BIG SPRING, Texas — Big Spring is named after its old watering spring, but what you may not know is the city had a dark beginning.
The town's background is part history, part lore.
"According to legend the first eight deaths in town were murders, violent murders," said Tammy Schrecengost, a Big Spring historian. "That's where Big Spring's history is at, that's where the ghosts are."
The bodies from the early deaths lie in the Mount Olive Historic Graveyard.
According to Schrecengost, Big Spring was a shoot-to-kill kind of town.
These shootings are just some of the stories told along the city's haunted tour. The sold out tour just in time for Halloween tell tales tall, spooky and true.
The area is riddled with ghosts of the past.
In the 1880s, Main Street was lined with saloons. Today there's a loft on 2nd and Main rumored to be haunted by a past tenant Tammy calls "Annabelle".
"As soon as Annabelle moved in, she would hear noises in the walls, within the walls, and the walls are really thick construction, of concrete and brick and you couldn't really even hear the trains which are really close," said Schrecengost. "So it was that sound proof and yet she kept hearing these voices, the one wall she shares the meat market, we call it the meat market, that's one of the oldest buildings in town."
That building still stands as a barbershop and is another piece of the town's haunted history.
"The meat market was built in 1884 for the Earl of Aylesford, he was royalty and he came from England," said Schrecengost.
Aylesford apparently drank himself to death while living in Big Spring- some say his spirit never left the West Texas town.
Just one story in the cauldron full of ghosts that locals hunt for this time of year.