The Haunted Old Rock Store - Part IV

Summary

The Night Owl Podcast Episode 70: The Haunted Old Rock Store – Part IV

Podcast Date: July 27, 2026
Host: Stephen Belyeu & Night Owl Paranormal Research Society

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Overview of the Episode

This episode serves as a pivotal chapter in the ongoing investigation into the Old Rock Store, a historic limestone building in Oak Hill, Texas, renowned for its layered past and enduring paranormal reputation. Instead of jumping directly into a second on-site investigation, Stephen and the Night Owl team follow up on new leads: previously untold eyewitness accounts from former residents, employees, patrons, locals, and fellow investigators. These stories span more than four decades, revealing recurring patterns of unexplained activity and deepening the mystery surrounding the store's haunted lore. The episode stands as an oral history—piecing together timelines, personalities, and phenomena—while preparing both investigators and listeners for a return visit laden with fresh context.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Tracing the Store's Lore and Legacy

• The Power of History: The episode begins by reinforcing how history, medium impressions, and first-hand accounts are converging around the Old Rock Store, revealing its significance from the late 1800s through present day.
• A Living Puzzle: Stephen notes the investigation has taken turns he didn’t expect: "New witnesses came forward...people with ties to the building’s past began reaching out with stories of their own.” (02:12)
• Parallel Impressions: Two mediums, Kate and Alejandro, previously described the same presences and atmospheres independently, aligning with historical and staff reports (07:09–08:51).

2. Origins of the Store's Haunting & Material History

• Limestone With a Past: Megan from Weird ATX investigates connections between the Old Rock Store, the Convict Hill quarry, and lore of a convict’s spirit. She details how limestone, intended for the state capitol, was redirected to the Old Rock Store, and shares anecdotes about “angry spirits still existing at the quarry.” (09:45–15:21)
• Deep Roots: Newspaper and archival research reveal that James Andrew Patton, the store’s builder, was directly involved in these early chapters (15:21).

3. Hauntings Before Popular Memory

• Law Enforcement Testimonies: Greg Lawson recalls Old Rock Store ghost stories were circulating among deputies and locals as early as the 1980s—long before Austin Pizza Garden (APG) moved in. Tales included “lights turning on,” “apparitions of a cowboy or Texas Ranger," and other strange events.

  "We would have gotten there around 9 or 10 o'clock at night...there were stories...lights on when they shouldn't be on, people inside, shadows..." (16:31–20:48)

4. Firsthand Accounts from Former Residents

• Resident Business Owners: Interview with John Dromgoole, owner of Natural Gardener, who lived and ran his business in the Old Rock Store during the 1980s:
  • Gentle Activity: He felt friendly touches, “tapping on the shoulder,” and even a footstep—never threatening.

    "You feel this little slight tap...a friend came up to you and said, 'Hey, John.' ...That happened in there with some frequency, even getting my foot stepped on..." (23:05–31:23)

  • Energy Shifts: John described a particular “energetic” room (the later addition), echoing locations flagged by mediums.
  • No Malice: “The spirit world isn’t always a scary one...I would do it all over again. It wouldn’t scare me at all.” (31:23–33:01)
• Unlikely Coincidences: John found a glass nameplate with “Dromgool” on Old Rock Store property, despite its rarity—interpreting this as a sign of personal connection (33:01).

5. Creative Staff Encounters

• Dina Locklear’s Experiences: John's daughter, working in the backroom in 1986, repeatedly saw shadowy figures in her periphery—never threatening but persistent.

  “Somebody would walk in, and you turn to greet somebody...and there’s nobody there. Never scared, never alarmed, just kind of matter of fact.” (41:42–44:02)

• Contrast with Recent Reports: Current Square Root Kava staff have more startling, unsettling experiences, suggesting activity or its interpretation may shift over time (44:24).

6. The Pizza Garden Years: Poltergeist Activity

• Patron Testimony: Juana, a regular at APG in the early 2000s, relays the owner's stories:
  • Hostile Presence in Upstairs Prep Room: Bowls and objects flew across the room, sending early-morning employees fleeing; hiring for that shift became difficult.

    “All of a sudden a large bowl...went flying across the room and smashed into the opposite wall...it happened again...they immediately screamed, ran back down the stairs.” (50:10–52:29)

  • Different Energies: Most phenomena elsewhere were lighter, almost playful, but the upper room felt "hostile.”
  • No Assigned Gender: The presence was simply an angry "energy," not identified as male or female (55:08).

7. Medium Investigations: Patterns Across Decades

• Sarah Reeves’ 2023 Investigation (Madrone Coffee Era):

  • Welcoming Energy: Sarah and her fellow mediums sense “invitation” upon arrival; the presences want to be recognized.

    “The building itself, when you go inside, it was very welcoming, very, you know, you could feel just the energy of the space with like, yes, come on in.” (65:32–66:42)

  • Captured Apparition: They photograph a male figure in an upstairs window where, physically, no one could stand.

    “Only one shot captures this. It looks like a male spirit looking out the window. Like a male looking out the window.” (65:32–66:15)

  • Patrolling Male Entity: Sensed as protective, sometimes in uniform, with heavy booted steps; behavior matches historical male presence reports.
  • Strong Female Entity: Seen as “running the business," concerned with upkeep, supportive of the (then) coffee shop owner (72:09–78:26).

• Kay’s Impressions (Student Medium):

  • Immediate Welcome & Anticipation: The sense someone was “waiting eagerly” for arrivals; drawn toward the upstairs, especially near the watchmaker’s studio.
  • Automatic Writing: Contact with spirits included an older woman (possibly the family matriarch), a little girl in period dress, and emotional echoes from previous residents.

    “A very proud, but not snooty...just very together and very proud… she knew her strength. She just looked at me like I didn’t know anything, and said, ‘Well, a mother always visits her family.’” (93:15–95:50)

  • Common Themes: The upstairs consistently feels like a home, downstairs carries "energetic shifts," and experiences are often curious or welcoming, not frightening.

8. Overarching Patterns

• Recurring Entities: Throughout the building's modern timeline, repeated signatures appear:
  • A welcoming female presence, protective and invested in business success.
  • A male (possibly family patriarch or Texas Ranger) associated with authority, heavy boots, and “patrolling.”
  • Shadow figures and peripheral movements, particularly in the back rooms or near restrooms.
• Evolving Tone: Early and mid-timeline witnesses (1980s–2000s) tend to describe the phenomena as benign or even comforting, while select more recent reports from staff and customers trend toward the unsettling, especially with the “shadow man.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• Stephen Belyeu:

  "Every investigation reaches a moment when the story begins taking you somewhere you never expected." (01:00) “Not one extraordinary story, but dozens of ordinary people across nearly 40 years describing remarkably similar experiences inside the same small limestone building.” (100:05)

• Megan (Weird ATX):

  “If you go there, you’ll find people walking their dogs...But it does have a creepy feel about it. In fact, the moment you step into it, it’s like the forest overtaking you...” (10:48)
  “Convicts were hired to quarry the granite there...the limestone that was slated for the Capitol was actually used for the inner wall. Now that we’re at the Capitol…” (12:14)

• Greg Lawson:

  “...There were all these stories...lights on when they shouldn’t be on, people inside, shadows inside when they shouldn’t be there...a male ghost...cowboy...Texas Ranger...” (16:31–20:48)

• John Dromgoole:

  “You feel this little slight tap, not a hard one at all. ... And you turn and they’re not there, you know, and it was just right for that to happen because it felt real, but it was not. There was no one present.” (23:05)
  “The spirit world isn’t always a scary one. And if you can make contact with them and accept them, it’s a very interesting learning place...” (31:23)
  “It was an honor to be spending time in that old rock store...This place is a result of that other one, the old Rock Store. The Old Rock Store created one of the biggest blessings in my life.” (33:01)

• Dina Locklear:

  “Somebody would walk in and you turn to greet somebody, and there’s nobody there. Never scared, never alarmed, just kind of matter of fact...” (41:42)

• Juana:

  “All of a sudden a large bowl...went flying across the room and smashed into the opposite wall...This was just very sudden. And during their uproar, trying to figure everything out, it happened again...They immediately screamed, ran back down the stairs...” (51:18–52:29)
  “It was a presence. I don’t recall him ever making that kind of reference [to gender]...” (55:08)

• Sarah Reeves (Medium, Madrone Coffee):

  “It was very welcoming, very...you could feel just the energy of the space with like, yes, come on in...It’s very rare to have that happen.” (65:12)
  “The man gave me this, like, yeah, come on in feeling, but also...cautious...he was kind of watching us move around the building.” (67:53)
  “...He would patrol...He would go in through the side that was closest to the front...and he did this frequently. Jake actually caught it on camera.” (78:13–79:06) “For me, it was mostly that man and that woman...” (73:40)

• Kay (Student Medium):

  “There was also this sense of someone was waiting. ‘I’m waiting for you to come inside.’ ... I kept getting drawn to the upstairs area...” (85:50) “The more...I thought about it, it really felt like someone had been away for a purpose, such as military or a long trip. And that feeling I did not shake that entire evening.” (97:00) “Everything I felt was either curiosity or welcoming...it felt like it would have felt if this was the hub of the social scene...” (99:50)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00 – 07:09: Episode introduction; themes; call for ghost story submissions; Spirit Social event announcement.
• 09:45 – 16:31: Megan (Weird ATX) on Convict Hill, limestone, and its spectral legacy.
• 16:31 – 23:05: Greg Lawson (law enforcement) recounts ghost stories from mid-80s, predating APG.
• 23:05 – 33:01: John Dromgoole and daughter Dina’s personal accounts from their time living/working in the Old Rock Store.
• 41:42 – 44:24: Expanded discussion of Dina’s regularly occurring sightings.
• 48:26 – 54:54: Juana recounts APG’s poltergeist-like disturbances in the prep room.
• 64:34 – 83:00: Sarah Reeves’ 2023 medium investigation at Madrone Coffee: welcoming energy, captured apparition, male and female presences.
• 85:50 – 99:53: Kay (student medium) on automatic writing, strong matriarchal entity, child spirit, and common themes.

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Patterns, Parallels, and Unanswered Questions

• Thematic Consistency: From law enforcement, former residents, staff, mediums and more, reports repeatedly reference:
  • A strong, sometimes matriarchal female figure protecting or guiding the business.
  • A male presence—authoritative, military or cowboy-like—patrolling or watching over the space.
  • Shadowy figures, seen both in mirrors and periphery.
  • Activity focused on the upstairs and specific downstairs additions.
• Phenomenological Shift: Earlier experiences are mostly benign/welcoming, while select later accounts (current business staff) express fear or intimidation, especially from a shadowy male form.
• Continuity Across Generations: Many who’ve lived, worked, or investigated independently describe consistent phenomena over decades, despite different businesses occupying the building.
• Question of Identity: Are these personalities members of the Patton/White family, or more archetypal “guardian” spirits? Is the shadow man a new or fundamentally different entity?
• A Living Mystery: The ongoing investigation builds anticipation for the next on-site session, with the new context adding emotional and historical stakes.

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Engaging Moments & Listener Takeaways

• Community Involvement: The episode encourages listeners to attend the upcoming Spirit Social at the Old Rock Store (see intro), reinforcing the show’s dialogic roots and community spirit.
• Historical Investigations Matter: “The spirit world isn’t always a scary one ... if you can make contact with them and accept them, it’s a very interesting learning place...” (John Dromgoole, 31:23)—the show balances curiosity, respect, and caution toward the unknown.
• Invitation to Share: The host repeatedly asks listeners to send their own stories, foregrounding the democratic, ongoing, and collaborative nature of paranormal inquiry.

