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St. Louis Regional history comes alive in this joint production by KDHX and the Missouri Historical Society. Stories of our past are connected with the present in these well researched and entertaining short presentations about the people, places, and events that have shaped who we are and who we are becoming. 

Jan 5, 2023

Almost everyone loves a ghost story, and St. Louis would briefly succumb to a craze concerning a a certain ghostly specter that supposedly haunted Pine Street. Just press play to hear the whole story. -----

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I’m Amanda Clark, manager of the See STL Tours program at the Missouri Historical Society, and Here’s History, on eighty-eight one, KDHX. -----

In 1887, on a chilly January Sunday, over 10,000 St. Louisans gathered to catch a glimpse of the impossible. The anxious crowd spent over 12 hours packed shoulder to shoulder after reading in the previous day’s Globe Democrat that a phantom horse and buggy had been appearing daily for over a month. The so-called Pine Street Specter would traverse what is now the campus of Harris Stowe University before vanishing. Eyewitnesses alleged that the buggy crossed paths with other vehicles and passed right through them. The Globe’s reporter claimed he had not only seen the apparition, but had even ridden the buggy for a block or two, peering into the carriage in search of the missing driver.-----

Unsurprisingly, neither the horse nor buggy materialized before the massive, expectant crowd. Police struggled to contain the mob of disappointed spectators. The next morning, the paper published a correction. They didn’t retract their claims, they said only that they had left out a crucial piece of information – the ghost never appeared on the Sabbath. Similar scenes recurred for several days, with crowds swelling to 15,000 despite freezing conditions. Some residents of the upper-class neighborhood complained that their servants stopped working out of fear though others hosted lavish specter-themed parties and seances. One young woman was treated to a very public display of affection when her beau hired a ghost-costumed chorus to serenade her. ------

Though many Pine Street residents continued to insist the specter was real, the curious hordes gave up hope after a week or so. The story lived on for another year in the ghost’s absence, turning into a shared joke among newspaper writers, who blamed the specter for unsolved robberies and stock market losses. Eventually, though, memory faded, and the Pine Street Specter was again as invisible as it had been on that first cold January afternoon. ------ 

Here’s history is a joint production of the Missouri History Museum and KDHX. I’m Amanda Clark and this is 88.1 KDHX St. Louis. ------