YORK TIRES

Old Elevator

Montie Townsend, the store's assistant manager, said he first encountered the ghosts after he went to work for the company almost five years ago.

"When I first came to work here, we'd unload a truck and stack the tires in the back. The next day, the stack would be knocked over," Townsend said. "... Finally, I spoke to them and told them to quit knocking over the tires or else. They didn't do it again."

Townsend said almost all of the company's 15 employees have had some sort of an encounter, from hearing footsteps behind them to seeing shadows move out of the corners of their eyes.

"One day, I saw a person walking by, counting his change. He was wearing a gray uniform like the Westinghouse elevator repair people used to wear. ... He walked into the break room like he was going to get a Coke, and I went to see if he needed any help finding anything," Townsend said. "But nobody was there."

The three-story building was constructed in the 1920s, and Townsend knows of at least one death inside its walls - an elevator repairman who fell down the length of the elevator shaft.

"At one point, I think they brought in some people to check the building out, and they said there were several presences here, seven or eight different entities. I thought, ‘Pshaw, right.' But then, I saw the guy with the change."

Amarillo Globe-News 2005