There was a time when on West 6th Street, there was a restaurant called Opal Divine’s Free House. And it was haunted. With ghosts, ghosts and more ghosts.
Opal Divine’s free house was constructed sometime in the 1860s by BJ Smith, the same fellow in charge of the construction of the Governor’s mansion. This is called rubble construction. The limestone rocks or rubble were the pieces leftover from the nice chiseled blocks used to build the Austin Women’s Club and other fine houses around the Bremond block. Of course, the limestone is from the old quarry just around the corner. Built as a residence BJ, his wife, daughter and son in law live there. It was known to be a residence until the late 1940s.
Some called it the home of the husband killers.
BJ died in the house in 1882 from a spider bite and the daughter’s husband died a few years later of unknown causes. Though the two deaths are men, the owner and employees believed the ghost to be that of a woman. From the time it was being renovated, current owners have known it to be haunted. When closing alone, the hair on the back of my neck stand stood straight up and I couldn’t get the door locked and out of there fast enough.
As with many haunting experiences, it is when the building is quiet that the Spirit entities make themselves known. The kitchen manager and others hear footsteps walking back and forth through the upstairs rooms and no one is there. And on more than one occasion a sound like that of phone book would be made if dropped on the floor, has been heard from below. In the story I wrote about the ghosts on West 6th Street, I used a phone book as an example, but let’s go ahead and use a bowling ball. Having heard that kind of thud above where I’m standing in a building that is empty, it sounds more like a bowling ball and people don’t know what phone books are anymore.
It is a woman that has been seen on the staircase, barely visible, but unquestionably there. On Monday nights, the upstairs rooms are closed and locked. On one Monday afternoon, as a waiter was approaching the building to begin work, he swore he saw someone pounding on the window, as though trying to get out. He went right upstairs, assuming someone had been accidentally locked in the room and no one was there.
