For Halloween: The Holmes Book Company in Oakland

The Holmes Book Company in Oakland, California, founded in 1925, was located at 274 Fourteenth Street in 1931 according to the postmark date on the postal cover below.

A reputable book shop for collectors and browsers through much of the 20th century, the Holmes Book Company had another reputation—it was haunted!

Before the business closed in 1995, the Oakland building at 274 14th Street had become widely known for its paranormal activity. Local psychics and employees claimed for years that the store was inhabited by at least two distinct ghosts: The Phantom Book-Thrower, who threw books off shelves and across the room and the Basement Ghost who roamed the collection of California and Oakland historical memorabilia. This spirit appears to have not shared the volatile behavior of its counterpart upstairs. The folklore that developed around these ghostly encounters remained with the store until its closure.

Holmes was Harold C. Holmes, who lived from 1877-1965. A brief biography of Holmes is found at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, where his papers are archived. He was born in Toronto, Canada, but his family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area when he was about five years of age. There, his father started the Holmes Book Company, which grew to several antiquarian book shops in San Francisco and Oakland and offered the opportunity for Harold Holmes to enter the business. As a teenager, the younger Holmes worked with his father and eventually succeeded him in the family business, which he operated until he died.


Quoting directly from the bio in his archives, Holmes is described further:
An authority on California literary history, in his middle years Holmes was also active in Oakland civic affairs, serving as president of the Oakland Rotary Club (1946-47), a member of the Alameda County Probation Committee (1948), and, a trustee of the California College of Arts & Crafts. Holmes was working on his memoirs at the time of his death.
Those memoirs were published posthumously in a volume titled: Some Random Reminiscences of an Antiquarian Bookseller.


Location: Fulshear, TX, USA

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