ALVA—Nestled on the west side of Alva on 14th Street right off U.S. 64 stands a stately blond three-story building. It originally housed the Alva General Hospital from 1932 to 1972, witnessing the births and the deaths of thousands of locals over 40 years.
After obliging as student lodging for a brief stint, it officially became the home of the Cherokee Strip Museum in 1976.
Both staff and visitors have found that things aren’t always as they seem as they walk the former hospital halls learning the history of the Cherokee Strip Outlet.
Elaine Graybill, who is the museum’s business manager and occasional tour guide, arrived on the scene in 1999 to serve on the museum board. For 12 years she was in and out of the place nary a word about its paranormal past.
However, when she was hired in 2016—under the pretense she’d temporarily fill the position until someone else could step in to permanently run it—Graybill said the hauntings were a hot topic.
“In eight years, there have been 15 [paranormal] investigations so far,” she stated. Ranging from amateur to professional, teams from the region and as far away as Iowa have come to check out the museum for themselves.
According to many websites promoting the unexplained, the Cherokee Strip Museum is considered one of the top 10 scariest spots in the state.
“A lot of the stories we hear are from others,” Graybill said. Herself a transplant to the area right as the museum formed, the 74-year-old indicated many people who step foot inside were either born at the hospital, related to someone who lived or lives in Alva, or have connection to the artifacts on display.
HAUNTED BY THE PAST
On the main floor the north wing, right next to the former nurses’ station, pays tribute to the men and women of the Armed Forces and Alva’s role during World War II.
What is now the Woods County Fairgrounds on the south side of town was the general location of one of the primary German POW camps in Oklahoma. German prisoners of war had to march three miles from the depot to the prison under the careful watch of American soldiers stationed at 13 guard towers.
Homer Jones, the owner of the local movie theater Rialto, managed to film reel-to-reel from the air and on the ground at the then-operational POW camp. One of the only copies of that footage loops on a screen alongside actual artifacts from the camp on display in the museum.
Graybill said because the German POWs were treated so well by their U.S. captors, two eventually returned for a visit at the museum decades after their release, the most recent in 2013.
That said, it is believed that a German soldier nicknamed Trapper by the staff and volunteers was the museum’s resident spirit.
Directly above the military section on the top floor was the hospital’s surgical wing. The actual surgery room on the northeast corner has been semi-restored with original medical equipment. The rooms next to it display historical documents, artifacts, and equipment mimicking a doctor’s or dentist’s office.
While most of the old hospital’s façade has been covered with brick and stone, the north side top floor windows remain in tact, allowing passersby a glimpse inside.
According to Graybill, there has been a sighting or two in those windows, including one woman’s report of seeing her late grandmother, who was once a nurse at the hospital, standing there.
Several people have reported seeing strange lights and ghostly shadows moving around in the building at night. Graybill said a particularly unusual sighting was “someone” on the roof, which can’t be accessed except through a series of trap doors inside the building.
Trapper, the friendly German ghost, allegedly appeared at the Cherokee Strip Museum because “we accepted a possession of his for the POW exhibit,” Graybill commented, referring to what previous paranormal investigators told her.
He has not been seen or heard from in quite a while though; he apparently attached himself to a student volunteer and went home with her. Frightened by his presence, Graybill said the young lady called on professionals to force his spirit to leave her place.
“We don’t know if he left and never came back,” Graybill said, adding she can’t prove if he ever returned to museum either.
Among other unexplained occurrences within the museum:
- An object being flung across the room when nobody was near it
- Pictures on the wall askew the next morning
- Lights on when clearly no one is there
- The reflection of someone’s face appearing in a photo taken by a visitor and remains unidentified to this day (and it wasn’t one of the mannequins)
- Sounds of children crying or laughing when no children are present
CARRYING ON
Haunted or not, the Cherokee Strip Museum has much to offer the history seeker, family genealogist, or simply the curious.
Both the main floor and the top floor provide hours of learning about Northwest Oklahoma’s pioneer days, local heroes, and a look at nature through finely preserved specimen as they recently acquired a multitude of taxidermies featuring animals, fish, birds, and insects.
In the south wing on the bottom floor, that originally was the hospital’s emergency room and morgue, is now inhabited by the local Head Start. Head Start has its own entry which doesn’t interfere with the museum operations.
In the north wing on the bottom floor, that was the hospital’s original cafeteria and kitchen, can be rented out for the day as a meeting room or gathering space. It too has its own entry so it can be used even when the museum itself is closed.
Should visitors want to hear more about the true tales of those who’ve gone on, Talking Tombstones will be held at the museum (not the cemetery due to liability issues) this year on Oct. 24 and Oct. 26. Tours begin at 6 p.m. and cost $10 per person. Check out the Cherokee Strip Museum’s Facebook page for more details.