speaker 5 (17:21) Whenever you want, you tell me. Speaker 4 (17:23) You guys are always welcome. Wait till the show starts to put her on the spot. Everybody hanging out in live chat. Happy resub day to Papa Squatch and Cody G. Another vice through 10 gifted memberships in Super Chat. We appreciate that so much. So did Jeannie R. Wow, 20. Actually, that's even more than 10, some would say. And then Laurie H. also threw 10 Hometown Ghost Stories memberships in $4.99 in Super Chat from Slimer98. Says, love you guys. Happy almost October. Almost October it is. Speaker 2 (17:52) Very close. Speaker 3 (17:53) It Speaker 2 (17:54) is quite close. And I just want to remind everybody that Block Island officially sold out. So you can no longer come stay in the hotel that we're... Going to be at doing the investigations with us. Make sure next year you buy your tickets early to whatever event that we have so that you can join us and investigate much like Crystal did at the S.K. Pierce Mansion back in the day. Make sure you're grabbing your spooky merch at hometownghoststories.com as well. It is spooky season. You need a shirt with a ghost. You might as well get the best one out there. That's the Hometown Ghost Story shirts, hoodies, hats. other things with a ghost on it that we sell go find it and buy it all of it please please just purchase all of it most Speaker 4 (18:35) importantly huge happy birthday shout out to colleen happy birthday colleen Speaker 2 (18:42) i'm leaving Speaker 3 (18:47) I want to shout out Jess Lamelli and Bakes with Jess. She sent us a package of cookies. Again, not the first time she's done it. Hopefully not the last because they're always excellent. So we definitely appreciate that. And you do amazing work. Great artist. Great cook. Baker. Speaker 2 (19:05) Yes, thank you so much for that. Speaker 2 (19:09) So, do we want to talk about why this was brought to us by a dead bird? Speaker 3 (19:15) Yeah, I think that's a good place to kick it off because for those of us who aren't in the know, I assume are probably very confused by what that could possibly mean. Speaker 2 (19:24) Yes, you should be in the Discord for reasons like this, for sure, because I did share this in the Discord. But I was flying back from Gulfport and I had a connecting flight in Houston. And my plane landed that I was supposed to get on. And the entire nose of the plane was dented in. And so they weren't going to let us on the plane. And then they told us what happened. It struck a bird as it was making its takeoff in Houston. They had to fly like that. And so I took a picture of the nose to send to Jesse and Dave. And then I zoomed in. I was like, oh, my God, the bird is embedded in this freaking plane still. It was graphic. Speaker 3 (20:04) It was graphic. There was definitely a bird limb hanging off this dented airplane nose, which is crazy. This is a large commercial airline airplane, which they had to have hit this bird at top speed, which could have been upwards of 500, 600 miles an hour. I thought it had to be a pterodactyl Speaker 4 (20:22) at that point. It's a huge dent. It was huge. Dressed in peace to that bird. But I will say it was something. almost out of like looney tunes where it was just like one foot sticking out yeah it was yeah yeah so Speaker 5 (20:38) i thought it was just a pigeon just like a tiny little freaking bird it definitely Speaker 3 (20:42) wasn't Speaker 5 (20:42) a Speaker 3 (20:42) pigeon that was most likely a hawk or a vulture or something yeah Speaker 2 (20:48) so needless to say got to houston late missed my connecting flight so 12 hours i decided to go and Film some spooky stuff for the show. And here we are covering Houston, Texas tonight because of travel issues. Houston, Texas Speaker 3 (21:04) is actually really the only way to get Rob to cover a big city for a location is to force it on him with a plane crash. Speaker 4 (21:13) I know. A plane crash, right? Speaker 2 (21:16) It is technically a fan crash, Speaker 3 (21:18) yeah. Speaker 4 (21:18) You know? I don't know. 1500jules in super chat from Ted Nethersea. Speaker 2 (21:25) They sent a bubble Speaker 4 (21:26) heart. Thank you. We don't speak your hieroglyphics, but we appreciate it just the same. Speaker 3 (21:32) People who are actually watching the YouTube stream can see what it is, which is our StreamYard end. We can't see exactly what it is. It's just like a text description. Speaker 2 (21:40) Yeah. I love StreamYard. I've never had any issues. That's good. Speaker 3 (21:43) Big fans of StreamYard. Speaker 2 (21:45) Yeah. Please go sign up for StreamYard.