July 13, 2011
Vol 13 No 28
September 16, 2015
A Haunting in St. Charles Recipes
Dinner Done Easy
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Around Town
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MOSAICS Missouri Festival
Photo by Brett Auten Jim Slack and his wife Karen Heitzman are the owners of Thistle and Clover, one of the businesses in Old St. Charles to be featured on the television series “Ghost Hunters.”
“Ghost Hunters” episode will focus on the paranormal on Main Street in Old St. Charles By Brett Auten Are certain Main Street businesses in Old St. Charles haunted? Is the disruption of a cemetery behind an 18th century church the reason behind it all? The SyFy network’s “Ghost Hunters” spent a week exploring, recording and documenting a handful of shops on Main Street. What, if anything, they found will be revealed on Wednesday's episode, titled: “Over My Dead Body”. “Ghost Hunters,” which first aired in 2004, has put together 10 seasons where star Jason Hawes and his team of investigators track paranormal activity across the country. Scheduled to air at 8 p.m. on SyFy Network, this episode is to investigate unexplained activity on Main Street in St. Charles, where many believe sightings of spirits at their doors is caused by the buildings being constructed over a cemetery. The reason the episode transpired at all is due to a book written by Dr. Michael Henry. Since 2006, Henry has run and hosted the St. Charles Ghost Tours, a guided trip through many of the unexplained mysteries that are tied to Main Street. In 2010, Henry penned “The Ghosts of St. Charles,” a short take on the dark and colorful past of the third old-
est city in Missouri. The “Ghost Hunters” team came across “The Ghosts of St. Charles” in a California bookstore. The multiple reports of an entire area and not just a specific setting being haunted appealed to the show runners and in the summer of 2014 a crew of 30 set up shop over an eight-day period. Also a mystery of sorts will be which businesses will get wedged into the onehour program. Among the establishments considered for air time are Thistle and Clover, Goellner Printing, Dengler Tobacconist, Goellner Printing, Old Millstream Inn, and the Mother-in-Law House Restaurant. Thistle and Clover is positioned behind the historic St Charles Borromeo 1791 log church. The church's cemetery spread out six blocks south from the French-built structure. Behind 401 S. Main St., historic preservationists have constructed an authentic replica of the 1791 Borromeo Catholic Church. The original log building stood on the west side of Main between Jackson and Tompkins streets. Records indicate that the church cemetery was located adjacent to the building. The cemetery is said to be the final resting place for 324 past citizens. Famously, in 1982, during the excavating of a retaining wall behind the Thistle and Clover and Grandma’s Cookies, four
graves were opened and then inturned. According to the 1991 book "St. Charles Borromeo, 200 Years of Faith" by Jo Ann Brown, a private excavation in 1981 behind 407 S. Main St. unearthed a human hip socket, leg bones and casket fragments identified as remnants of the original cemetery. In 1831, the cemetery's burials were supposedly transferred to what would later become the site of the present day Borromeo brick church at 601 N. Fourth St. See A HAUNTING IN ST CHARLES on page 2
Moore on Life
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Green with Envy
Business
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ESG opens new offices
Movie: ‘The Martian’
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