As a new resident of Floyd County I’ve spent time learning about its history and lore, including its ghost stories.
The website GhostsOfAmerica.com has some great tales about a woman and her daughter hearing the horn of a train engine running through Lockney, or of the ghost of an old woman that haunts the Floydada Cemetery between the hours of midnight and 3 a.m., calling out for “help from the endless flames.”
I’ve heard that the KFLP building may be haunted, I’ve been told the old Commercial Hotel is certainly haunted, and if I had to guess there might be a ghost or two hanging around the old gym on South Fifth Street or at Lockney’s Floyd County Fairgrounds building.
While those are certainly creepy and the makings of good ghost stories, nothing grabbed my interest quite like the story of Popeye.
I learned about Popeye while searching the internet for local ghost stories and came across a 2016 article from KCBD about the demolition of the old county jail. The focus of the article was on the need to tear down the building, but Sheriff Paul Raissez mentioned something that quickly caught my eye… the ghost that was said to live on the third floor. He told KCBD about how Popeye would make his presence known, but was otherwise harmless.
I called over to the Sheriff’s office on Monday afternoon and was quickly greeted with laughter when I told Sheriff Raissez why I was calling. He filled me in on how Popeye came to become part of the building. “Popeye was always in and out of jail,” the Sheriff told me. “After he died and the inmates moved out of the building we’d hear the upstairs door latch closed.”
“It always happened between 4 and 5 a.m.,” Raissez added, mentioning that since the building has been gone he hasn’t heard of Popeye’s emergence anywhere else. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been watching out for him. “When I’m up here late at night I’m always looking at the courthouse security cameras, and I haven’t seen him.”
You’ll have a chance to check in on Popeye this weekend as the Floydada Chamber of Commerce will hold their annual trick-or-treating event on the courthouse square Sunday evening. If you see Popeye try and get a picture. Or, if you have a ghost story of your own, email it to ryan@kflp.net