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Conclusion

This episode of The Night Owl Podcast converges decades of testimonies and psychic impressions to reveal the Old Rock Store as not just a haunted site, but as a living palimpsest—layers of history, emotion, and mystery continually written and re-written by its occupants, living and otherwise.

The investigation is far from over. The team’s next visit to the Old Rock Store promises new discoveries, informed by broader and deeper context than ever before.

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For more information, upcoming events, or to submit your own story, visit: thenightowlpodcast.com

Transcript

[Stephen Ballew]

The Night owl Podcast Episode 70 the Haunted Old Rock Store Part 4

[Greg Lawson]

welcome

[Stephen Ballew]

to the Night Owl Podcast. I'm your host, Stephen Ballew, and this is a place for all you restless spirits out there to tune in and hear true tales of the paranormal. I hunt these stories down, capture them from the mouths of those who've experienced them, and share them with you right here. We're currently looking for more personal ghost stories or haunted locations, so if you or someone you know has one, please submit it to us for consideration. To go to thenightoutpodcast.com, click on the Submit yout Story page and let us hear your ghost story. Every investigation reaches a moment when the story begins taking you somewhere you never expected. That's exactly what happened as we continued exploring the mysteries of the historic and infamously haunted Old Rock Store in Oak Hill, Texas. So far, we've uncovered remarkable parallels between eyewitness accounts, the independent impressions of two mediums, and the history of the families who once called this place home. As our investigation began pointing toward possible answers, we expected our next step would be returning to the Old Rock Store for a second investigation. But something unexpected would happen. New witnesses came forward. Former employees, longtime locals, and people with ties to the building's past began reaching out with stories of their own. As I continued digging through the history of, I also uncovered people connected to the Old Rock Store whose memories would add entirely new pieces to this puzzle. Tonight, before we return to the historical limestone landmark, we're going to follow these new leads, stories that deepen our understanding of the building, expand the haunted lore surrounding it, and ultimately set the stage for discoveries none of us saw coming. Stay tuned. We have a few important announcements for you night owls. If you've been listening and enjoying this series on the Old Rock Store and have found yourself wish you could step inside this incredible historic building, I'm thrilled to announce that you finally will have that chance. I'm excited to invite you all to our third annual Night Owl Spirit Social happening Saturday, November 7th at the historic Old Rock Store in Oak Hill, Texas. For those of you who joined us the last two years, you already know what makes Spirit Social so special. It's not just another Night Owl event. It's a chance for our whole community to come together for an unforgettable day of history, mystery, friendship and exploration. And this year, we're taking over one of the most fascinating locations we've ever investigated. Throughout the day, you'll enjoy presentations from members of the Night Owl team, respected investigators, historians, psychics, authors and special guests, plus our Spirit Market featuring incredible artists, authors, vendors and creators from across Texas and beyond. We'll wrap up the evening with a live ghost story gathering, a Night Owl Q and A, and for our VIP guests, an exclusive after hours investigation of the Old Rock Store itself. I have to admit, I couldn't help smile while putting this event together. Near the end of our first investigation, you remember, Kate relayed what we believed was a message from Rosa to me. She said, thank you for coming to my house. You're no stranger. You can come back. Well Rosa, I hope you meant it because this November we're bringing a few hundred night owls with us. Whether you've been with me since the very beginning or you're just discovering the show, I'd absolutely love to spend the day with you as we celebrate another year of this incredible community and explore one of the most historic and intriguing locations we've ever featured on this show. Tickets are on sale now, but our Spirit Passes and VIP Experience Passes have very limited capacity, so don't wait too long if you're hoping to join us with one of those passes. Early Owl pricing is going on now. For tickets and all the event details, just head over to thenight owlpodcast.com I truly can't wait to welcome all of you to this Old Rock Store. One other thing, if you're an artist, author, creator, collector, historian, paranormal investigator, or vendor with something unique to share, we'd love to hear from you. Vendor Applications for this year's Spirit Market are officially open and we're looking for passionate creators whose works celebrate ghosts, folklore, haunted history, Hawkins Halloween, the paranormal, cryptids, monsters, horror oddities, vintage curiosities, dark art, handmade crafts, spooky home decor, books, apparel, candles, jewelry, you name it. Really, anything that embraces the strange, mystical, mysterious, or even macabre. One thing that's always made our Spirit Market special is that it's carefully curated. Rather than filling every single booth, we're focused on bringing together an incredible variety of talented artists and small businesses to create an experience our attendees won't find anywhere else. Applications are now open, but they close August 24th. We'll begin notifying selected vendors on a rolling basis throughout the application period, so I encourage you not to wait until the last minute to apply. The easiest way is to head over to the Night Owl Podcast Instagram page and click on our link on our bio. You can also visit the NightOwlpodcast.com where you'll find the vendor application along with everything you need to know about this year's event. I can't wait to see this amazing community come together at the Old Rock Store this November. Lastly, do you love horror movies? Well if you haven't made it out yet, I'd love to invite you to the grand finale of our summer horror film series. I'm teaming up with Gourmet Cinema Gang, that's G O R E Me, Cinema Gang and Oddwood Brewing all summer long to celebrate cult classics, creature features and midnight movie favorites with screenings, discussions, giveaways and an incredible community of horror fans. Our final screening is Monday, August 17th and we're wrapping up the series with one of the greatest horror remakes ever made, the Blob from 1988. The iconic Gelatinous Alien from the 1958 classic returns in spectacular fashion with jaw dropping practical effects, unforgettable creature work, a sharp screenplay co written by Frank Darabont and Kevin Dillon. Sporting one of the greatest mullets of the decade. Equal parts terrifying, suspenseful and surprisingly funny, the Blob remains one of the absolute high water marks of 80s horror. So join us Monday, August 17th at Oddwood Brewing. Showtime is 7 and tickets are just $10. Come early, grab a beer from Oddwood's incredible tap list and enjoy some amazing food from Eloise's Barbecue before the movie. After the credits roll, stick around for our community discussion and your chance to win an exclusive 12x18 art print inspired by the Blob from acclaimed artist Christopher Shy. We'll also be giving away two tickets to this year's Night Owl Spirit Social. For movie tickets and showtime information, visit tinyurl.com show summerhorror2026 that's tinyurl.com summerhorror2026. You can also head over to the Night Owl or Gourmet Cinema Gang that's G O R E M E t Cinemagang on Instagram and grab tickets directly to the link in either of our bios. We began this series by collecting first hand accounts from people connected to the Old Rock Store, current staff at Square Root Cava Bar, former employees from the Building stays as Austin's Pizza Garden, paranormal investigator Billy from Strangetown, and even patrons who had experienced something they couldn't explain. From there, Alexis and I brought in Medium Kate the Brave and student Medium Alejandro. As always, they knew absolutely nothing about the building, its history and were driven there. They were kept separated throughout the investigation and never heard one another's impressions. Yet over the course of that night they independently described many of the same things and in the same spaces. Both sensed that the upstairs once felt like a home rather than simply a business. Both described a kind, older gentleman connected to what is now the watchmaker's studio upstairs. Both encountered a strong female presence who seemed deeply invested in the building, Someone who appeared protective of the space and particularly supportive of owner Tracy and what she's creating there today. We also encountered references to another older female presence whose identity remained uncertain, along with one figure that continues to puzzle us more than any other. A tall man seen only in shadow, sometimes in a hat. Both mediums eventually described him independently. And while their experiences occurred in different parts of the building, their descriptions of his appearance and demeanor were similar and seemed to echo stories we'd already heard from square root staff about a mysterious shadow figure. We considered several possibilities for who he might be, including whether he could somehow be connected to Texas Ranger John Dudley White, husband of Rosa Selma Patton. But at this stage, that remained nothing more than a tentative theory. We simply didn't have enough evidence to say one way or the other. Other details also continued to surface. Unexplained footsteps overhead, recurring impressions tied to specific rooms, and remarkable moments where the mediums, working completely independently, seemed to be describing the very same people and places. Naturally, we expected our next step would be return to the old rock store for another investigation. And we would. But something unexpected happened after the first episode. Air People with connections to the building began reaching out to me with stories that they'd never shared publicly. I also managed to track down individuals whose ties to the property stretched much further back than I'd ever anticipated. So before we continue with our second investigation, we're taking a brief detour. The conversations you're about to hear aren't a break from the investigation. They're part of it. Together, they expand our understanding of the building's history, reveal just how far back reports of unusual activity may go, and introduce new pieces of the puzzle. Ultimately led us toward discoveries I never expected we'd make. So stick with us, because everything you're about to hear will matter.

[Megan]

So my name is Megan. I'm with Austin group called Weird atx. We used to be a ghost hunting paranormal investigation group. And now we do a lot of weird projects, mind expanding projects and things like that. Consciousness studies. My friend Brittany, my partner Brittany and I were at the convict Hill quarry, which is reportedly haunted. The story there is that the convicts who were hired, quote, unquote, hired to quarry the limestone there, one of them was shot and killed. And now the limestone quarry is haunted by the angry spirit of this convict who was killed trying to escape. The most popular story about it is, is that there's a quarry in the middle of a neighborhood and nobody could build a house there. And the reason that nobody could build a house there is because there's a rumor that there is a body there and that it's the final resting place of an attempted escaped convict. I don't have any reference that that's true. I can't find references to anything stating that that's true. I think that it's a very scary looking park. It's not well kept, it's very overgrown, and it's owned by the city of Austin, but it's not listed as one of their major places to visit. If you go there, you'll find people walking their dogs. There are, you know, there are small trails, they're not well beaten back. But you. You can find people walking their dogs or just enjoying nature out there. But it does have a creepy feel about it. In fact, the moment you step into it, it's like the. It' like a forest overtaking you because the trees are all growing together and it's very dense for such a small plot of land. Going through the convict records which were kept at the Washington on the Brazos Museum in Marble Falls, they did not go through.

[Dina Locklear]

It didn't.

[Megan]

It did not look like they shuffled through a lot of convicts. They had a specific amount of workers cut out for this project. And the history of that is really interesting too. They were going to have the union do it, but the union went on strike the day before and refused to work for measly pay. And that's why they had the convicts do it for $1 a day is what they were paid, as opposed to like $3 a day. I think for the union, it does not look like they. They had the men that they were given by the prisons and that was what they were going to get. We got involved in that history because we followed the limestone. The old rock store is built from the old limestone from the quarry. And that quarry was originally made to build quarry the limestone for the Austin Capitol building. In the end, they ended up not using that limestone because it contains too much iron and when it rains, it rusts. So a lot of the leftover limestone was sent out other places and eventually some it became the old rock store. So we looked into the history of that and that kind of led us to the capitol. And then we, you know, we found out the capital is actually made of granite. And that granite came from Granite Mountain in Marble Falls. So we traveled out to Marble Falls just to see the history of Granite Mountain. And as it turns out, a whole other group of convicts were hired to quarry the granite there and sent to the Capitol. And the limestone that was slated for the Capitol was actually used for the inner wal. Now that we're at the Capitol and investigating the Capitol, I was able to just kind of strike up a conversation with one of the janitors there, and he gave me an insider tour of a really strange instance of the original limestone sticking out of the wall, protruding from the walls in one of the janitor closets. And this is just like an area where the rock was not shorn smooth. It's bulky and comes out of the plaster and the sheetrock. For whatever reason, nobody knows why. And then he took me up to the Texas Senate floor, which was closed at the time. This was during COVID but he was able to get me kind of in the back and in the Senate chambers. There's, like, a little area where you can be private, and this is maybe where you get prepared to come out to the floor. But for whatever reason, on the wall, there is also a piece of the original exposed limestone, and it's very rough and rustic. It doesn't have any kind of treatment, but it is framed in a glass box. There's no placard, and there's no reason that anyone knows as to why it exists. I would think that the style of the box was maybe from the 1950s, and the glass is a little warped. It's not the nice, smooth, manufactured GL we have today. So that was a really interesting mystery that kind of links back to the old rock store and to the limestone quarry, Convict Hill quarry. And we continued our investigation of the Capitol, and it seemed to indicate that, you know, there was a angry type of spirit there at the quarry still existing.

