For more than a century, Goleta Depot has seen countless passengers, railroad workers, visitors and volunteers pass through its doors.
But have all of them left?
Probably.
Then again, there have been a few strange happenings over the years that are difficult to explain.
Former South Coast Railroad Museum Executive Director Gary B. Coombs was certainly no believer in ghosts. In fact, when he presented a special Halloween program at the museum on October 20, 1993, he approached the question of whether Goleta Depot might be haunted mostly tongue-in-cheek.
The title of his presentation?
“Goleta Depot Ghosts, Goblins, and Things That Go Bump In The Night.”
More than three decades later, the stories Gary shared still make for some entertaining—and occasionally eerie—Goleta Depot history.
The Original “Depot Ghost”
The story of a ghost at Goleta Depot actually began before the building became a museum.
During the 1970s, the depot was abandoned and deteriorating beside the Southern Pacific tracks. Vandals repeatedly broke into the building, damaging windows, doors and the interior.
Albert and Thora St. Clair lived next door to the depot for 35 years and tried to look after the increasingly vulnerable landmark. When vandals tore boards away from windows and doors, Albert would put them back.
He also came up with a more creative way of discouraging curious youngsters from entering the abandoned building:
The Depot Ghost.
Albert warned neighborhood children that anyone who ventured inside might encounter the spirits of long-departed railroad workers and passengers.
Some youngsters ignored his warnings anyway.
When they did, Albert occasionally used a slingshot to send rocks striking against the outside of the building. Hearing unexplained noises from inside the supposedly haunted depot was apparently quite convincing.
The children often ran.
The “ghost,” at least in this case, had a perfectly reasonable explanation.
But years later, after Goleta Depot had been saved, moved and restored, Gary experienced a few incidents that weren’t quite so easy to dismiss.
The Mysterious Red Spot
The first occurred in June 1983.
Gary was working in the Freight Office, refinishing the old built-in telegrapher’s bench, when he uncovered something unexpected beneath the paint.
It was a bright red spot about three inches across.
And it appeared to still be wet.
The room had not been used as a railroad office for nearly a decade. Yet when Gary attempted to wipe away the mysterious red liquid, more seemed to appear.
Was it blood?
Gary’s imagination briefly went in that direction too.
But as a skeptic, he started looking for a more ordinary explanation. Perhaps someone had spilled red ink or paint years earlier and a later coat of paint had sealed it away from the air, preventing it from drying normally.
Gary never claimed to have solved the mystery. According to his account, the spot was eventually covered again during restoration of the office.
So that’s one mystery safely hidden beneath a coat of paint.
Probably.
The Wall That Knocked Back
Another incident happened upstairs around the same time.
Gary was working in the northeast corner of the upstairs living room when, for reasons he could no longer remember, he tapped the north wall with his fist.
A second or two later, he heard a tap from the other side.
So he knocked again.
The wall answered again.
Gary repeated the experiment dozens of times.
Each time, after a short delay, something seemed to knock back.
Once again, he looked for a logical explanation. His best theory was that a loose electrical cord, wire or rope was hanging inside the wall. Striking the wall might have caused it to swing away and then strike the wall as it swung back.
There was just one complication.
The wall was never opened to find out.
Gary later noted that filing cabinets had blocked access to that corner for many years, meaning whatever produced those return knocks could conceivably still be there.
Anyone want to knock?
The Experience Even a Skeptic Couldn’t Quite Explain
Gary’s strangest story happened in 1984.
He was alone upstairs in Goleta Depot on a warm summer evening, working on a book with Bill Everett titled Mule Car and Trolley: The Story of the Santa Barbara Street Railway.
He reached a particularly troubling part of the book: the story of a tragic streetcar accident that occurred in Santa Barbara on Easter Sunday, April 10, 1904.
Car 16 had left the Old Mission carrying 125 passengers despite having only 48 seats. The motorman lost control as the streetcar descended Laguna and Mission Streets. It gained speed before overturning at the sharp curve at Garden Street.
Five people were killed.
As Gary worked with the text and photographs describing the accident, something suddenly entered the upstairs room through an open window.
A mourning dove.
The frightened bird attempted to escape, struck a wall and fell to the floor.
It had died instantly.
Gary was struck by the disturbing similarity between what he had just been reading and what had happened only feet away from him—the streetcar passengers trapped in a terrible collision and, 80 years later, a bird suddenly trapped inside the depot and killed when it struck the wall.
Gary remained a skeptic.
But in his book, he admitted that this particular experience was one he always found difficult to dismiss simply as coincidence.
So, Is Goleta Depot Haunted?
We’ll leave that decision to you.
The Depot Ghost of the 1970s certainly had a flesh-and-blood explanation involving a concerned neighbor and a well-aimed slingshot.
The red spot on the telegrapher’s bench could have been old paint or ink.
The mysterious return knocks upstairs could have come from something hanging inside the wall.
And the mourning dove?
Coincidences happen.
Still, buildings as old as Goleta Depot accumulate more than wood, nails and layers of paint. They accumulate stories.
Since its construction in 1901, Goleta Depot has been a workplace, passenger station, freight terminal, residence, abandoned landmark, preservation project and museum. Thousands of people have passed through its rooms during more than 125 years of history.
Perhaps it’s only fitting that a building with that much history should have a few mysteries, too.
And if you happen to be upstairs someday and hear a knock from inside the wall?
Well…
You can decide whether or not to knock back.
These stories are adapted from Gary B. Coombs’ Goleta Depot: The History of a Rural Railroad Station, published by the Institute for American Research. Coombs originally presented several of the stories during the museum’s October 20, 1993 Halloween program, “Goleta Depot Ghosts, Goblins, and Things That Go Bump In The Night.”