The Living Inn

Austin’s Inn at Pearl Street
Austin, TX

We visited the oldest neighborhood in Austin, Judges Hill, just blocks from the University of Texas. Where we were the first paranormal team granted access to investigate The Inn at Pearl Street, which was a once abandoned building now turned modern day bed and breakfast, and a home that used to belong to a well respected judge in the early 1900’s.

Guests and staff have reported mysts, shadows, apparitions, and other unexplained poltergeist activity. Throughout the building, music and disembodied footsteps are also heard – when no ones around.

What energies inhabit this building? Is it the Judge and his family still inhabiting their former home?

Find out, as we investigate the Inn at Pearl Street.

 

 

History:

The Judges Hill neighborhood was originally inhabited by the Tonkawa Indians who rode and hunted in the areas surrounding Shoal Creek.
Around 1835 Thomas Jefferson Chambers, judge of the superior judicial court of the Mexican state of Coahuila and Texas, was granted land, including this area, for his services. General Thomas Jefferson Chambers served as a judge of the Superior Court of Texas. Around 1835 to compensate him for his services, and because the treasury at the time was out of money, he was deeded 66,420 acres of land. A portion of this deeded land included the present-day Judges Hill neighborhood territory.

During the Texas Revolution, Chambers requested that the land be used as security to recruit soldiers and to buy and stockpile material. In 1839, when the City of Austin was founded, the Congress of the Republic of Texas condemned the land. It was sectioned off and sold to eight owners.
But it wouldn’t be until 1851 that the first home was constructed in the Judge’s Hill neighborhood. Sterling Clack Roberston had the house built near the corner of present-day 18th and San Gabriel. The house was subsequently demolished in 1966. Judge Robertson was the first among the neighborhood resident judges and attorneys who earned the area the name of Judges Hill.

The first official record of the Inn can be found in the Austin City Directory of 1914 when it was the private residence of prominent 26th Judicial District Judge Charles A. Wilcox and his family.

Wilcox and his wife, the former Stella Snider, had five children.

Judge Wilcox held the judgeship until 1917. He was so well-respected that when he died in 1931, government agencies and official buildings throughout the Austin area closed in his honor.

In the early 1980’s the house was falling into ruin, and for a brief moment of time was being used as a movie set for Richard Linklater’s film ‘Slacker‘.

In 1993, the previously abandoned and dilapidated home was rescued by Jill Bickford with the help of her parents, Burton and Victoria, and has been lovingly restored to its near-original turn-of-the-century charm. Much “heart and soul” has gone into the restoration of this home. Nearly two years and a tidy sum of money went into the meticulous restoration. The entire home has been re-plumbed, rewired and brought up-to-date while maintaining its historic integrity. For the most part, the home has remained just as it stood 100 years ago.

Claims:

DOWNSTAIRS
– Numerous voices heard
– Footsteps heard going up and down staircase
– When upstairs it sounds like their is a party or group of people downstairs
UPSTAIRS
– A woman seen carrying two children, moving down the hall from the Gothic Suite to the French Room. Thought to be Stella Wilcox and her babies that died at just a few days old
– A woman rocking in a rocking chair. Thought to be Stella Wilcox rocking her children

 

• -EVPs: “..Wilcox”, “unexplained laughter”, “unexplained whistling”, “..ask again”

• Residual Energy: Sounds of musket fire (possible from when the are was a battlefield)

• -Flashlight Responses: Random Turn ons, Flashlight turns off on the count of 3 when asked

• -Anomalies: Myst the appears to be legs walking down the stairs, Myst in one picture of dining room, Orb flies into Billie’s back, Orb travels from Gothic Suite to French Room (matching the stories)

Bonus Material

Videos:

Pics:

Audio:

These are audio anomalies that didn’t make it into the final episode. This is usually because they are hard to hear.

EVP 1 – Unknown Whisper

EVP 2 – Unknown Noise before “That was a very faint answer”

EVP 3 – Unknown Humming

EVP 4 – Unknown

EV 5 – Unknown EVP before Billy says “Oh Shoot..”