Theresa's Haunted History of the Tri-State: A Haunting on Straley Avenue (Princeton, WV)

Photo by Candace Nelson. Source

You all know I LOVE finding new-to-me haunted locations in West Virginia! Last August, I stumbled across not one, but TWO haunted locations I had never heard of before, both located in Princeton, WV. I came across an article on the Visit Mercer County tourism website entitled The Ghosts of Princeton and Athens. In an interview with Patricia (Pat) Smith, current director of the Princeton Railroad Museum, she discusses some paranormal activity going on at the museum. A local investigation team has even investigated the location, collecting evidence on a shadowy presence in the museum's attic! I'll be blogging about that location at a later date, but I first wanted to hit on another location mentioned by Pat in the article.

Pat talks about her former restaurant she used to run, which was located in a former private residence. She doesn't mention this restaurant by name, but a little digging led to the discovery that the restaurant was actually Nonna's Italian Kitchen, located at 315 Straley Avenue.

The first inclination that something paranormal was happening was when a customer approached Pat and asked if there was a dining room upstairs. She was hearing the sounds of laughter, and people going up and down the staircase. In her words, they were 'having a real good time!' The restaurant did indeed have upper floors, but these upper floors were completely closed to the public---there was no dining room upstairs, and certainly no party, public or private, taking place.

Map Card for 315 Straley Avenue

That was a little weird, but Pat didn't think too much of it until one night after closing, she was taking a moment, just sitting in her car, unwinding from the hectic day. She noticed the curtains in one room rising up, then back down, in a very deliberate manner. Then, the upstairs lights turned themselves on. For whatever reason, Pat didn't go back to check that night, but she and her staff arrived early the next morning, expecting to see missing items or other signs that someone had broken in. Nothing was missing, and nothing was out of place---except for a floral arrangement that had been placed on the steps leading down to the basement. Interpreting this as a feminine touch, the ghost was dubbed 'Mary.'

Paranormal activity continued at the restaurant. Almost nightly, between 9 and 9:15pm as the restaurant was closing, staff would hear the foyer door creak open. Pat believes this might have been the ghosts carefully opening the door to see if they were still there.

At first glance, it seems like the activity is fairly benign and harmless. However, some people have had less than positive experiences with the ghosts. A waitress who was in the attic heard a rather harsh voice tell her to leave. She didn't just leave the attic--she quit that day. Pat's adult daughter also had an experience where something gripped her arm with quite a bit of force.

Bluefield Daily Telegraph (8 Feb 1933)

And then there is the incident with another customer, that may or may not be malevolent---but certainly shook him up! An older gentleman approached Pat one day to let her know that the place was absolutely haunted. He had been in the restroom, and upon trying to exit, found the door stuck shut. It wouldn't budge, no matter how hard he tried to open it. As he was struggling with the door, he felt a woman's hands begin to stroke his hair. That gave him the incentive to get out of that bathroom NOW, and he managed to jerk the door open.

So, who could be haunting this former brick home on Straley Avenue? If we look at the history of the home, the Mercer County Assessor's information states that the home was built around 1910. Unfortunately, the map card (listing former owners) only go back to 1954, so I'm not sure who actually built the house...but can safely say that the Evans Family spent quite a bit of time living in the home!

Irvin Ezra Evans was born in Pennsylvania in 1889 to parents Joseph H. and Elizabeth Christ Evans. He married Nida Lane Hale in Mercer County on October 22, 1921. He was a veteran of WWI and worked as a railway mechanic. The first documentation I can easily find online (one day I might make it down to Mercer to do some proper research on this case, lol) of the family living on Straley Avenue is a newspaper article from February of 1933 in which Irvin is meeting with city officials about putting in a drainage pipe to combat the water coming off of Straley Avenue ruining his lawn.

Irvin passed away on September 11, 1954 from cardiac thrombosis. Although his death certificate notes that he died at a local hospital, he was living in the home at 315 Straley Avenue at the time. According to the map card, less than two weeks later, Nida signed over the deed to their son, Irvin H. Evans. It remained in his possession (and presumably acted as a family residence) until 1995 when Wilma Stone and Susan Folden purchased the property and opened up a quaint little gift shop called The Gingerbread House! In 1999, ownership would be transferred to Gifford and Pamela Coulburne. Under their ownership, the old Evans home would serve as The Magnolia Room, Nonna's Italian Restaurant, and today...is used as Yolanda's Grooming and Training.