HAUNTED TAYLOR Old Taylor High gives new meaning to the term 'school spirit'
Editor’s note: With Halloween fast approaching, the Taylor Press offers readers a continuing series about ghostly doings in town.
Thousands of students have passed through the hallowed halls of Old Taylor High since it opened in the 1920s, but according to some witnesses, a few of those learners may have returned — if not in body, then in spirit.
Now a mixed-use facility that is home to shops and restaurants, Old Taylor High, 410 W. Seventh St., has developed quite a reputation for haunted happenings.
“There was one time I was here after hours with a friend of mine, and she has an entire ghost-hunting kit, which included a touch-sensor ball,” said Maddie Charlton, owner of Ritual Herbals operating out of Old Taylor High. “We rolled this into a corner of one of the rooms. We started to ask questions, and it went off like crazy.”
Charlton added, “You hear stories from other shopkeepers about weird things like paper towels moving across counters and things like that.”
The building functioned as a high school and/or middle school into the early 2000s, before being purchased by Cliff and Kaitlin Olle in 2016. The couple turned the structure into a home for boutiques, eateries and vintage shops nestled inside former classrooms.
“Personally, I haven’t experienced anything I’d consider unusual since I’ve been here,” Cliff Olle said. “But we’ve had several investigators come in and do overnight stays, in which they have reported strange events. We have had a ton of tenants report things like hearing strange sounds coming from the auditorium or inside the hallways. We had a medium tour the building, and I do remember her not wanting to go into one particular room. It was the old bathroom in the annex over by the band hall. She said there was some bad juju in that room.”
According to Olle, “One of our employees was an old janitor when it was a middle school. He said that this was a room that was used to detain kids with mental issues. They would be locked in that room. This was years and years and years ago. It was pretty bad. He confirmed that this stuff happened. They didn’t know how to properly deal with kids with mental issues back in those days.”
One of those investigations, conducted by Matt Cannon’s group Truly Haunted Inc., captured an electronic-voice phenomenon recording of a disembodied voice which identified itself as “Tyler Weber.” A search through the local high school graduation records revealed that a person with that name was a member of the graduating class of 1944 at Stephen F. Austin High School in nearby Austin.
“We used to have a light back here behind the counter that would turn off and on without cause,” said MacKenzie Murray, owner of The Drip, a coffee shop inside Old Taylor High. “Things fall that shouldn’t fall. I don’t have as many experiences as I used to have here. I like to think that it is because we cleansed the energy that was present.”
Some famous people have graduated from Old Taylor High. Actor Rip Torn was a member of the Class of 1948. Torn, an Emmy winner and Academy Award nominee (“Cross Creek,” 1984) appeared in the film series “Men In Black” and the longrunning television series, “The Larry Sanders Show.”
Dicky Moegele, a 1951 graduate, went on to become an All-American football player at Rice University and was eventually drafted by the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers. Moegele, who later changed his name to Maegele, would also play for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys.
Moegele was involved in one of the most famous plays in college football history, during the 1954 Cotton Bowl against Alabama. He took a handoff and broke clear of the defense on his way down the sideline for a certain touchdown when Alabama’s Tommy Lewis jumped out from the bench and onto the field and tackled Moegele. As a student at Taylor High, Moegele missed his sophomore season of football when he attempted to open a stuck classroom window that shattered and severely cut his hand.
Hutto resident Vanessa Suarez was working her first night on the job at the Loose Screw Craft Beer House & Garden, located on the first floor of Old Taylor High. As she counted out the daily receipts at closing, she heard someone whistling behind the bar. She dismissed it and returned to her counting.
Then she heard the whistle again. It was loud and clear, but this time, it came from the other side of the bar. It would not be the only experience Suarez would have since taking the job six months ago.
As recent as just three weeks ago, she had this encounter: “Next time I had to come in, I’m opening up and I hear another whistle coming from over by the window,” Suarez said. “So, I’m like, it is time to turn the radio on. Then I was opening up, and I had to open a window, and all I heard was a man’s voice telling me to turn around. I freaked out. It was 11:30 in the morning, and nobody is supposed to be here, and nobody was here.”
Perhaps, the spirit of a former football star who lost his sophomore season due to an accident while trying to open a stuck window was warning Suarez to be careful? Who can be sure?
One thing is certain — Old Taylor High brings new meaning to the term “school spirit.”
