Trick or Treating Postponed

In case you missed the announcement, the weather caused the city to postpone Trick or Treating until Friday night.  No idea how this will affect places like University Mall:

Due to the threat of potentially severe weather on Thursday, October 31, official Trick-or-Treat hours have been postponed until Friday, November 1, between the hours of 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.

Notes From Pickle's Alley

Despite the pictures from 20 years ago, Halloween should be safe.

Even though the bars will remain open

And burglars are still active.

But SIUC received a $1.3 million donation.

Haunted Carbondale Oakland Cemetary

Oakland Cemetery, located at the northern end of Oakland Avenue, has a long history of "ghost lights" usually floating along the northern border of the cemetery, above a long abandoned stretch of railroad tracks. Ghosts from a train wreck near the cemetery that took place in 1888 may account for the lights.

However, people have reported seeing similar balls of light floating along the train tracks south of Makanda and east of Boskeydell, with no similar wrecks reported in the area. Similar ghost lights are associated with railway tracks and crossings throughout the country, usually with the story of a decapitated or otherwise killed person associated with them.

T. J.'s Moving

It looks as if TJ's Fine Jewelry will move out of its location in the strip mall near Best Buy on East Main. The sign in front of the closed El Bajio restaurant, also on East Main but closer to downtown, announced that TJ's will open there soon.

The move certainly gives the company more room in terms of how to lay out the business, however it is on a one way street, meaning those heading east will have to make more effort to get to the new location.

Haunted Carbondale--Sunset Haven

Sunset Haven, or Building 207 as it was known officially by SIUC, was the county poor farm during the early part of the last century.  Located on university property, south of Chautauqua Road, Sunset Haven was off limits, though as this video indicates, people still managed to find their way into the building.  Residents who died were buried in unmarked graves in a paupers field near the building and are thought to account for the voices, chains rattling (mentally disturbed residents were sometimes chained to the wall), cold sports and items mysteriously moving, among other phenomena.

It appears that the university razed Sunset Haven quietly, so to speak, last week, likely to prevent other  investigators from exploring the building and injuring themselves.

Halloween

According to the Carbondale Police's crime map, this past weekend was pretty quiet, with arrests for drugs and alcohol concentrated in the Poplar-University Avenue area and only a few thefts and property crimes reported throughout the city. Though quite a few people hit the streets, the numbers nowise reached those of 2 decades ago.  With Halloween falling on a Thursday this year and classes the following day, it is doubtful the city will see much activity the rest of the week.  The next three years, as Halloween moves to the weekend, will give a much more accurate picture of the effect the ordinance allowing downtown bars to reopen during the holiday will have.

Haunted Carbondale Hundley House

Probably the most famous "haunted house" in Carbondale, the Hundley House still sits on West Main as it has for over a century.  Hundley House is the site of the most famous unsolved murder in Carbonale history,  that of  Luella and J. C. Hundley and is not currently open to the public, save by special arrangement with the owner.