Tales from Alpine's ghostly museum

Kim Skinner, a former assistant at the Alpine County Museum, recalls the day her young son ran screaming from the building.

"Nobody ever told me there was a ghost at the museum," said Skinner. "He had been sitting at the front desk, and said he saw a ghost in the security monitor." After firmly reassuring him there was no such thing as a ghost, Skinner sat down in front of the screen herself. "I said 'show me.' And sure enough, a white mist floated across, stopped in the middle, and then went away. I said, 'Show me again.' And the mist came across the screen again, then floated away. I just closed up the museum and went home."

A visitor from Mexico also encountered the museum's ghost, Skinner said. "She walked through the door and exclaimed, 'Oh, we're not alone!'" Skinner recalled. "The lady told me she was a psychic, and there was a ghost trying to hide in the corner by the fireplace. Strangely enough, right about that time, some of the postcards fell off the rack onto the floor. 'See?' she said. 'But he's not here to hurt you.'"

Skinner isn't the only employee who experienced the museum's ghostly presence. Former director Dick Edwards has had his own unusual encounters.

"We used to keep a model of a bald eagle on a display case," recalled Edwards. "Late one evening, I was working in the back room and heard a noise. My dog Buddy growled and ran out. I came to the front and there was that eagle on the floor - at least 8 feet away from where it would landed if it had just fallen off the case. The front door was locked. I never could figure out how the heck it got there."

Voices from the front room also frequently interrupted Edwards' work in the back room. But when he got up to check, no one was there. "I would hear two or three people yakking back and forth," he explained. "It was like you could hear conversation, but couldn't make out words. It got kind of eerie."

Wanda Coyan, the current museum assistant, has had her own ghostly encounters. One afternoon, she recalls, she was working in the back office alone, with the front door shut and locked. "I heard papers rattling, so I walked out to the front," Coyan said. "And as I went around the corner, I could see the pages on the guest register turning, all by themselves. There was no open window, no open door, no furnace running. I just picked up my purse, turned off the light, and almost ran out of the building. It took me over an hour to compose myself enough to go back and set the alarm."

According to Coyan, objects at the Museum would also mysteriously appear out of place. "One day I came in and one of the little mice was out of the mousetrap display, next to the trap. How it got there, I don't know, because it is not easy to get him out! Another morning, I found a little box of rocks from the mining exhibit sitting out in the walkway, with a crystal next to it," Coyan said. "I had been working at the museum all day the day before, so if those had been there the night before, I'd have seen them."

Construction workers at the museum, too, have reportedly experienced ghostly goings-on. According to Coyan, one contractor repairing a pressure tank was anything but surprised to hear the museum was haunted. When told about the ghost, he simply exclaimed, "Is that what's going on here! I keep hearing people talking out in the front room, or I'll hear the front door open and close - and nobody's there."

Just who could the museum's mischievous spirit be? Legend has it that Jacob Marklee was buried on a hill behind the long-gone courthouse, a description some believe matches the Museum's hilltop location. Or perhaps some early Alpiner remains attached to his or her worldly goods that now inhabit the museum's displays.

Coyan has tried unsuccessfully to get the register-turning ghost to identify itself. "Since the ghost was obviously able to turn pages, I left it an ink pen and asked it it to sign its name," she said. "It never did."