Ghosts along the Texas Coast (6 page)

Four or five days after this incident, Sue was alone at home, doing the laundry. She had been in her garage, where the washer was located. She had just walked through her kitchen, back into the house, and noted all was in order. She went into her bedroom to check on her new baby, and then walked back through the kitchen to check on the progress of the laundry. This time she was astonished to discover all nine drawers in her kitchen cupboards were standing wide open. She said she was astounded, but not at all frightened. In fact, she felt like someone or something was just playing a joke on her, and she found it amusing.

The following weekend a friend came to see Sue. She told her friend about her mother's strange experience with the Indian, and then of her own strange experience with the kitchen drawers. Her friend said, “I just can't believe any of that.” Suddenly, from off a shelf in a pantry, which was clearly visible from where the two women were sitting in the dining room, a big squeeze bottle of mustard literally flew off the shelf and crossed a narrow hallway to the center of the kitchen floor. Sue said it did not fall from the shelf; it was hurled! While it wasn't scary, she said, it definitely succeeded in “making a statement.”

It has been a number of years since the Indian man appeared in Sue's guest room and the kitchen cupboards went berserk. But then, no one has disturbed the final resting place of the Karankawas again, either.

The Tarpon Inn, located in the waterfront area of Port Aransas, has long been a favorite resting place for visitors to Padre Island. In fact, the historic inn has already celebrated its 100th birthday!

The town of Port Aransas sits on the northernmost tip of Padre Island, a barrier island which protects the bay and harbor of Corpus Christi. The harbor was discovered by the Spanish on Corpus Christi Day in 1519, hence its name. It was not fully explored until a Frenchman mapped the area in 1720. Padre Nicholas Balli acquired the title to the land, which is a 100-mile-long strip of sand dunes and grass, for the sum of 400 pesetas paid to King Charles IV of Spain in 1880. The padre set up a cattle ranching operation on the island, and in time, the land took on the nickname “Padre Island” rather than its official name of Isla de Corpus Christi.

According to Rand McNally's
Weekend Escapes, Southeast Texas Edition
, in about 1855 an English settler built a ranch house up at the northern tip of the island. He established a small town, eventually to be called Port Aransas, which sprang up around his homestead.

During the Civil War, the site of the Tarpon Inn was occupied by a barracks for Confederate troops, and in 1886 the Tarpon Inn was built from materials which had been salvaged from the old barracks. The inn was named for the tarpon, huge game fish with extraordinarily large scales that were found in the waters around Port Aransas.

The first Tarpon Inn was destroyed by fire in 1900. It was rebuilt in 1904 and was destroyed by a hurricane in 1919. In 1923 it was rebuilt in its present form, a two-storied, long frame building, with long galleried porches both upstairs and down. The original building was painted white. Today, it is sky-blue. Mr. J.M. Ellis, the builder in 1923, wanted to assure the hotel would not fall victim to another hurricane, so he sank pier pilings in sixteen feet of cement for the foundation and then put a full pier at the corner of each bedroom for added strength in
case of a storm. Hence, the hotel has withstood many storms and quite a few rambunctious young people on spring breaks as well!

A lot of well-known personalities have stayed at the inn, but the one they still talk about most frequently is President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who came down for a few days of tarpon fishing and left his signature on a tarpon scale which is proudly displayed in the hotel's lobby.

Right behind the inn is a lovely little garden area. Here there are two frame buildings, each a part of what is called Beulah's Restaurant. The long building at the rear of the property, which mostly serves as a bar and overflow dining room for the larger Beulah's, was at one time the original Tarpon Inn's location, the site that burned.

Beulah's Restaurant has had several names over the years. At one time it was the bar to the original Tarpon Inn, and after this, it was known for a time as the Silver King. Since mid-1992 it has been called Beulah's. The head housekeeper at the Inn for many years was Beulah Mae Williams, and it is in her honor that the restaurant was named. She resided in a very old, long frame building that still stands behind the restaurant on a little side alley. Beulah is currently living in a retirement home in Lamar, Texas.

Ms. Julie Caraker, who manages Beulah's, describes the place as one in which the atmosphere is “upscale, down-home,” and combines good home cooking with the added flair of gourmet cuisine. After a recent visit and a delicious lunch, we can attest to this being a pretty accurate description. The food is excellent, attractively presented, and not inexpensive.

Beulah's Restaurant, at Tarpon Inn in Port Aransas.

When I first approached Ms. Caraker, via telephone, and asked her, point blank, if there might be a ghost at the establishment, she did not seem at all taken aback. She quite freely described her feelings and experiences.

Paula Bonillas, of Corpus Christi, and her husband, Steve, own a restaurant by the name of Blackbeard's in Corpus Christi. Their place is haunted, too. Knowing of my research project, Paula had sent me a copy of an intriguing article that had run in the
Silver King Newsletter
some years back. That is why I decided to contact the present management of the restaurant and learn more about the place.

