The Ghosts of the Rialto

I’ve been asked many times if the Rialto Theater in El Dorado is haunted, and a few years ago, I wrote a book called Haunted. This is an excerpt from a psychic who we took to visit the theater, and after her visit, I was convinced the theater is haunted. Ms. Pate, the psychic, is nationally known as one of the country’s top psychics, and has helped solve many crimes by visualizing energy imprints.

Ms. Pate entered the Rialto Theater and remarked how cold it was compared to outside. “It’s very cold in here,” she said. “That’s a good sign for ghosts.”

Seconds later, she saw the first spirit of the tour—a “heavyset” man standing on the first landing of the main staircase. “I get the feeling that maybe he owned the place. He sort of takes care of everything, like a caretaker,” she said, describing the man as wearing a vest and pocket watch. “Maybe he’ll contact us later.”

Ms. Pate proceeded on her tour to the stage of the main theater, where she saw a second spirit, a young lady dressed in 1920s attire, near the stage. “Her name is Irma,” Ms. Pate announced……

As we walked into the main auditorium, Ms. Pate suddenly stopped and focused on the stage again. She nodded her head as she approached the stage and began to describe in detail the spirit of the young woman she had earlier noted.

“She’s got honey brown hair, but it’s a real light honey-brown, it’s curly but it’s cut close, I don’t know how to express it, kind of like loose curls, and she’s got a bow in her hair with ribbon, and the bow is cocked a little bit to the left……..”

We walked on down to the stage and Ms. Pate points to the southwest corner of the stage. “She’s right there, and she’s wearing an outfit with many bright colors, but I don’t know how to describe it because I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s not a dress. It is more like a fancy practice outfit. I don’t think she’s performing; she practicing for something. She’s not actively performing. She’s practicing.” We walked to the east side of the orchestra pit, and went down the stairs to below the stage where the old vaudeville dressing rooms were located. We walked in the first room, and Ms. Pate shook her head.

“There’s a whole bunch of people in here, and there were mirrors in here.” Ms. Pate points to the west wall where several holes in the plaster indicate something was fastened to the wall. There is also several ceiling lights together which much look like they were used in a dressing room. Ms. Pate continues, “Where’d the mirrors go? They should be on that wall there.” She points to the center of the west wall of the room. “This room is full of a whole lot of busy energy. I’m not just getting one person in particular and it’s both male and female, and they are coming and going in almost a blur. It’s real, real busy in here.”

We left the room beneath the stage and walked up the stairs and behind the curtains to the southwest corner of the stage. Ms. Tate immediately begins to see men doing various things.

“I guess they’re stage hands, and they are sitting around an old table playing cards. I think its poker, but I’m not sure. This seems to be like a regular thing in between working gigs. That surprises me. I don’t get anything negative. I don’t get anything malevolent in this area so far.”

We left the stage area and climbed up the east stairwell to the mezzanine and walked in the ladies restroom. There have been numerous paranormal sighting here over the years and of all the accounts I have heard the activities in and around the ladies restroom tops them all. Ms. Pate quickly sees the aberration.

“Yes, she a very blonde woman, and I don’t know why she’s here, but she’s in a rush to leave, and then she comes back in just as fast. She has on a weird hat with a feather or something on it. I can’t quite get it. She’s dressed in something very light in color. This looks more like 1930’s or 40’s because her hair is cut different, low and close to her face.”

Then Ms. Pate walks back out of the lady’s restroom and while she stands there she comments about something.

“That man that I picked up downstairs, I think he runs projection equipment, and I get him coming thru here, and he’s busy and he’s coming and going in thru here now, he wasn’t so much downstairs, but he is now.”

Ms. Pate goes to the part of the balcony where, when the theater was segregated, the black patrons sat.

“I see a lot of people around here. There are blacks all dressed up to come to the theater. I don’t know what this is, maybe a ghost, or an energy imprint, but I’m getting a black woman wearing a red dress. She’s heavy and she’s wearing a red low cut dress, heavy-set, not like three hundred pounds or anything, but she’s a big woman, big bust. I can’t tell what she’s about.” Ms. Pate could not have known she was in the formerly segregated part of the balcony. All the separating rails and even the seats have been replaced.

Ms. Pate goes into the original projection room and immediately begins to visualize something.

“What’s going on in here? Maybe he’s the owner or the manager. Yes, he seems to be there. But the one that’s really, really active is the one in the projection room. He’s all over the place, he’s not just there. Because he’s also like the handyman. I get the impression like this is his home, literally. He might have even slept here.”

Ms. Pate walks to the main west staircase where she describes the same man she saw earlier in the day standing at the same place, on the stairwell landing.

“He’s got on a coat/vest/ pants. I don’t really know how old he is. He’s got a bit of a belly to him. He’s not real tall or anything. He’s another one that smokes a cigar, and has a mustache and kind of thinning hair. I get the feeling he’s got some sort of vested interest in the theater. Wants to make sure everything’s okay.”

That is a perfect description of the former theater manager, Mr. Robb. And the smell of cigar smoke is one of the most common of the paranormal experiences noted in the theater.

Ms. Pate’s seemed drained of energy. We left the theater and went outside where she sat on one of the benches and rested.

••• Several months later I was on the stage one morning taking picture of some newly hung curtains when I distinctly heard someone walking on the catwalk high above the stage. I hurriedly left the stage, and as I walked back up the aisle I smelled cigar smoke. No one could have possibly been in the theater.

Richard Mason is a registered professional geologist, downtown developer, former chairman of the Department of Environmental Quality Board of Commissioners, past president of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation, and syndicated columnist. Email richard@ gibraltarenergy. com.