[Stephen Ballew]

After my conversation with Megan, she sent over the article that she'd mentioned, and I took some time to sit with it and read through it myself. Published in the Sunday American Statesman magazine on May 6, 1928, it was written by Adora Garrett and centered around the history of Convict Hill and the labor that quarried its limestone for the construction of the Texas State Capitol. But what made the article especially remarkable wasn't just the history. It was the source. Throughout the piece, the reporter repeatedly quotes James Andrew Patton himself. By 1928, James was one of Oak Hill's oldest living pioneers, reflecting back on the stories that he had witnessed firsthand. The article even features a striking photograph of him, older now, dressed in a suit, his expression as Weathered and stoic as the limestone building he'd spent his lifetime around. Interwoven with James recollections are references to his old rock store, the limestone quarry from Convict Hill that would eventually be used in his construction, and the story behind the hill's infamous name, including the account of a convict who was shot and killed while trying to escape. It's a remarkable piece of Texas history and one that makes you realize just how closely James Andrew Patton's life was intertwined with the story of this building.

[Greg Lawson]

So this is Greg Lawson. I am a 32 year law enforcement official with the Travis County Sheriff's Office right here in Austin. I've been involved in the paranormal since I was about 5. My brother used to torture me on a regular basis with scaring me with ghosts and cemeteries and stuff like that. But I've always been interested in this stuff and it's always exciting to me when somebody brings something up that I know a little bit about. I don't have a lot of experience with this particular location, but I do have a unique experience with this particular location. In 1986, I got hired on with the Travis County Sheriff's Office. And within my first couple of months, I guess I was in the field training officer program. And my field training officer was a guy named Craig Hutchinson. At that time, they were building the extension of MOPAC and Southwest Parkway and all that stuff. And most people still referred to that, that road as Old Fredericksburg Road. And you don't hear that a lot nowadays. We have Old Burnett Road, we have Dallas highway, which is 35 or part of 35, and North Lamar. But that, that area, the road that went through what would have been Oatmanville then and then renamed Oak Hill, was Old Fredericksburg Road. And on that was an old store. And this particular old store had a reputation. So they were moving a lot of the roads out there. There was a lot of construction going on and they had condemned a whole section of a neighborhood over there. And the sheriff's office got one of those houses loaned to them to have what we call show up a place that all the deputies can go have a meeting. And they would tell you what you're going to do that day and what had happened that day and that sort of thing. And so we met there and when we left, Hutchinson said, hey, I'm going to take you over to this place. And he took me to this, and I'm telling it from that perspective from 1986. He took me to this, what looked like a restaurant, old store kind of thing. And it was, it was evening shift, so we would have gotten there around 9 or 10 o' clock at night. And he told me the story that there was. There were all these stories that surrounded this property and that people would report strange happenings there, like lights on when they shouldn't be on, people inside, shadows inside when they shouldn't be there. And also that there was some sort of a male ghost and some people reported as like a cowboy, which would have kind of gone into that realm of possibilities because there, there are those stories of a Texas Ranger around that area that's supposed to be a spirit and haunts that area. So, you know, we, we went over there, we got out, all we did was walk around the place. It was creepy. We got back in the car, he told me the story, and that was it. That was in 1986. And when the Night Owl podcast asked me to do this, I reached out to a couple of other deputies. One of them, he's about. He's 92 years old. And I talked with him, and unfortunately, he does not remember anything out there about a ghost. Now, I don't know whether that's by design and he doesn't want to talk about it or whether he truly doesn't remember that, but it was a, you know, it was one of those things that the deputies talked about. I talked to another guy that, that I worked with, and he's in his. He's close to 80 now, and he did remember that he worked that area and he said, oh yeah, that place is haunted over there. There's some. A bunch of activity. And basically the, the same description of what I just said. Just odd things happening, shadows, apparition type type things of a. Of a cowboy. And this particular individual actually said, yes, it was a Texas Ranger. So there is that feel about the place. And it was happening in, as far as I know, 1986. But far prior to that.

[Stephen Ballew]

Greg's story may not have included a firsthand paranormal experience of his own, but I still found this incredibly valuable. You see, up until this point, nearly every account I'd uncovered seemed to trace the old Rock Store's haunted reputation back to its early years as the Austin Pizza Garden, which didn't open until 1994. Before that, the building had housed a handful of other businesses over the years, including restaurants, sandwich shops, and for a time, a steakhouse operated by Willie Nelson's daughter. But Greg's account just changed the timeline. His field training officer was telling him stories about the old rock store in 1986, and after speaking with a retired Travis county deputy, Greg was able to confirm those stories had been circulating even earlier than that. Exactly how much earlier we sadly still don't know. But for me, that's the kind of breadcrumb I love to follow. Every time we can push these reports farther back in history, we get a little closer to understanding where they might have originated. Another detail from Greg's conversation also stood out. For decades, there had been a recurring report of a male apparition on the property. Some described him as a cowboy. Others remembered him being referred to as a Texas Ranger. That certainly caught my attention, but I wasn't finished digging. While researching the years before the Austin Pizza Garden, I discovered another business that had occupied the Old Rock Store in the late 80s, one that many Austinites still know and love. The Natural Gardener. For decades, the Natural Gardener has been one of Austin's best known independent garden centers, known for its beautiful grounds, native Texas plants, and passion for sustainable gardening. Today, it's still a favorite destination for gardeners throughout Central Texas. What interested me most, however, wasn't just that the business had operated out of the Old Rock store in the 80s. It was that owner John Dromgoole had actually lived upstairs while running the business downstairs. For the first time, I had the opportunity to speak with someone who hadn't simply worked inside the Old Rock Store. They had called it home. After a little persistence, I finally got in touch with John and his daughter, who graciously invited me to the Natural Gardener to sit down and talk about their time inside the Old Rock Store.

[John Dromgoole]

My name is John Dromgool. I'm 79 years old and lived with my wife at the Old Rock store on Highway 290. When we lived there, it was owned by James White and his wife Annetta and probably the rest of the family. There had been some other businesses in there that I had seen over time and they slowly were not there anymore. And I had asked James, if availability ever comes, I'd like to be considered. And sure enough, along the way it emptied out and it was my turn to be in there. So my wife and I fixed up upstairs, restored it to its original state and also, although originally it was a hay barn with some products in there, we restored it to a living area and so we were in the store all the time. Day and night we were around there. The store had many rooms, some front ones the store was at. For people who don't know for sure when mopac was being built, it stopped at a certain place for years. Years and years, even though the highway department said it'd be not too long, it took another 30 years to get down to the Wye. That's where we were. The truck stopped right there at the end. And so our living quarters upstairs. Then there was an accounting area right outside the door there. The retail areas were down below. And the building had had a section on the back added to it somewhere along the way to expand it. I had heard it was a restaurant. Had a beautiful fireplace. It was a pretty part of the building, but not like the building. Different builders did this. That's where I felt the weakest part of this whole building was at the very back part. Every time you went in there, it's not that you heard something, you didn't know something happened there, but you could sense that it changed. Like here in my store, the natural gardener out in Oak Hill, you can drive around town all you want and look for us, but when you come through the gate, there's a change there. You've arrived in a different place. It was that same way in the back room at the store, the Old Rock Store. That was a wonderful name for it because that's what we would call it, the Old Rock Store from the late 1890s. Somewhere in there, it was there. And so while there, in using it at night, walking around doing different projects that I like to do, related to developing the. The beauty of the store, showing off the tools that we sold on occasion. And I only remember this because you're asking, you know, I really don't use this in common English with other people, but you made me think about this. And one of the things, and it happened several times, was a tapping on the shoulder. You feel this little slight tap, not a hard one at all. Kind of a friendly one. A friend came up to you and said, hey, John. And you turn and they're not there, you know, and it was just right for that to happen because it felt real, but it was not. There was no one present that happened in there with some frequency, even getting my foot stepped on, you know, that was the extent of it. It wasn't something scary. There was no screaming woman who ran from the front of the building to the back, except for my wife. And she better not hear that because she didn't do that. And so there was not much that was an energetic area, except for that back room. And I don't know what it was, and I didn't really investigate it. And I could have. I could have spent more time back there, but we were enjoying being in that building. It's an honor to be in that building. That was one of the highlights of being there, is it's a unique building to Austin. People have seen it. They don't know what it is. They think it's an old prison. It's not an old prison. It wasn't built by prisoners. You know, that's the story line that you hear about it a lot, and there's probably many others, as if it were haunted because of that. It wasn't. It was a nice quality building, but it was called that. And, you know, if you call something that long enough, it becomes that. It becomes an old prison. But it really never was. It was the place that you stopped at when you left Austin. Maybe you were going to Dripping or to some ranch or going to Fredericksburg. That was your first stop. One of the things I remember about some of the older folks that would come in there was they would have a picnic under. There was a big tree there, and they would pull over, ask. They would have a picnic out there. And they said that one lady in particular would say that when they were coming up from Austin, stopping there, and she had her first canned food. She'd never seen food in a can before, and that she has never forgotten that part of stopping in there. Here's some canned food. There were many people that came through that had a story of having been there, but none of them were scary stories or threatening stories. The spirit world isn't always a scary one. And if you can make contact with them and accept them, it's a very interesting learning place because they have a lot to teach us. They've been through it, and they can come back when you request it and you're focused. The spirits, you know, they don't work only at night. They work in the daytime, too. There is no magic only at night. It's in the day. So the spirits work that way. They can educate you and you know when it's coming in because your head fills up with ideas that if you're a creative person, you begin to get some focus from all of that. So I don't see the spirits as anything other than previous inhabitants or visitors. I don't remember seeing anything about something bad happening in there as far as assaults or something of that nature. It was a stopping place to look forward to so the animals could rest and you could eat there and very pleasant. I enjoyed it a lot. Like I said a while ago, it was an honor to be spending time in that old rock store. And this was the miracle also, because of that store we left, found this place, so it's all connected and were able to have them get on board with us. This place is a result of that other one, the old Rock Store. The Old Rock Store created one of the biggest blessings in my life.

[Stephen Ballew]

Going back to the touches, the footstep on. You said that did happen in that addition, right? The section downstairs?

[John Dromgoole]

Well, it happened in other areas too. But that section was the one that had this. You know, the energy was just. You went up a little bit, if you can remember.

[Stephen Ballew]

I just want to try to place any places that you could remember that had those incidences. Do you remember any other location in that building that you might have had taps or touches?

[John Dromgoole]

Probably up in the front where we lived was the quietest and less disturbed, where you would be more sensitive to that. So that's probably the main area where we were separate from all that activity. When a lot of humans come in there, they bring in a lot of energy. The place can get charged, and you have to let that go and you have to smudge it. And that would be my job now and then, is to go in there and cleanse it from energy that was left there. And that happens everywhere, really. And the people that own businesses that are struggling, having a hard time or whatever it is, they need to have someone come in or like a home. These homes where something serious happens, they can be cleaned back up. And some of them are hard to do and others are doable. The store upstairs was where we were quiet and more sensitive, but not scared.

