Anne Earl waits for customers at Echoes from the Past, the eclectic shop on East Houston Street that Earl says is haunted.
Among the items that could be found at the store was this cylinder record. An assistant curator at the Alamo said soldiers probably fought near where the shop is located.
His eerie presence alludes to the unsolved mysteries that have occurred inside the antiques shop over its 14-year existence.
But Anne Earl, a vendor at Echoes from the Past, contends there is nothing strange about her life-size Davy Crockett doll.
Instead it is the occurrences behind the glass doors that Crockett guards that have caused hysteria among customers.
The antiques shop tucked away at 517 E. Houston St. closed this week.
But not before Earl had her say.
"It is haunted," said Earl, 73, laughing.
She believes the spirits of soldiers killed during the Battle of the Alamo haunt the shop because of its proximity to the hallowed battleground.
A hundred footsteps from the storefront is a ground-level inscription: "Alamo Mission Original Property Corner."
Ernesto Rodriguez, assistant curator of the Alamo, said soldiers probably fought near where the shop is.
"Part of the battle could have happened there because there were soldiers coming over the wall," Rodriguez said.
"But about ghosts, I don't know," he said, chuckling.
But it's how Earl justifies the ghost sightings and the missing objects people have reported.
One day the water just wouldn't stop running, Earl said.
Hot Water
"He (a vendor) was using the bathroom when hot water started pouring out the faucet," Earl said. "He tried to turn the water off but was unable to. A few minutes later the water stopped on its own." Earl said the shop has never had a hot water heater.
The vendor is Dave LeClaire, who has worked there six years. He was sitting a few feet away from Earl as she shared stories of the unsolved mysteries.
Earl remembers one day when a "fireball" ripped through the walls.
"Tell her about that one," said LeClaire, who, despite thinking the shop is not haunted, enjoyed the stories.
Fire Ball
"I was on the second floor with one of the vendors when I saw a ball flying in the air making sound, like frying bacon," Earl said. "The ball was red, orange, blue and white. It zoomed past me and the vendor and went through the wall."
It left no mark, Earl said.
The Mysterious Shoulder Tapping
"A woman who was shopping with her husband felt someone tap her on the shoulder," Earl said. "She assumed it was her husband, but when she turned around he was on the opposite side of the room."
They were the only two shoppers on the second floor. The next year when the couple returned the woman refused to go inside, claiming the shop was "haunted."
While Earl recounted the mysterious occurrences, LeClaire, 57, made a hand signal behind her head suggesting she had been drinking an alcoholic beverage.
Ghost of Elvis
"One summer I had a teenage boy work for me," Earl said. "He usually moved very slowly, except for one particular day. I told him to take a box upstairs. A few seconds later he was back and he looked scared."
He told her he saw a man upstairs in the dark. The worker told Earl he believed the figure he saw was Elvis Presley's ghost.
Earl said there were other reports from vendors about missing items suddenly returning a month later, but "these are the only ones people told me about."
"I guess others just left the building without saying anything."
