"Liberty" is going to go through some changes as I apparently suck too much to keep posting short stories here. I decided to use "Liberty" as a place to begin telling stories of my past and current ghost hunting experiences and stories about the histories around where I live. The first entry in the new "Liberty" is about a house that was abandoned in Baldwin City. The house was an abandoned house on Baker Street just off of Eleventh Street. You could see it from the highway but I never really noticed it until I was dragged there one day. It was a nice house even though it had been abandoned for several years. What was nice was that even though it was abandoned, it was still relatively in tact as in no broken windows and unhinged doors. Probably because of it's proximity to the highway and another house that was actually lived in.
It was daytime when I first went to the house. We (Randy and Joey and Nathan and I) parked way down on Elm Street and followed the railroad tracks to the house where other kids were lurking around, mainly exploring the basement. I didn't look too far into the house because it was light outside but we said we'd come back later that night which we did. I only got one chance to go into the house so I'm glad that I took the time to look around the explore the cabinets and drawers. When I walked into the house it looked as if someone had just lived there the previous day. Although it was messy from probably years of people rooting around through the drawers, it was still creepy to be in this house knowing that someone could come back at any moment. The house was stuck in either the fifties or the seventies, I couldn't really tell because they had a 1950s television but a more modern kitchen. It was first place where I could actually take a souvenir which I did but more on that later.Randy, Joey and I looked around the house but I was more intrigued by the upstairs. The bedrooms were upstairs and in one room, it looked like the child had just made his bed and would be heading to sleep at any minute. I found the picture of Mopsy drawn on an old newspaper (I want to say the Kansas City Star) and I just had to keep it. Another bedroom was strewn with old books and I did take a couple books featuring Mistakes in English and teaching you Faulty Diction. The books were printed in 1887 and 1917 respectively so I'm glad I saved them from an unknown fate. I also took a copy of the book A Sentimental Journey although I have yet to read it but I do want to. The next bedroom was once that I should've spent more time in and took a greater effort in preserving it's remains.
The next bedroom, which I believe was the master bedroom despite having only a dresser in it (no bed or anything else). In a box in the middle of the room were a bunch of letters to and from the family who lived there about vacations and random family trivia. I wish I would've kept some or read more of them because then maybe I could've learned more about the people who once lived in that house until they all drowned at Yellowstone according to some 11-year-old.
The house was torn down in 2003 or so and I believe all the stuff inside was auctioned off which would've been cool to go to. The only remnant of the house was a tree that only had branches on one side of it, all others were chopped off. In the last couple of years, the tree was chopped down so now nothing remains of the house. Unfortunately I never got a picture of the house or the tree but I guess I could go back and take a picture of the empty lot...