[Stephen Ballew]

Did you get any indication of, like, a gender or like, did you feel that felt masculine or feminine at all?

[John Dromgoole]

No, not that I can tell. The touch was soft, you know, but that doesn't mean it's a man necessarily. It just means there is this, maybe the space between you and the touch, which might be appropriate. Actually, I can't really say which one it was, but it was gentle and also trying to let you know that someone was there. And I never looked through the veil. I just enjoyed my opportunity to live in that place. But the veil is there. I've seen through the veil before in accidents and stuff of my own, and see my family sitting on the other side of it, waiting to see, are you going to make it or not? And so I know what that looks like. I'm attached to the spirit world. I would be very much more aware of something stronger than that. But it was a friendly place, and I would do it all over again. It wouldn't scare me at all. And this time I'd probably focus more on the history if I was going to think about it and try to create a more. A stronger awareness. I'd go back 100 years or more to when the travel was out front and the horses were stopping there for water, and the young people who grew up to have their first can of food early would be able to say something, play in the parking lot there, and that would be a really different family type place. And it probably was.

[Stephen Ballew]

Sitting down with John was one of those interviews that stays with you long after the recorder is turned off. John is now 79 years old, and he spent a lifetime observing the world around him, not only as a businessman and gardener, but as someone deeply interested in the spiritual side of life. There was a calmness and wisdom about him that made our conversation feel less like an interview and more like listening to someone reflect on a cherished chapter of his life. During his years operating the Natural Gardener out of the old Rock store, John and his wife actually lived upstairs, carefully restoring the living quarters while running the business below. What surprised me the most, however, was where he experienced something unusual in that building. Rather than the upstairs, it was the downstairs where he most often sensed a presence. Walking into that room simply felt different, he said. That immediately caught my attention because it echoed what both Kate and Alejandro had independently picked up during their investigation. John's experiences, though, were quite different from the stories we'd heard from later years. He never described seeing apparitions or being frightened. Instead, he occasionally felt the light touch of a hand, a gentle tap, and on one memorable occasion, he said, he even felt as though someone had stepped on his foot. Yet none of it had ever struck him as threatening. As he continued talking, John admitted that he had occasionally experienced gentle tapping upstairs as well, in what is now the watchmaker's studio. But again, he never sensed anything malicious. What stayed with me even more from those experiences was John's perspective on them. He spoke openly about his belief that we still have much to learn about spirits and from them as well. He strongly believed they were capable of impressing thoughts or ideas upon us, that creative people in particular may suddenly find themselves inspired without realizing where those ideas were coming from. I couldn't help but think back to our own investigation night. Both Kate and Alejandro independently sensed a strong female presence who seemed deeply invested in the success of the business. Kate even suggested that Tracy might never actually see or hear this woman directly, but that she might simply find ideas coming to her, or little moments where she would catch something before fail or finally make a decision on something she was considering. I don't know what to make of that, but I definitely noticed a parallel there. John also spoke about how welcome he always felt in that Old Rock Store. He loved his time there and looked back on those years with genuine affection. Hearing that struck a chord with me. It reminded me of the closing moments of our investigation, when Kate, completely unaware of our conversation, seemed to speak on behalf of the woman that we believe could be Rosa Selma Patton. If you recall, the message coming from Rosa through Kate was, thank you for coming to my house. You're no stranger. You can come back. Who knows, maybe it's just coincidence, but hearing John describe that same sense of belonging made those words linger in my mind just a little longer. Before we wrapped up, John shared one final story. He credits the Old Rock Store with changing the course of his life. He believes his time there ultimately led him to the property where the natural gardener still thrives today, a move he simply calls a miracle. Then, after the interview was over, John stood up and said, I want to show you something. He rummaged to a cluttered bookshelf in the office that we were sitting in and eventually produced a weathered long strip of glass. It was clearly old, and the color was reminiscent of a very old Coke bottle, except long and rectangular in shape and flat. And embedded in the glass was one single word. Dromgool. John's last name. He told me he had uncovered it years ago while working at the back of the Old Rock Store's property. Somehow unbeknownst to him, buried beneath the earth was a piece of glass bearing his own family name. Dromgool isn't exactly a common name either. What are the chances? John was smiling as he handed it to me. Whatever drew him to that place, whatever connected him to it, he believed there was something special about the Old Rock Store, and after hearing his story, I could certainly understand why. After this short break, we'll hear from John's daughter Dina and her experiences during her time there at the Old Rock Store. Stay tuned. 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That's drinkag1.com NightOwl before leaving the Natural Gardener, I also had the opportunity to sit down with John's daughter Dina while in high school. During the mid to late 80s, she spent a great deal of time working alongside her father at the Old Rock store, where one particular experience would repeat itself with surprising frequency.

[Deana Locklear]

My name is Deana Locklear. I worked at the old Patton Building right out of high school, kind of beginning of College back in 86ish, and it was my dad's store. I'm John Johngool's daughter. Until you asked the question, I hadn't thought about it in years. As you asked the questions, we started talking and we were like, yeah, I kind of remember, you know, things like that. I worked in the back room a lot. It was that addition part to the building. So it wasn't part of the original, but it was added on at another time and it had this giant room. It was like a great room. It had a giant fireplace. It was really beautiful. And we had dried flowers and baskets and things back there. And so part of my duties was to create wreaths with these dried flowers. And so I spent a lot of time back there being creative and working on my own quietly. And the only things I really recall are people walking in. Like your peripheral vision where you see somebody walk in and you turn to look, you know, greet somebody, and there's nobody there. And that would happen all the time in that back room. I'd be sitting there, head down, working. Somebody would walk in and I'd look up to greet and nobody was there. Never scared, never alarmed, just kind of matter of fact, you know. Yeah, that's what happened to us in the back there.

[Stephen Ballew]

Going back to Your experiences. A lot of it was in that back room, and that's now the kava bar. It's like actually the kava bar area, fireplace is still there. Again, you don't have any sensation of masculine or feminine.

[Deana Locklear]

I can't tell you if it was masculine or feminine. It was really just shadow, you know, kind of in your peripheral vision. Somebody walking in shadow. Somebody would walk in, and you turn to greet somebody. Cause somebody's walked in and there's nobody there.

[Stephen Ballew]

Would you also hear sounds at all in that building?

[Deana Locklear]

Not that I recall. And it may be. I mean, I can't in the moment right now, and I don't want to make something up, but I remember the shadows, but there may have been something. Something made me look up, you know what I mean? So I can't recall sound in particular. I just recall somebody walking in and nobody being there all the time. Like, it wasn't one time. It was all. It just became irregular, you know.

[Stephen Ballew]

Now they have like two hallways into that back room. I don't know. Back when you were there, was it just one long opening?

[Deana Locklear]

Yeah. You would walk through the whole, you know, through the store and walk into that building.

[Stephen Ballew]

There's bathrooms in the middle, and they put two hallways on the side.

[Deana Locklear]

I guess where those bathrooms are maybe is. There was a doorway.

[Stephen Ballew]

Interesting. Okay, cool. Did you also live there?

[Deana Locklear]

No.

[Stephen Ballew]

And never went upstairs that much or anything.

[Deana Locklear]

Oh, yeah. You spent a lot of time up

[Stephen Ballew]

there, but nothing up there.

[Deana Locklear]

Nothing I recall in particular, so.

[Stephen Ballew]

Interesting.

[Sarah Reeves]

No.

[Stephen Ballew]

There was something about Dina's testimony that felt remarkably familiar. The location she described was unmistakable, of course. The same room that today serves as the square roots kava bar. Time and again, she recalled catching the glimpse of a figure entering the room from the corner of her eye before it would just disappear. It's difficult not to think about the numerous reports we've now collected from present day square rootstaff. Many who have also described seeing a shadowy figure in that same area. But I also think it's important not to jump to conclusions. Just because two experiences sound similar doesn't necessarily mean they're describing the same presence. One thing that stood out to me was the way that both John and Dina described their encounters. Neither of them ever felt threatened, unsafe, or afraid. Their experiences seem more curious than frightening. By contrast, the reports we've documented from square root kava staff often carry a very different tone. Employees have described being startled by a dark figure suddenly appearing behind them in the mirror, Feeling as though someone rushed toward them or sensing an ominous presence. That left them genuinely shaken. Those differences matter. At the same time, I couldn't help but think back to the closing moments of our own first investigation. While Kate and Alejandro were participating in our sensory deprivation experiment, we believed we were communicating with the intelligent female presence we'd come to associate with Rosa Selma Patton. During that session, I watched what appeared to be a human shaped figure emerge briefly from the hallway near the restrooms before quickly darting toward the coffee bar and out of sight. Alexis immediately ran after it and later told me he thought he saw the figure continue toward the back of the kitchen. What I saw, however, wasn't a solid black shadow. It appeared almost distorted, like the shimmering heat rising off a Texas highway. The closest comparison I can make to it is the cloaking effect from the predator films. If you've ever seen those a human form that was somehow present yet nearly invisible. Moments later, when I asked if the figure we'd just witnessed had been Rosa trying to reveal herself after we'd asked for a sign, Kate responded with a clear and immediate yes. Of course, none of that tells us exactly who or what we were seeing. It simply reminds us how careful we have to be when comparing one experience to another. What John and Dina's accounts do establish is that unusual activity was already taking place inside the Old Rock Store during the mid to late 1980s. Now we have two eyewitnesses describing recurring experiences years before Austin Pizza Garden ever opened its doors. Whether those experiences involved members of the Patton family, another long standing presence, or something else entirely, we simply don't know personally, and this is nothing more than my own intuition. After comparing all these accounts, I found myself wondering if the more ominous shadow figure reported by today's Square Root staff wasn't actually present during John and Dina's time at the Old Rock Store. It felt as though they may have been describing something altogether different. But that was only my theory, and I wasn't ready to stop digging. I wanted to continue tracing the activity through the timeline. One frustration I kept running into was that I couldn't find anyone who had actually worked at the Austin Pizza Garden during its heyday. Then one day an email appeared in my inbox. It was from the Pizza Garden's former general manager. She actually wanted to share her stories. I responded. Then again and again. Seven emails later, I never heard back from her. It was disappointing because I really wanted to capture her stories. But thankfully another lead emerged. A woman by the name of Juana had discovered I was producing this series on the Old Rock Store and reached out after hearing the first episode. Now, she hadn't worked at the Austin Pizza Garden, but she had been a regular patron there. Over countless evenings spent enjoying a glass of wine at the bar. The restaurant's owner at the time had quietly shared stories with her about the strange things happening, happening inside the building. Stories he apparently didn't tell just anyone.

[Juana]

My name is Juana and I live in Dripping Springs, which is a little bit southwest of Austin. And I moved here from Houston about, gosh, about 35 or so years ago. And when I first moved here, when I would drive home from work, I would go buy what was called a Pizza Garden back then on my way home. And I'm always fascinated by the old building. The structure was really cool looking. And I would often stop by. I'd be coming in from the airport, I would stop by, order a pizza to go and sit and have a glass of wine while I was waiting. And one time when I came in and did that, this was probably around early 2000, maybe a couple years after, somewhere between 2000, 2006, somewhere in there, I was sitting and having a glass of wine, and one of the employees and I were just chatting. And she had mentioned, because she'd mentioned, hey, have you ever heard about any of the ghost stuff? And I said, well, I don't, I haven't. I said, but I definitely get a weird vibe when I come in here. Like, it feels a little bit, because I get vibes about things sometimes. And I definitely got a little bit of the skin prickly stuff when I came in. And I just wondered, oh, it's an old building. It's probably got a lot of, a lot of history. So fast forward a little bit and one of my times coming in, the owner, who is this younger Italian guy, super nice guy, and I cannot recall his name, unfortunately, but he would come in and sit and chat with me while I was waiting and drinking my glass of wine. And so it was during one of those conversations that said, hey, you know, I've heard some of the stories, you know, some of the ghost stories about this place.

