Oakmont Paranormal Society partners with Munhall library for ghost hunt
Share this post:
This Halloween season, the Oakmont Paranormal Society again is partnering with the Carnegie Library of Homestead to offer something spooky, historical and fun.
From 7 p.m. to midnight Oct. 29, visitors will be able to take a guided ghost tour of the reportedly haunted library location in Munhall.
The library once was featured on Syfy’s “Ghost Hunters,” was named one of the five most haunted places in Pittsburgh and made the Pennsylvania Haunts and History website.
For $15, patrons get an hourlong tour of ostensibly haunted spots in the building, including the library, itself, where books have reportedly flown off of shelves by themselves. Also on the tour are the music hall, athletic club and basement pool.
In addition, from midnight to 3:30 a.m., visitors can join the Oakmont Paranormal Society on a ghost hunt. For $25, you can help hunt for evidence.
Emily Kubincanek, program coordinator at the library, described some of the reported hauntings.
“There’s a rumor that a former steelworker died in the pool,” she said. “The whole story is that after steelworkers were done for the day, they would come here and swim in the pool, which is very much true, and the water was so dirty that a man dove in not realizing the depth, and hit his head and drowned in the pool. So the investigators have gone down there and have seen a beach ball moving by itself without anyone in the pool or any moving water.”
Maybe it’s not just rumor.
“I know other people who have been swimming in the pool in the basement and seen things. You can imagine how creepy that is, because that pool has been here for 125 years next year. People who have grown up here for a long time have plenty of stories,” Kubincanek said. “They’ve also had cameras set up in the music hall, and the ‘Ghost Hunters’ TV show got a lot of noises in there, but Oakmont Paranormal actually got a video of clearly a silhouette of a woman, and no one else was in that area at all.”
Visitors on Oct. 29 also will have the opportunity to take part in tarot card readings and to chat with author Ed Keleman, who has written a series of books documenting haunted locations throughout Pennsylvania, along with several ghost-themed novels.
The library has been in place since 1898, and some people theorize that the 1892 Homestead strike, in which approximately a dozen people died near what later became the library grounds, may have something to do with the large amount of paranormal activity.
“I can’t really talk about the history of the library without people asking if it’s haunted. We get a lot of people who come in from out of town and ask questions about the supernatural history. The library history and the ghostly part are very much intertwined,” Kubincanek said. “There’s definitely something for everyone that wants to be a little creeped out in here.”
The tour has been running at the library since 2012, and the first official ghost hunt took place the following year. After the airing of the “Ghost Hunters” episode in 2011, Dan Lloyd, former library board president, wanted to screen the episode in the music hall and offer a tour afterward.
Then after the Syfy episode aired nationally, the library was bombarded with requests from paranormal investigators all over the country, which were politely declined in order to protect the integrity of the institution.
When the Oakmont Paranormal Society came up with the idea of turning the tours into a library fundraiser, library officials agreed, and the tours have been taking place since, with a break during the covid-19 pandemic. All proceeds go to the Carnegie Library of Homestead, and over $35,000 has been raised throughout the history of the event.
“I sometimes think they know more about our library history than we do,” library director Carol Shrieve said about members of the society. “They’re very thorough in their research. And their connections in this particular field are far and wide. They have a lot of passion for the Carnegie Library of Homestead.”
Interest is high in the event, and the library recommends purchasing tickets in advance.
“Most of the after midnight investigation spots are filling up, but there is still a lot of space for the tours and they also accept walk ins on the day of,” Kubincanek said.
Tickets can be purchased in person at the Carnegie Library of Homestead. For more information, call Kubincanek at 412-462-3444.