Hauntseek - HAUNTS!

address: 410 Houston School Road
Red Oak, TX
75154
United States

tickets: $8 for adults, $5 for children under 10yrs

Phone:: 972-218-Rats

Website:: http://13thstreetmorgue.com

About:

13th Street Morgue is the final resting place for a family slain on Christmas Eve by one very unholy mind. Joining forces with Reindeer Manor, and the newest addition Uncle Stinky's Playhouse, a full night of terror awaits. Free Parking, Free hayride, Free Movie Theatre, Free Live Entertainment! Midway games, food, BBQ, and monsters stalking around inside and out.

History:

The 13th Street Morgue actually was built in an abandoned barn in Red Oak,TX The story of the morgue, its strange legends and tales, date all the way back to 1915, when a man names James Sharp built his house in the then remote city of Red Oak. James Sharp was a prominent Texas oil pioneer and banker who was partnered with Howard Hughes Sr. in the famed Sharp-Hughes Tool Company. The manor was actually the second house on the property, the first one, made of wood, was hit by lightning in 1915, and killed at least two men inside. After the first house burned, James decided to build a new house on the same spot. It was actually an exact replica of his then current residence in Oak Cliff, a stately red brick manor house, virtually fireproof, and even after all these years, both the house in Red Oak and Oak Cliff are still standing. Before the completion of the second house in Red Oak, James was found dead in his home in Oak Cliff, shot just behind his left ear. Speculation says he was shot by his jealous mistress, though suicide seemed to be a far more likely option. Official cause of death.....the loss of two to three ounces of brain matter, according to his death certificate. The property in Red Oak was then passed down to James' son, Matt, who not only completed the house but between 1918 and 1928, built three barns, a pump house, generator house and coach house. All of these would help accommodate the raising and breeding of race horses, which he did very successfully for several years. Matt lived on the property with his wife during that time until tragedy once again struck, just after the Great Depression in 1929. Matt's wife was found in the house, poisoned in the dining room while he was found hanging in one of the three barns. It's assumed that he did the poisoning and then hung himself, but with no witness, its really anyone's guess as to what might have happened. Some have speculated that it was a suicide pact, or she forced him at gun point to commit suicide and poisoned herself later. Other stories abound as well, that Matt was a womanizer, a heavy drinker and abusive, though there it no actually evidence of these claims. The most far fetched, but entertaining of these claims told by local residents is that Matt Sharp had a mistress in addition to his wife, and when the two discovered each other, they joined forces in a jealous rage, killed Matt, cut up his body and hid it in the attic. Far fetched maybe, but indeed well within the realm of possibility. This my friends, is where the Morgue comes in. In the year of Matt's death a man named Jonathon Maybrick leased one of the barns for his residence and funeral parlor, which he named the "13th Street Morgue" while at his first address in Alvarado, Tx. He selected the largest of the three. While no one knows for certain, its stands to reason that he leased that particular building because he might have gotten it cheap, the stigmata of a building that someone committed suicide in is hard to ignore in a small town. It was, and still is, tall and imposing, constructed of the same red Ferris brand brick the manor house was built with, with windows that face East to view the rising sun. He turned the South part of the barn into storage for the hearse, converted the North section into a home and turned the second story over the center section into the funeral parlor and embalming facility. It does seem strange at first glance to put a funeral home on the second floor, but logistically it made the most sense since the North and South ends of the building were simply too small to accommodate the funeral parlor's needs. Though the construction budget was not sizable, Jonathon was able to turn the former hay barn into a state of the art embalming facility including a Turner Port-A-Boy embalming machine which still exists to this day. It also had the only crematory in the area, something quite revolutionary in those days, though much more common today. The land to the west of the building was used to bury people too poor to afford a plot in the city cemetery and there are still sizable tax discounts on the property for using some of the land for charity, though these tax breaks benefited the property owners more than the renters. Most of the stones in the graveyard are blank, if they ever had an inscription it has long since worn away, and most are cast of simple concrete. As of this date, no one has found any records of who might be buried there so it's really anyone's guess, but the locals who remember have stated it was graves for the poor or unclaimed and that a vast majority of the burials associated with the 13th Street Morgue actually took place at the regular city cemetery.