[Dina Locklear]

Tell me, tell me what?

[Sarah Reeves]

You know, I could tell immediately he

[Juana]

was a little bit hesitant. He goes, you know, I really don't like to, to share that because I'm always worried it's going to turn some people away or make people uncomfortable and that kind of thing. And I said, well, I disagree because I think, you know, ghost stories can be really cool.

[Sarah Reeves]

And I think, you know, if you

[Juana]

share some of that, there's pictures of people who probably would come here Specifically for that reason, and I bring you more business. So we would laugh about that.

[Dina Locklear]

And so he said, I'll tell you

[Juana]

some of the stories. So he told me that when he first bought the restaurant a few years

[Sarah Reeves]

prior to that time, that he had

[Juana]

some women that he had hired who would come in really early in the morning, like I want to say, like 5 or 6am and if you look at the way the restaurant structure to the building, there's the downstairs portion and there's a small room that's kind of in the front part of the building that makes it kind of tall on that end. And it's kind of its own separate room with an entry door and I think just a. A small staircase going up. And that's just really all there is to it, is it's kind of a room. Not seen it myself, but he described it pretty well. So this room is where they set up to do all the food prep on the pizzas and salads and whatnot.

[Sarah Reeves]

So he hired these two ladies.

[Juana]

They would come in really early, and the first day they had been at work, he came in, I want to say, like midday and. Or I'm sorry, he had come in

[Sarah Reeves]

kind of early, and they were downstairs

[Juana]

and were obviously in a very agitated state. And he was trying to find out what happened. He thought, did we get robbed? You know, what happened? They were very freaked out. And they went on to tell him that when they arrived and went upstairs to do the prep work, of course they had other bowls and cutting boards and all the things laid out that, you know, they were just working, doing prep and talking. And all of a sudden a large bowl.

[Sarah Reeves]

I don't remember what was in it.

[Juana]

Some kind of vegetables or something went flying across the room and smashed into the opposite wall, throwing vegetables everywhere. And of course they immediately freaked out. I think at least one of them actually saw it happen, and the other one heard it happen. And they were, of course, trying to figure out what the hell happened. And this was just very sudden. And during their, you know, uproar, trying to figure everything out, it happened again. And I don't recall what the sight of thing was, but something very large that clearly would not have easily been tossed across the room on its own, went across the room on its own with a lot of noise. So they immediately screamed, ran back down the stairs to the main part of the restaurant. And a short time later, someone. He came in, and of course they

[Sarah Reeves]

were still very upset, and he had

[Juana]

to get him to calm down so they could explain what happened.

[Sarah Reeves]

And they went on to explain, and they even said after they came downstairs,

[Juana]

they could hear things flying around, hitting the walls, a lot of banging and. And things happening. When there was zero people up in that room. They had come out of the room. They were the only ones there. Clearly the only ones there. And of course they're really upset and just beside themselves. So when he got him to calm down, they explained what happened. And he's thinking. He believed him. I mean, what are you going to think? And he said, well, okay. So they ended up quitting and not coming back to work the next day.

[Dina Locklear]

He said he went on to hire

[Juana]

several sets of helpers, like two or three people to go and do this prep work. And he said several more quit because these things would happen every time they would go in that room. Whatever was there, whatever entity or spirit or whatever it was, apparently was upset. There were people in that part of the room. This wasn't happening throughout the rest of this old restaurant. This was happening in that upper room only. And he said he went through a series of people to try to get someone who would actually stay and tolerate it.

[Dina Locklear]

He finally did.

[Juana]

And I don't recall the details about those people, but he said finally they kind of just accepted it and, you know, it scare him sometimes. If it got too volatile, they'd leave. And I think at some point they finally just stopped using that room, except I think for storage. And he's the only one that went up there. And they did their food prep and that sort of thing downstairs. They just kind of stopped using it day to day and just kind of avoided it and used it as storage. But he did mention that, yeah, that camp sound. They would hear sounds, but it seemed like it was really agitated if people went up in that room, like something about them being there's like, get off my lawn kind of energy that they were getting. So he told me a lot of other stories and things that had happened. There were some disturbances throughout, but again, most of that was pretty mild. It almost seemed like a different thing going on, almost a different entity or different spirit or energy. But it didn't seem to be the angry. It seemed more playful and more practical joker type thing. I don't remember particular stories from that, but he did share a lot. And he said, you know, I worried that I would have to sell restaurant. But they got past it. They. They learned to live together, I guess, along with this entity. And he was there quite a few years, and I don't recall his name, unfortunately. Great guy.

[Sarah Reeves]

If he's Listening to this.

[Juana]

Hello, I'm the woman that used to hang out with you on my way back to the airport. But yeah, so it's. I've always loved the place and I love the energy inside. I do get that kind of a little bit of, you know, the, the chill bumps vibe when I'm in there. And I've been there several times since. It's been a lot of different restaurants. Part of me has always wondered, is that part of the reason why? I don't know. But I still always get that little tingly, weird vibe when I'm in there. I always wonder if other people do as well. But it's changed many times and now I think it's a coffee shop. I haven't been in there during that phase yet. I might at some point, but I would love the opportunity to go up

[Sarah Reeves]

in that, in that room upstairs. I may have to ask if someone

[Juana]

will let me up there just to. Just to check it out for myself. But anyway, I hope this has been helpful.

[Sarah Reeves]

Good luck on the podcast and appreciate

[Juana]

you letting me share my story.

[Greg Lawson]

If you can recall, based on that energy they felt upstairs, did the owner or any of the stories ever assign a gender or like they called it something or was it just like a presence?

[Juana]

It was a presence. I don't recall him ever making that kind of reference. Now that could have happened in later years after they had been around enough, but none of that was ever shared with me. So I don't think at that point they had kind of come to any conclusions about what kind of, you know, energy they were feeling other than it very clearly did not want people upstairs specifically. I think that the stuff that happened in other places, a restaurant here and there, were just more playful, you know, happenstance, little tricks, moving things, nothing scary or mean spirited feeling. The one upstairs, it was, felt pretty hostile and clearly did not want people in its space and made that very obvious and clearly was pretty strong energy. Bill Throw that many things because that from what I understand, takes a lot of, a lot of energy. But you know, it was interesting. But no, I never got that vibe in terms of or heard him say anything with regards to a gender or anything beyond that. I don't think at that time he knew much about it. Now he may have done his own research because I do remember him saying I would love to know more about this, like what's the history of this building and you know, how did this start? And he had his own curiosities about it, but he was very guarded about not really wanting his clientele to know. And he, I think, kind of encouraged staff to not say things, although something got shared with me. But I think he really wanted to kind of keep that under wraps for obvious reasons. There is a very, a lot older looking room.

[Greg Lawson]

Basically it's like the front facade of the building.

[Juana]

That's it. And that, that was the perp room.

[Sarah Reeves]

That was the prep room.

[Juana]

That was it, as I understand it, that was it. And they added some of that other stuff later. But back then it was the original footprint and you couldn't see the staircase right from. It was like that. And I think it was stone, as I recall. It was very much the original.

[Greg Lawson]

Yeah.

[Juana]

And then it was just a straight shot and then that room, and I think there was even a door at the top of the stairs. I don't remember, but I want to say there was a door at the top of the stairs and then you just went in. And that was the room. It was pretty plain. I mean, they just had it set up with prep tables around and I think a sink maybe. And, you know, it was pretty bare bones and some shelving and things. But that was the original and that was where they did their prep. So I don't know how much they added on since, but that was the room in question. So I'd be curious to know if that affects any of the newer areas they added up there, if they have similar experiences or if it still kind of stayed true to that original room where they did.

[Stephen Ballew]

The prop Juana's stories move us ahead in the timeline by roughly 15 years. John and Dina's experiences took place during the mid to late 80s. While these accounts come from the early years of the Austin Pizza Garden, on the surface, it's easy to hear a story like that and immediately conclude whatever was responsible must have been hostile. But I'm not sure that's the only way to look at it. Throughout this investigation, we've repeatedly encountered what appear to be intelligent presences, Beings that, if they truly exist, may still see the old rock store as their home. By the time the Austin Pizza Garden moved in, new people were suddenly occupying the building before sunrise, rearranging furniture, setting up equipment, and transforming rooms that may have sat quiet for years. Looking back, John had restored the upstairs to its original state and was actually living in it, much like the actual Patton family did. Now it was being used for something else. If there really were spirits present, is it unreasonable to wonder whether they might not react to those disruptions? That doesn't necessarily excuse objects being thrown, nor does it tell us who or what was responsible. But I also don't think every act of physical activity should automatically be interpreted as evidence of something evil or malicious. After all, people aren't emotionally consistent. We can be welcoming one moment and frustrated the next. If consciousness somehow survives death, perhaps the same could be true as well. In fact, the possibility seems to fit much better with everything we'd uncovered so far. John and Dina consistently described experiences that never really made them feel threatened. Kate and Alejandro both sensed what they believed were protective, intelligent personalities connected to the building. Even the messages they relayed suggested individuals with emotions, opinions, and attachments to the Old Rock Store. So while the bow being thrown certainly represents a different kind of activity, I wasn't ready to assume it came from a different entity altogether. It's entirely possible we were seeing another side of the same personalities, or perhaps an entirely different presence we still hadn't identified. At this point, there simply wasn't enough evidence to know. As I continued piecing together the timeline, I found myself wondering if anyone else had spent meaningful time inside the Old Rock Store before Square Root moved in. The further back I could trace these experiences, the better chance I had of understanding whether the activity had remained consistent over the decades or if it had changed. That's when I stumbled onto what I can only describe as a goldmine. I learned that someone with a long history on the Night Owl podcast had quietly conducted an investigation of the Old Rock Store years before our team ever stepped inside. Many longtime listeners will remember Sarah Reeves, the resident medium from early years of the podcast. Since moving on, Sarah has founded Metaphysical you, where she teaches and mentors developing mediums, hosts workshops and events, and co hosts the MP Unleashed podcast. What I hadn't realized was that in 2023, while the building was still home to Madrone Coffee, Sarah had brought a group of student mediums to the Old Rock Store for an investigation of their very own. Sarah and her group had actually documented their experiences inside the Old Rock Store three years before our very own investigation. Here was yet another opportunity to compare what had been experienced inside the Old Rock Store years before our own investigation ever began. When we come back, you'll hear what Sarah and her students experienced during their time inside the Old Rock Store. Stay tuned. I'd like to thank Lumi Gummies for sponsoring our show. If you're looking for a gummy that makes you feel just right, then Lumigummies is the one for you. Consistent, mellow, and super delicious, Lume Gummies are specifically designed to make you feel good, not stoned Whether you're looking for an end of day de stressor or midday mood boost, Lume Gummies has a strain that's right for you fellow night owls. Have you ever had one of those days that you wish had gone completely different? One of those days that you wish you could forget? Well, I recently had exactly that kind of day. I'm on vacation from work, not the show, and looking forward to a day of just goofing off and traveling to some of my favorite haunts here in Austin, Texas. Before doing any of that though, I needed to take my truck for a routine scheduled tire rotation and balance. Simple, right? Well, guess again. Picked up the truck and as soon as I got it on the highway I noticed the truck shaking and shimmering like one of those old motel vibrating beds. I take it back to the shop and end up spending a better half of the day getting the tires rebalanced. One vacation day wasted due to someone else's incompetence. Sadly, I had a complete loss of energy from sitting in a waiting room most of the day and my stress levels were a little up there. But I had Lumi Gummies come to the rescue. I took a sour strawberry cookie gummy and not only did the stress melt away, but I got a much needed boost of energy as well. I was able to mellow out and enjoy the rest of the evening chilling in the backyard, watching movies, stress free and relaxed. If life's struggles get you down, give Lumigummies a try and melt that stress away. Lumi Gummies are available nationwide. Go to lumigummies.com that's L U M I gummies.com and use Code Night Owl for 30% off your order. Again, that's L U M I gums.com Code Night Owl lumigummies.com Code Night Owl this episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. For 10% off your first month, go to betterhelp.com BetterHelp's 2026 State of Stigma report surveyed 2,000Americans and revealed that 85% of Americans believe getting support is wise, yet 74% say society discourages people from doing so. Everyone knows someone that could benefit from mental health support, a family member, a friend, or even a co worker. Unfortunately, there seems to be a certain stigma attached with the term mental health support, and many times people who believe in mental health support do not actually seek out that support when they need it. What can we do as a society to close the gap between believing in mental health support and actually seeking or encouraging others to get that much needed help. Perhaps that first step is to encourage those friends, co workers, and family to seek out that much needed help. And what better way to encourage those people than to introduce them to better help? BetterHelp Online Therapy has over 30,000 therapists to deliver that much needed support. And it's all done online to make receiving that mental health support as easy as the click of a button. Your sessions are scheduled when you want them, and all from the privacy of your own home or office. Simply fill out a short questionnaire to help identify your needs and preferences, and BetterHelp matches you with a therapist tailored to those needs. If you or someone you care for is in need of therapy, why not give BetterHelp a try? Sometimes the mere act of reaching out is the first step on the path to better mental health. Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com NightOwl that's betterhelp.com NightOwl curious to hear her story firsthand, I asked Sarah to take me back to her 2023 investigation of the old rock store.

