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In June 2005, we began investigating the “old town” area of Katy, Texas. We began with no reports of ghosts in Old Town Katy, but a gut feeling that it might produce some good orbs.
(Frankly, a lot of my work involves predicting & investigating haunted sites before any other website does. And, as of mid-2005, no other ghost website — and no ghost-related TV show — had reported anything about the ghosts of Old Town Katy.)
So, I was ready to see if my “gut feeling” and my prediction methods (including ley lines) were correct.
I began by looking for clues in Katy’s history.
HISTORY OF KATY, TEXAS
Katy was originally called Cane Island and is about 25 miles west of downtown Houston. It was the hunting ground of the Karankawa Indians through the 1820s.
The town was settled in the mid 1890s. The Katy post office opened in 1896, and the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad (MKT – called the “KT”) depot was finished in 1898.
Unfortunately, a lot of the town’s early efforts were swept clean by the Galveston Flood of 1900. (Many people don’t realize how far inland that water spread.)
Most of the early settlers in Katy were farmers. By the early 20th century Katy was best known for its annual rice crop.
In 1934, the discovery well of the Katy gas field was drilled. That led to new business opportunities in Katy and vicinity.
Today, Katy’s population is about 12,000 and growing with upscale developments opening steadily, especially in the Cinco Ranch area.
However, the historic side of Katy is the focus of our early ghost investigations.
All but two of the original Katy homes were lost in the 1900 hurricane that caused the Galveston Flood. We started our research at the oldest buildings with the most interesting history.
Here’s our initial report:
KATY TRAIN DEPOT
Our first stop was the old train depot (5710 Highway Boulevard, near East Avenue and 1st Street). This wonderful old building is being restored by the Katy Historical Society. Only a few of our depot photos show orbs, but those that do are notable.
I’m not going to claim that one orb means anything. It’s pretty, and it’s odd that there’s just one orb at a site that feels so connected to its history. However, that’s not nearly enough to say that a site is haunted.
Despite that, the site is convenient, not far from I-10. Also, it’s a quiet area, and a comfortable spot for ghost hunting. So, we’ll continue to explore it.
The house I grew up in is 1411 Avenue A. As a kid I was always getting the creeps there. It is a very old farm house that existed before the rest of the neighborhood. Avenue B use to run directly behind the back yard but was cut off by the elementary school. My mother had a tree-house built in the back, but no one ever wanted to play in it because it was so scary. We have tried researching history on the house but I haven’t found anything that is published. My mother went to the nursing home of the women whose mother lived in the house decades before, to ask if anything weird had happened there. The women said no, but a week later, her grand daughters came to the house and told my mother that their grandmother felt uncomfortable telling my mother this, but that the grandmothers own mother passed away in the front bedroom. This confirmed many of my senses, because I and the rest of my family always sensed something in that front room. The house frequently changes owners, but I have remained friendly with all of them. They have turned it into a commercial business office and it has been renovated to the point where it does not look like the house I grew up in.