The Tonawanda ghost hoax

In 1920 ghost reports in Tonawanda and North Tonawanda drew crowds. On 14 June police said local business people had invented them.

Ghost sightings were reported around the twin towns of Tonawanda and North Tonawanda in the spring of 1920. A Buffalo Express item datelined 11 June 1920 reported another ghost, seen the night before shortly before midnight on Falconer Street in North Tonawanda, close to the high school. Police were said to have been called, yet no officer arrived in time to see it. An earlier tale in the Utica Globe has a roadhouse owner describing a white, female form floating in front of his car near a cemetery at Kenmore on the night of 8 March.

As a special election approached, the reported sightings grew more extravagant. Some described winged spirits in white robes, taller than seven feet. Visitors poured in, and spiritualists and curious townspeople camped in cemeteries hoping to see the ghosts.

On 14 June 1920 the chief of police, John F. Ryan, said that the ghost reports were part of a chamber of commerce campaign for a merger of the towns. He said the chamber had devised the idea and members of that organisation reported the stories. A later local article says the hoax was made up by the chamber of commerce and the police force.