[Sarah Reeves]

So when we went, I mean, at the time, it was Madrone Coffee company asking us to come out and kind of look at things. And Jake, the owner at the time, was just like, hey, come out. So I grabbed a crew of people I thought would be really fun. I was like, let's go do this. We haven't done this. We haven't done an investigation. But as soon as we pulled into the, like, as soon as we put into the parking lot, I remember looking up to the second story of the old. The. The portion that's the old rock building, right? So there's a set. They have a second story to their. To the building itself. And there was a man standing in one of the upstairs windows. And I thought, there's a. There's a guy, right? I told Renee, hey, there's a guy standing in the window. And he was like, where?

[Dina Locklear]

Where, where?

[Sarah Reeves]

And all of a sudden, everybody who was in the parking lot, because we were waiting to get let in, they

[Juana]

just started taking pictures of the building.

[Sarah Reeves]

So we got a picture of someone standing, you know, in, like if they were standing, looking at it, the parking lot, kind of looking at us, trying to figure out why, I guess, why we were there after hours or something, but they were just looking at us.

[Dina Locklear]

And.

[Sarah Reeves]

But the weird. I think the best thing ever is that I've pretty much trained everybody. Every one of the photographers always take, you know, Two or three pictures in a row. But in this case there was, you know, four or five of us with cameras. So there was a lot of us kind of taking pictures. So we have pictures generally from the same angle up at the same place. And only one shot captures this. It looks like a male spirit looking out the window. Like a male looking out the window. It was the craziest thing. But the. The building itself, when you go inside, it was very welcoming, very, you know, you could feel just the energy of the space with like, yes, come on in. You know, they. I don't normally run across that kind of, you know, energy that like, come and investigate us. Right. Or come and talk to us. It's very rare to have that happen. And so it was really nice to kind of just walk in and get the feels for it. And because there were so many of us there. So many. And I say us, I say there was a lot of intuitives there. Everybody had their own little experiences. But for me, it was really that feeling of welcome and how. How is it going? So my first spot there was at that saloon, actually, because we sat down with Jake so we could kind of talk to him and get his. His stories and tell us what. What he had experienced since he'd been there. And we had done a little bit of research after to kind of see how his story kind of jived with everybody else's stories. Right. Because we did randomly speak to other people who worked there when it was the pizza shop, other people who just kind of frequented the place. And they, you know, all kind of came up with the same stories. A lot of stories about electronics not working well, especially radios, voices coming across radios, which Jake actually experienced and was

[Dina Locklear]

telling us a little bit about it

[Sarah Reeves]

when they were doing the Reno to the building. I guess the, you know, a woman's voice came across the radio. It's a really odd message and it kind of like made. It freaked them out. There was a few things just kind of like random in the saloon, but for me it was that upstairs, that upstairs area. I think at one point in time it must have been like a second residence because it does have. That was a big giant room all surrounded in limestone. And then this little kind of off to the side area that's kind of like a little kitchenette. So it could have been like a, you know, like a single room apartment or something like that. It had a kitchenette and a little

[Juana]

bit of a bathroom.

[Sarah Reeves]

But once you're up there, it was what got me was the immediate silence. So we had to walk through the kitchen. And so when we were walking through the kitchen area, and I remember seeing that back set of kitchen stairs, and I told Kevin, because Kevin McKenzie was out with us, to take pictures. And I said, hey, take a picture of that. Of the stairwell. There's a man standing at the top of the stairs. And they took several pictures, but nothing, like, nothing came out in those images. And I was like, that's really weird. I'm like, because he's. He's there. And as we kind of came up, he. That man gave me this, like, yeah, come on in feeling, but also one of those cautious. Like, before I took the stairs, I had to make sure to let him know, hey, I'm coming up, coming up the stairs. Is that all right? And he was like, yeah, yeah, you're good, right? And as soon as we got up to the room, I wanted to know where that window was, where we saw the person from the outside. And there was no way. There was no way that somebody could have been standing in that window. Like a human. Like, I thought could have been Jake or it could have been. There's no way. Because right in front of the window that we saw the man in there was a giant counter. It was like a three and a half foot counter. So for him to have had his face up against the glass, they would have had to stood up on the counter, and their head would have disappeared from the. From the top part of the window. There was no way that somebody could have been standing there. And because it's so quiet up there from the limestone, it was eerie. It was eerie to kind of go. Then the realization of, like, ooh, that was.

[Dina Locklear]

Was a ghost.

[Sarah Reeves]

And we got the picture. We were like, super excited about. About that. So that was. That was really fun. But he never really. He talked to me a little bit, but it was more questions about, how do you like the space, right? Is every, you know, everything.

[Dina Locklear]

Like, it was like.

[Sarah Reeves]

Like a hosting sensation, right? Almost, but also a very authoritative sensation. Like, you, you know, you had to be cautious about where you went. You know, he was kind of watching us move around the building. And when we went to the connective. The connective surface, I remember I was chatting with him, and I said, hey, we're gonna move down this way. And he opened his arm up to kind of like, guide me through the doorway. And when I walked through the doorway, it was. At the time, it was like this beaded. Like a beaded white curtain. And I remember it had, like, trying to think of the design I think

[Juana]

there were moons or something on the

[Sarah Reeves]

curtain, but there was just this beaded white curtain. And I walked do it. And I remember telling Kevin, hey, take pictures of the. There was like a little tiny mirror right across the wall from us. I was like, take pictures of the mirror and see the reflections kind of thing. And I turned my body around and I looked at him and I said, hey, are you going to come down? And right in that moment, Kevin took a picture of the mirror, right? Took a picture of the mirror. And I'm reflected. You can see the original picture has me reflected, looking back. I'm looking at the doorway, and there was somebody standing right in front of the beaded curtain. And we looked at this image, like, over and over and over again. Because I was like, there's no fucking way we caught this. This is crazy. And thank God he took several pictures, like he did three in a row. And then we kind of looked, because we could look to see where in one image, the beaded curtain was behind the shadow. And the next image, the. There was nobody there. It was the craziest thing. And you could clearly see that I'm just barely moving because I'm still looking behind me to the spirit, asking him to come out. But it's almost like he couldn't. It's almost like he couldn't even come down the stairs in that way. And I think it's because that loft area that it leads to, I think that used to be an outside patio. It's the extension to. To the coffee shop. And it did feel like wonky when you were in there. It felt kind of. Kind of squishy. I don't like the word I'm getting. It's squishy. It felt kind of squishy when you were kind of walking there. Almost like you were walking in the air. But he never really spoke to me. The one that did was the female. And there was a female presence there. I'm not sure. I mean, there's a lot of little history behind the female voice, right? So talking to me, she was very stern, and she was more focused on Jake at the time. So she was kind of like, hey, you know, you're doing good. Everything is fine. Stop freaking out kind of thing. Lots of messages for him.

[Juana]

You know, he had his own personal

[Sarah Reeves]

messages while he was there. But she, you know, she pointed out a lot of things about the changes. And most of the images that I got from her were how the place didn't look the same. Kind of where we were sitting was an Outdoor area. She had. She made it clear while we were having conversation. Keisha, show me those images. Like, you're sitting outside when we were actually sitting in the saloon. Or my house used to be. You know, house used to be kind of, like, smaller. And I was like, the house is smaller. And like, it was just the way that she was describing it.

[Juana]

Like, she'd been there for a really

[Sarah Reeves]

long time and seen some of the changes, but at the same time, was also hosting us at the same time. It was a really weird conversation. But from being in Madron, just what I remember the most is that the presence of these entities was strong. Like, there was no mistaking. It was very difficult for me to determine whether the presence was true. True presence or recorded kind of pattern, right? Because the building is made out of limestone, so it could very well be recorded pattern. And it took me a really long time to figure out when I was looking at a recording versus when I was looking at an entity. So I remember that distinctly, and I think it is because the energy in that place is so strong that the. It's like the recordings are fresh. So it's like the craziest thing. It's like the energy is just freshly there. Even though they've probably long. You know, they've long been dead.

[Juana]

It's really.

[Sarah Reeves]

It's a really interesting place. But I loved it. I loved going out there. I loved the feeling of it. Everybody got a little bit of something while they were there, but for me, it was mostly that man and that woman. I know there was the story of Rosa, right? That everybody hears that name. But there's two. There's two people, right? There's Rosa, the daughter of Andrew Patton, right? And then there's the other Rosa, who

[Juana]

I believe is her daughter, if I

[Sarah Reeves]

can get it to remember. I remember all the names were very confusing. So I don't know if the name they're hearing is because she doing her work, right?

[Juana]

Like.

[Sarah Reeves]

Like somebody.

[Juana]

You know, like somebody at a restaurant.

[Sarah Reeves]

The repeated action of going, hey, Rosa, go do this, or, hey, Rosa, come here, or, Rosa, come here, or, Rosa, I need you, right? I don't know if that's what people are hearing when you hear the name or if you're actually hearing maybe Andrew Patton calling out to his daughter, right? Saying, hey, Rosa, come here. That kind of thing. So I. I don't know.

[Juana]

I don't know.

[Sarah Reeves]

It was just a really.

[Dina Locklear]

It was a really great building.

[Sarah Reeves]

It was a lot of fun, but I didn't hear any of the whispers or anything. Like that. I had the conversation only with that woman who never really told me who she was, but seemed to know where everything else was in the building. So that was just. It was just fun. So there's a. So if you're looking at the entrance of the building, so you're parking to the parking lot. So not the side, not the shallow side of the building that's facing 290, but the deep part of the building that has the big parking lot. That's where we were parked. We were by the trees in front of the building, looking at the building. So when we're looking at the building, you can see the rock wall that makes the stairwell, and then there's a row of windows right in the front. And it was that top story window that had. That.