The
Silver King
article stated that Beulah's (then the Silver King) was haunted. It mentioned that while Beulah Mae Williams had never seen the ghost, she had definitely heard it. Beulah cited one particular day when she was walking outside past the kitchen and had heard quite a clatter within, such as would be going on during a very busy day. She knew the restaurant was closed, however. Curiosity beckoned, and she went inside and found everything in its place. There was no explanation for the din she had heard. It had to be the ghost that she had heard other employees mention. This ghost must have been hard at work in the kitchen that day!

The article went on to say that Mr. Kent Marsh, an evening chef at the Silver King, had witnessed what he called “an eerie haze” in the form of a “woman of middle age and medium height.” Mr. Mike Buvosa, a former employee, also saw the apparition and thinks she is from a past era since her hair was pulled back in a severe bun, a style not often worn today.

Ms. Caraker informed me that the fire in the original Tarpon Inn building had caused massive damage. It is rumored that the cook lost her good pearl necklace in the fire, and she still comes back in search of her lost gems. This might explain the hazy figure seen in the kitchen by both Marsh and Buvosa. However, Ms. Caraker believes the “main ghost” is a man who once worked as a cook at the restaurant. Caraker said a lady who said she was a psychic from Colorado stopped at Beulah's recently and asked Julie if she knew the place was haunted. When Julie answered that she did indeed believe that there was a
resident spirit, the psychic asked her if the ghost's name started with an “S.” Julie said she believed the ghost was a former cook who was named Samuel, but everyone always called him Sammy.

According to Julie, Sammy still comes around, often at breakfast time, to help her cook. Recently, after the kitchen floor was freshly mopped, Julie was astonished to see large footprints following her much smaller ones on the kitchen floor! Sammy was following her all around the kitchen as she worked!

The mischievous side of Sammy often comes out. He turns lights on and off in the original portion of the old inn, the part of the building that was no doubt his bailiwick.

Mark Wilks, another employee at Beulah's, spoke with us on a visit we made to the inn in August of 1993. He also believes there is a ghost there. He told us about an incident that took place a number of years ago when he and his wife, Janet, were just teenage friends. Janet had left her bicycle leaning against the wall of the restaurant one afternoon. Later that day, she asked Mark to accompany her to get it. Since it was beginning to get dark, she was afraid to go alone. Just as the two retrieved her bike, they heard the “wildest clatter imaginable” coming from inside the kitchen. Mark said it was so loud he was sure that they could hear it across the bay in Aransas Pass! It sounded as if all the pots and pans were being thrown across the kitchen and knocked down from their racks. They knew the place was closed for the day, and that no one was inside. Mark says that even now Janet will not go into the kitchen, and she's always uneasy even in the cheerful restaurant and bar section of the building.

And Julie Caraker said that whenever she goes into the little room behind the bar in the old building she gets “prickly sensations” and knows that the ghosts are still there!

Paula and Steve Bonillas told me about a recent visit they made to Beulah's. As they were enjoying their meal, a door near their table suddenly flew open from the inside. Although there was no breeze, no person to open the door, and no reason for the door to open, it just did. When they questioned their waitress, she matter of factly stated it was “just the ghost.” Paula told me I would just have to see for myself why that particular door cannot open by itself. Well, I did. And it can't.

Julie Caraker, whom we met at Beulah's Restaurant adjacent to the Tarpon Inn, had an interesting ghost encounter when she first came to Port Aransas. She rented a little white frame house that had once been a church. It washed ashore after a storm, was renovated and converted to a house, and now is located on Oaks Street, just a short distance from the inn. Right in front of the house, just a few feet from the front porch, is a tiny little private graveyard that belonged to a family named Mercer. Since the graves are old, they must have been early settlers to the area. The mother, Emma, her husband John, and their son John, plus two infants, are all buried there. Emma's dates, “Born, Jan. 24, 1856, Died, Jan. 28, 1906” are clearly discernible. Some of the other markers are harder to read. Emma was apparently the last person to be buried in the small plot.

Soon after Julie moved into the cottage, strange things began to happen. She said she was very tired the first day, after moving, and wanted to take a bath to freshen up. She dreaded cleaning up the bathroom, however, because leaves and debris had blown in the partially opened window and accumulated in the bathtub. Imagine her surprise when she opened the bathroom door and found the tub all cleaned up! She says now she is quite sure the “ghost” did the cleaning!

A collector of antiques, especially vintage clothing items, Julie said often her little displays of old gloves and fans and accessories would be rearranged, quite noticeably. Nothing was ever missing or harmed, however.

Julie said both she and her young son, who was about eight years old at the time, had actually seen the ghost. The apparition was the figure of a woman, wearing a long white petticoat that showed from under a long black hooded cape. It was on a dark, foggy evening the first time she saw the figure walking between her house and the little cemetery. She said she had talked with other people who also had seen the same figure.

Her little boy was never afraid of the ghost, nor was she. He often referred to her as “our guardian angel.”

Home and little cemetery, Port Aransas

Docia Williams

Graceful fronds fan tall palm trees

That gently sway in the evening breeze,

As twilight falls on far-flung reaches

Of coastal swamp land and sandy beaches

The sunlight fades, and darkness falls

And ghosts come out, to make their calls