[Dina Locklear]

We took that picture in.

[Sarah Reeves]

Yeah. The question we had was, is it Andrew or is it John? Right. Because both of them were Texas Rangers. And this man has that feeling of somebody who was in the military, that constant discipline. Right. So it's one of those things, like, which one was it? And that was the one thing that we could never really narrow down.

[Dina Locklear]

But we just.

[Sarah Reeves]

We all knew it was the same man. Like, it's not like it was two different people. No, same man, Very strong presence.

[Juana]

Did you pick up any features of him at all?

[Sarah Reeves]

No. The only thing we heard were the boots.

[Greg Lawson]

Boots.

[Sarah Reeves]

Like the very heavy boots. And I knew something in my mind, I knew that he was. Every now and then he would show up in uniform. So it was like. I could see that it was like an older uniform. But again, the uniforms were so similar between the two of them that it could have been either one. So I could see that it was like, you know, the button shirt and the, you know, very kind of clean line of the pants. That, like, that one was more how I saw it in shadow. But it was very uniform, like. And the. But the strongest feature was the sound of the boots, the sound of the heavy steps.

[Juana]

The Rosa.

[Greg Lawson]

You're right. There was Rosa Patton, and then there was Rosa Margaret White Grunewald. That was the daughter to Rosa.

[Sarah Reeves]

Yeah. It was just really weird that all the rose. That's why I'm saying the Rosas could have been either one of them. Could have been either one.

[Greg Lawson]

You said something that's connecting even more

[Juana]

that I'm so excited because.

[Greg Lawson]

Because you said, rosa, if you can share it, don't share it. If it's personal to that guy.

[Juana]

Who's the guy that owned.

[Greg Lawson]

Or that Jake, you said his name was. So you said that the female presence was adamant about relaying messages to him and talking to him about things.

[Juana]

I would like to hear a little

[Greg Lawson]

bit more before I reveal what happened. It's very similar to what happened to us with both Kate and Alejandro. What was. What was the situation there? What was she, like, doing to, like, communicate? What was she trying to say?

[Sarah Reeves]

It was just a lot of things about the. Like, the building, the care of the building. She had a lot of. A lot to say about where things were, how he was, you know, she. Big voice on the remodel, right? Like, she, you know, she was making comments on how he had remodeled a little bit the space. But a lot of that conversation that she had was more a concern for him. So there was a lot of personal things that were very insistent on him and taking care of himself and doing some things for him, because I guess it reminded her of her husband, the way that it came across, and she was extremely insistent on that. But as far as the building was concerned, it was more. It was more about the upkeep of the building, and she made a lot of references to the upstairs, like, why, you know, you need to take care of it, or you have to do it a certain way. The way that they lock the doors, how they look out, like, the things that they do outside.

[Juana]

It was.

[Sarah Reeves]

It seemed like she was just constantly looking at how the building was being maintained and how they talked to the customers and how they looked like she was very much running the business.

[Greg Lawson]

The man is kind of tricky because they felt him a lot upstairs mostly. But what's weird is the staff has seen him downstairs, so I could never connect the dots there fully.

[Sarah Reeves]

So he would patrol. And this was like Jake had actually caught on his cameras, had caught the man, like, vividly caught the man kind of moving through the building. And so where the saloon. The saloon area has two entrances, right? There's one entrance that's closest to the front entrance of the door, and there's one towards the back of the building, Kind of like a U. Like, you could just kind of, like, run a little U shape around there. And when he showed me this is what I do, he showed me that he would go in through the side that was closest to the front of the building there.

[Juana]

We used to.

[Sarah Reeves]

To be a safe there. I don't know if it's still there or not, but he would go through there, walk straight across, straight across along that wall, which is. There are big windows that face the parking lot, and then there's a door

[Dina Locklear]

there, like an exit.

[Sarah Reeves]

Door and he would look out the door, come diagonally across the saloon and exit the other end, the other side. And he did this frequently. And Jake actually caught it on camera. He caught the video of the guy patrolling the area. But it would make sense to me because he's patrolling from the old building. So if you think about everything from the saloon moving forward is an add on. All of that is the add on to the building. So if you're thinking about it, if you're thinking about it and it was Andrew that wasn't there, that was all open air, all open area. And back then it would have been, you know, he would have had to patrol from like anything. They were the only building out there. There was nothing else around them. So that would make sense if he was doing the patrolling, that was doing that. But then after, I'm going to say when the new Rosa, the daughter rose that would have inherited the business, then I would think her husband would have been doing that, would have been going out and kind of doing the same thing. That's why I say it's very hard for me to figure out who is the one that's doing it. But if they are patrolling the area and that's why they see him and there's a danger there, they keep saying that there's a danger that comes from that, that side of that building. And at the time, Jake was like, yeah, there's some homeless dude. There was some homeless dude that kept popping up and he was staying on that side of the area.

[Greg Lawson]

That's so funny. That's exactly what's still going on. They're having a lot of homeless come in and try to break in and

[Juana]

stuff on that side.

[Greg Lawson]

Yeah, that's exactly where they're seeing them. They're seeing them in the mirror.

[Juana]

There's a. I don't know if it was there when you were there, but

[Greg Lawson]

there's a huge mirror that extends the

[Juana]

whole length of the bar on that side.

[Greg Lawson]

If you enter from where the safe is, exactly where. We've actually had some experiences with this male presence. He does seem to walk through that, that safe hallway, which is exactly what you said. And if you enter that, they call

[Juana]

that the Cava bar.

[Greg Lawson]

Now you're calling it the saloon.

[Juana]

All the way against the left wall,

[Greg Lawson]

there's a big mirror that stretches across

[Juana]

the whole length of that wall.

[Greg Lawson]

Two closing staff see him against the other wall behind them when they. When they're cleaning up the bar and

[Juana]

they look in the mirror. That would be. Yeah, it does.

[Greg Lawson]

It's really cool.

[Stephen Ballew]

If you'd like to hear Sarah and her students full investigation of the Old Rock Store during its days as Maduro and coffee, you can find it on Sarah's MP Unleashed podcast in an episode titled Caffeine and Spirits. It's a fascinating companion to this investigation and offers an opportunity to hear their experiences in much greater detail. But after speaking with Sarah, I found myself once again comparing her observations against everything we'd uncovered over the course of this investigation three years prior to our team even walking through the doors of the Old Rock Store, Sarah described being welcomed into the building rather than intimidated by it. She repeatedly referred to the space as feeling inviting, almost as though someone wanted them there. That again reminded me of the thing we heard again and again throughout this investigation. Also, John Dromgold just described always feeling that same way. Kate believed the female presence wanted Tracy to see succeed. And at the very end of our first investigation, who we believe to be Rosa, stated through Kate, thank you for coming to my house. You're no stranger. You can come back. Another detail immediately stood out. Sarah independently described both a male and female presence. The woman, she said, seemed deeply invested in the care of the building and even the well being of the current owner of Madrone Coffee. She spoke as though she was still watching over the property, concerned with its upkeep, its renovations, and even how customers were being treated. I couldn't help but think back to Kate and Alejandro without knowing Sarah's experience at all. Both mediums independently described what they believed was an intelligent female presence who seemed remarkably protective of the Old Rock Store and equally invested in the success of the business operating inside it. And both mediums specifically said the strong female presence had special messages for Tracy that revolved around supporting her in her decisions around the business. Then there was the man Sarah sensed. A disciplined, authoritative figure connected primarily with the upstairs portion of the building. The Watchmaker studio, to be exact. She never claimed to know whether it was James Andrew Patton or John Dudley White, a similar question we are wrestling with at the moment. In fact, she admitted she couldn't tell the difference. But what hit me the most was how she described one particular thing. It was his footsteps. Heavy boots. That detail immediately caught my attention because it echoed something we'd already encountered more than once years earlier. Investigator Billy Driver reported hearing heavy footsteps inside the Old Rock Store during his investigation, when it was still the Austin Pizza Garden. Then, during our own investigation, both Kate and Alejandro independently described the male presence upstairs as repeatedly pacing the room. Even more striking, Kate specifically described those footsteps as Sounding like heavy boots. Perhaps even more interesting was Sarah's description of his behavior. Rather than simply appearing at random, she believed the man was patrolling the property. When she later learned where he had been reportedly seen by the owner of Madrone Coffee, the route followed a remarkably similar path to where the present day square root staff continue reporting sightings today. However, those sightings are of a shadow male presence. And now in our present timeline, there seems to be a difference in the male in the upstairs watchmaker studio and this potential shadow man square root staff are seeing and that Kate and Alejandro picked up briefly on their investigation. So it doesn't mean that everyone is describing the same presence. Once again, independent stories from different people separated by years continued pointing us toward many of the same locations inside the building. By this point, I had traced reports of unusual experiences inside the old rock store from the mid-1980s through the Austin pizza garden years, the Madrone Coffee era, and now into present day. While names, interpretations, and theories often differed, certain patterns continued resurfacing with remarkable consistency. A welcoming female presence and a gentle, kinder man most often associated with the watchmaker studio upstairs. None of it told me exactly who these people were, but it did suggest that whatever people had been experiencing inside the old rock store wasn't confined to one owner, one business, or one generation. Before we wrapped up our conversation, however, Sarah pointed me toward someone she felt I also should speak with. Kay was one of the developing mediums who joined Sarah that night at Madrone Coffee. Like Kate and Alejandro, she'd explored the building independently, documenting her own impressions as they unfolded. Now, years later, I wanted to know what she remembered and whether her experiences would reinforce the patterns I'd already begun to see or reveal something entirely new.

[Dina Locklear]

My name is Kay, and I am a medium. I live here in the Austin metro area. I actually mentor under Sarah, and throughout the years, I've been involved in different investigations. One of the most interesting has been the rock store. It was amazing. It was such a great experience because there was so much going on when we got to the old rock store that night, and it had been years, probably decades, since I'd been in the building. Before I hadn't been in since it was the pizza garden. So we got in, and I took a minute in the parking lot just to get a feel for the place. It was after hours. The coffee shop had closed, and even with all of the traffic zooming by on the highway, that's now just right there, you know, standing in the parking lot and looking at this beautiful building in the Dark and the. It's lit up from the inside. It was really interesting because it was, it was inviting. But there was also this sense of someone was waiting. I'm waiting for you to come inside. And my eyes kept getting drawn to the upstairs area, which, as you're familiar with, would be the little balcony and staircase that comes off of the storage area upstairs in between where the watchmaker is set up now on that second floor and where the top of the stairs are. And my eye kept getting drawn up to those windows up there, fully expecting to see somebody standing in the windows. That was the feeling I was getting, was, I'm here, I'm waiting for you. You're welcome. Come on in. And so our group did go in and we kind of did a little pre huddle. And even as we're just standing in the doorway, you're feeling all of this energy. And it was an amazing feeling because the building itself is just so alive. And it's really cool walking into any historical building that. Where you can pick up on different energy signals or different energetic beings. But I really loved this place in particular because it does. You can feel the movement around you.

[Sarah Reeves]

Even.

[Dina Locklear]

So we were talking about some of the experiences that the coffee shop operator had had and some of what his employees had gone through. And then he kind of just cut us loose to go on our own throughout this space. The first thing that I was drawn to was the back room and the piano that was back there. And at the time, I kept getting this sense of overwhelming, like, worry, concern, what is happening? How can I fix it? Somebody needs to know. And what I could see in my mind's eye was a figure of an older gentleman. And the older gentleman was very concerned with what was happening out on the patio. You know, the whole, like, feeling was, there's something going on and I need to tell somebody. So that was an interesting thing. And we, and we noted it and several of us were like, checking in with each other, like, are you. You feeling or getting this message?

[Sarah Reeves]

Are you.

[Dina Locklear]

What do you know? Kind of thing? So we're like, okay, this is interesting. So there was a lot of activity going on, but I was like, okay, I'm getting tugged this way. So several of us went into the area that the watchmaker now rents, and at the time, there was just a big work table in there and some shelving and things like that. So we were sitting in there and it was quiet and we were able to kind of sit with the space, and it was very comfortable up there. It was very Calm. It was very peaceful. There was still that sense of someone waiting there or someone. A feeling of someone there, but nothing alarming. More of just, you know, a very pleasant, like, I'm here with you kind of feeling. And so we're sitting in that area, and I said, you know, I feel like I'm feeling really drawn to the idea of doing some automatic writing. And so my friend at the time said, okay, that's cool. Do you mind if I videotape you? I'll video it on my phone. Sure, no problem. So we sat down and I was. I kind of got into my little meditative moment and was doing the automatic writing. And the things that I would get. What I was getting weren't really things I'd heard when we were talking about what we know. I mean, this place has been investigated multiple times, and the same kind of themes usually do come up. But what I was getting was a woman who was not real thrilled about her job. So it was more of a. I was picking up on just some echoes from the past. But then I also had a little girl come forward. And the little girl was wearing what I would think of it would be something, a dress that would be similar to the time period of, you know, the early to mid-1800s. And so the little girl came up and was trying. I was just describing her as I was. As I was doing this automatic writing. And again, then the woman kind of butts back in, like, hey, no, I was here first. So. So I was getting these different messages about the land across the way and references to mules and knowing, of course, that this had been a general store. That's not an unusual thing. But I was more entran by the idea of this little girl because I hadn't heard anybody talking about a little girl or seeing a little girl. I knew that they had talked about, you know, potentially children or I think, a little boy. But I'd never heard anything about a little girl. But that was really interesting. And one of the things that the little girl did was that she would look out the windows. But it wasn't the window that I was drawn to when I was in the parking lot. It was the window that looked out the other side towards Oak Hill. And at one point when I was looking, I had gotten up and looked out the window myself. Instead of seeing what I expected to see, which was, you know, the highway, all the construction. What I was seeing was how it looked prior to this with the land being mostly just, you know, empty land. It was almost as if when you're looking at a photo that double exposed and has another layer superimposed over it. So that was a really interesting thing because that's not normally something that I see. I don't usually see things that way. We spent a little more time up there, and then we did go down and up that side stairway that's kind of dark and narrow. And I kept hearing over and over in my head as I did this, that they always think this is scary. It was what was coming through, and it was a female voice. But the stairs weren't scary. It was more fascinating to me because when you looked at the stairs, like if you really took a moment to look at the stairs, you could see high up where some of the, like plaster or whatever they had used had degraded a bit. And you could see part of the original, like nail heads and things for the building. It was just really cool. And so I stayed in there for a little bit just to appreciate that, you know, the moment of that. And then I went back into the room with the watchmaker and I realized that the windows that I had been drawn to that in a way that I'd been expecting to see somebody standing in. There was no way anyone could have stood in front of them because there were. There was a giant desk there. So, okay, that's interesting. But it still had that feeling of a female who would stand in that window and either wait for someone or a long period of time on a regular, very consistent basis of watching out that window, maybe watching for someone coming, I don't know. But that was. It was just a really intense feeling that somebody was there. When I went back downstairs at that point in time, there was an area in the building that had a very deep heaviness to it. It was the area where there's two restrooms. And that area just felt sad. And kind of going through the rest of the area, we went back into the kitchen area at the time there was the giant coffee roaster had been used earlier that still smelled really, really good in there. So we're kind of back in there as well. And there were little things like that would catch our attention. We were catching often kind of movement or a sense of movement in our peripheral vision, but never could quite turn your head quick enough to see what was that kind of thing. So we, you know, we spent a good deal of time there. And the biggest messages I got from that night were more of the. The female figure waiting. It was a. I will. I'm going to wait until you get here. You're Always welcome, you're, I'm waiting for you feeling. And the more that I dwelled on that and the more that I thought about it, it really felt like someone had been away for a purpose, such as military or a long trip. And that feeling I did not shake that entire evening. What was more interesting to me after that night, which was a great time, was when I went back by myself and I just went during a day, probably three weeks later, and I got a cup of coffee and I went and sat upstairs and. And when I was sitting up there, there was, you know, it was a normal work day. So there was people, there were employees, there were, you know, different customers. There were people upstairs sitting near me. There was a couple people sitting by the. At the table where the mirror was. So I took a seat upstairs and I thought, okay, okay, well, I'm just going to sit up here and maybe I'll try this automatic writing again and see what comes to mind. And so I was doing that again. And as I sat there and relaxed and kind of opened myself up to the environment to see what I could feel, I was immediately hit with the sensation of someone rushing toward me. And I kind of. It was so intense that I immediately look up and I'm facing the doorway that goes into that upper area, the private area with the watchmaker. And I'm expecting, like, what is coming out? What's going to come out of this? You know, through the beads that they had hanging up. And of course, nothing did. And the minute that I kind of looked away and looked back, immediately I had an older female who just dropped in full force. Like it was a. An intense feeling of a woman who has been in charge. She knows her place. She is well educated. She is. When she speaks, she's used to other people hearing at a time in history when wives usually were, you know, the husbands were the ones that spoke or were listened to, not usually wives. And so I was communicating with this energy. And she was curious why I was at the Rock store. And so I was having this inner monologue where I'm talking with her and explaining that I'm in my timeframe. I don't know if you know, that we're in different timeframes. And she was kind of rolled her eyes at me like, of course. I was like, okay. And that I was here because I'd had. I'd been before and I'd had experiences, and I just wanted to see what would happen during a day visit and was trying to ask her. I was asking her her name and the name that she gave me turned out to be the name of the mother or the grandmother of Rosa, the mother of the gentleman that built her father that built the rock store. And so I was like, okay, wait, you're. You're the grandmother? And she's like, yes, this is my son. This is my son's place. And, you know, went on with, you know, this is. This is family. This is a family business. And I knew that at the time. I knew from after my first visit that his family was in Austin when the rock store was built, which isn't a big deal now, but would have been not an easy commute back then. So my next question was, what are you doing here? And this. Very proud, but also proud, but not in a snooty way. She was. She was just very together and very proud, and she knew her place. Like, she knew how. She knew her strength. She just looked at me like I was like. Like I didn't know anything, and said, well, a mother always visits her family. And I was like, okay, okay, okay. That's great. And she was very, very strong. She was. And that's what struck me, is like, I am not used to going somewhere and having a relative show up that I. And I just didn't think about it. Of course she would have been there. Of course she would have, you know, probably been there when her granddaughter was born. She probably would have been there multiple times during, you know, the course of her life. But, you know, years and years and years and years later, when we're walking through a place that has changed hands so many times and we're talking with, you know, these energies, these spirits that are no longer corporeal, we tend to forget that many of them were human and lived and had lives that were normal. So it was quite an interesting experience. I would say that the automatic writing was especially the one at our overnight session. The automatic writing upstairs was quite an intense session. It was a lot of fun. And the Rock store remains one of my favorite places now, because unlike other people who have been frightened by their experiences with something out of the ordinary or paranormal happening, I did not have that experience. Everything I felt was either curiosity or welcoming or I just want to show up and see what you people are looking at. Like, you know, it was. It felt like it would have felt if this was the hub of the social scene, that it probably had been where you've got people coming and going and other people are there, and they're kind of looking around like, oh, okay, well, so. And so is Here again, you know, it was very normal. And that's what was so cool about

[Sarah Reeves]

it, is that you're, you know, you're

[Dina Locklear]

connecting with these spirits that you would have never gotten to meet in your own lifetime, and they're just treating you like you're just one of the guys.

[Stephen Ballew]

After hearing K's account, I couldn't help but notice just how many threads were beginning to weave together. Like Sarah, she described the old rock sword not as a place of fear, but one that felt inviting, as though someone had been patiently waiting for them to arrive. She, too, found herself repeatedly drawn toward the upstairs windows in the watchmaker's studio before realizing no living person could have been standing there where she had expected to see someone. And once inside, she independently described the upstairs as calm, peaceful, and deeply lived in. Yet K's experiences also differed in some important ways. Unlike Sarah, Kate and Alejandro, Kay never described encountering the man upstairs. Instead, her attention was repeatedly drawn to a little girl and to a strong, older female presence she believed may have been connected to the family's matriarch, possibly Rosa, Selma's grandmother. This was interesting because during our own investigation, Kate had also sensed an older woman upstairs, someone she felt could have been Rosa's mother. Neither medium knew about each other or the investigation they each had. Yet years apart, they both independently described the possibility that more than one generation of the Patton family might still be present within the old rock store. Even more intriguing was where these impressions occurred. Kay repeatedly found herself drawn to the windows overlooking the front side of the building. The very windows where Kate had sensed a female presence quietly looking outside. Across the room, Alejandro independently described the male presence spending time near the opposite set of windows. Windows. And Sarah's team also recalled photographing what they believed to be a male face appearing in one of those same windows upstairs, despite furniture making it impossible for someone to be standing there. I'll do my best to get that photo, and if I do, I'll share it on Patreon with you guys. By now, I had spoken with eyewitnesses, former employees, investigators, mediums, business owners, and historians. Many of them had never met. Most had no knowledge of each other's experiences. And yet certain themes continued surfacing again and again. The welcoming woman, the man in the upstairs watchmaker's studio, his footsteps, the pacing, the feeling that the upstairs had once been a home. None of these recurring details proved the paranormal. Coincidences happen. Memories evolve. Stories influence other people's stories. Those possibilities always deserve consideration. But after months of interviews and historical historical research, I found myself looking at something I couldn't easily dismiss. Not one extraordinary story, but dozens of ordinary people across nearly 40 years describing remarkably similar experiences inside the same small limestone building. There was just one mystery that continued to haunt me, and that was the Shadow Man. If these welcoming presences truly were who or whatever so many people believe them to be, could they potentially help us finally understand the one figure that seemed different from all the rest? There was only one way to find out. My team would have to return to the Old Rock Store. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Night Owl Podcast. Be sure to join us as this paranormal adventure continues at the Old rock store on August 31st. And don't forget to get your early Owl tickets to join us at our third annual Spirit Social happening at the Old rock store on November 7th. Tickets on sale now at the Nightout podcast.com I'd like to thank my investigative team, Alexis Franklin, Alejandro and Kate Verlin, their abilities on this case and Meg for joining us on this case, Nicholas Fair for his talented musical contributions to this show, my dad Sam for his incredible historical research and last but not least, David Dalton of Driftworks Sound for mastering every single episode on the tight turnarounds I give him. Please support their works by visiting our website thenight owlpodcast.com and clicking on the about tab. There you can find links to all their information, individual works and websites. This podcast was mastered by David Dalton of Driftworks Sound. Do you have a song that could use a professional touch to get it across the finish line? Do you wish you could remove the sound of a loud air conditioner or distracting mouth noises from your podcast recording? Whatever your issue, David can repair and enhance your audio and help you achieve rich, full professional sound at industry standard loudness levels. Quit struggling with audio engineering and get back to creating. To discuss your options, reach out to [e-mail] that'S-R-I f t worksound.com and set your creative self free.