The Texas White House
1417 8TH Avenue, Ft. Worth
The Texas White House is a wonderful bed and breakfast located near downtown Ft. Worth. The home was constructed in 1910 by Robert Bishop and was sold to William Newkirk in 1917. It remained in the Newkirk family until 1966. In the late 1960’s it was used as a “crash house” for those trying to kick a drug habit. It was later used as a restaurant. The Bed and Breakfast is currently owned by Grover and Jamie McManis.
According to William Newkirk’s death certificate, William was a shoe merchant and died from complications from a fall at the house. He had four sons, William Jr., Richard, James, and Robert. (*1930 census)
Female guests over the years have reported the feeling of someone lying on the bed next to them in the one bedroom known as the “Lone Star Room”. This appears to be the primary source of paranormal activity. Other guests staying in the Lone Star Room have also reported electronic devices not functioning properly, dark mists, and a feeling of someone being in the room.
It is believed that the spirit haunting the house is that of William Newkirk.
Investigation
Stockyards Paranormal Investigations visited the Texas White House on the evening of August 11, 2009. We were given a tour and history of the home by Grover McManis and began our investigation. Our investigators for the evening were Cheryl, Shirley, Monica, and Kevin. Prior to beginning the investigation we conducted an EMF sweep of the Lone Star Room as well as other areas of the house . We found no unusual EMF readings in the Texas Room nor any other rooms.

We began the evening with Cheryl and Shirley in the upstairs bedroom and Kevin and Monica in the downstairs parlor. Almost immediately Cheryl and Shirley began to get activity on their K2 meter. With the K2 meter sitting on the bed the meter began to light up intermittently. They began to ask questions and receive responses to those questions; however, the meter was lighting up even when questions were not being asked. Since the activity started so quickly they called Monica and Kevin to join them. As soon as Kevin arrived the activity almost totally ceased. There were only a few light responses. Kevin returned downstairs and Monica stayed with Cheryl and Shirley resuming the session. The activity then resumed.
On several occasions Cheryl had to ask the spirit to slow down and just respond to the questions. For about ten minutes they got responses to questions and were able to determine that the spirit was a male, that he had previously lived in the house, that he enjoyed having different people visit the house, and that he had been there for a long time. After about ten minutes the activity ceased completely.
Upon review of our audio we later learned that we had picked up an EVP right about the same time we were getting our initial K2 responses. Cheryl hears a footstep and asks if anyone is there. We then get an EVP that sounds like “help me go” or “help them go”.

The following is a list of responses to questions posed during the K2 meter session:
Shirley and Cheryl in Lone Star room:
- We first asked are you the owner? flashed
- Are you here with us? flash
- At this point Cheryl went to get Monica so she could see we were getting responses
Monica, Shirley and Cheryl in the Lone Star room
:
We asked the following questions and these were the responses we received.
- Are you here with us? K2 Flashed
- Are you Male? nothing
- Are you Female? nothing
Nothing for a little bit. Then Shirley’s camera turned off completely. It did not go dead, it actually fully turned off.
Shirley asked “did you turn my camera off” and let him know that was not cool. After turning the camera back on we did
begin questions again.
Cheryl let the spirit know that it could use her energy if needed to communicate. Again the K2
flashed. We proceeded with the following questions:
- Was this your room? flashed
- Do you like to share your room with different people? flashed
- Are you young? flashed
Continuing to flash here when no questions were being asked. Then Cheryl says how about you flash for yes and not at all for no.
Can you light those all the way up to the red? nothing
Try to light it up so we know we are dealing with someone. Nothing
Then flashing with no questions
Cheryl ask have you been here for a long time? flash
Shirley asked do you like women in your room? nothing
Monica said I guess you just like women right? Flashing a lot to this question.
So then you're a male? flash
Here it was flashing while we were talking to each other.
- Are you the only one here? nothing
- Are you married? nothin
- Are you the original owner? nothing
- Are you a cowboy? nothing
On the next three questions it was flashing even before questions were asked. Maybe we were just shooting them off to fast.
- Can you talk in to this recorder? flash
- Can you whisper it in our ear? flash
- Were you in the bathroom earlier? flash
Here the K2 meter was just flashing while we were standing in silence. Monica says it's reading your mind and it started flashing. Cheryl tells it to please stop flashing for a bit. The K2 stops flashing, then flashes again. Cheryl again tells it to stop, it stops, she says thank you.
- Were you in the bathroom earlier? nothing
- Do you go downstairs sometimes? yes
- If we go downstairs would you follow us downstairs? yes
- Do you appear as a shadow to people? flash
- Is that a yes? flash
Cheryl then tells him that she can't tell what his response is when he is flashing so often. She says it's not helpful when he answers in that way. If you can please flash for yes or even light it up to the red. This whole time the K2 meter was flashing.
- Do you want me to turn the light off? nothing
- Do you try to communicate with the current owners? nothing
- Do you try to just leave them alone? nothing
- Do you like what they have done with the place? nothing
K2 meter starts flashing while we are not asking questions. Then Cheryl says I'm starting to wonder if its a fluke because of the way it's going off.
Then we moved the K2 to a coffee table and we sat down. While we were sitting there the meter never flashed once. We asked the following questions:
- Do you like to be on the bed?
- Are you still in here with us?
- Want us to bring Kevin back up here?
- Did you tell us your name on our recorder?
- Did you go downstairs with Kevin?
We received no responses at all on the table. We had wondered if it was the video camera causing it to go off. While on the bed Shirley place the camera all around the meter while it was on the table and it never would flash. We placed it back on the bed and Monica went downstairs to join Kevin.
- Are you hear? nothing
- Can you talk to us again please? nothing
- If you're still here please just light up the lights and let us know. Nothing
-
Did we make you mad when we moved it? nothing
- Do you like sharing the house with Grover and Jamie? nothing
This is when Cheryl kept hearing a ticking sound and I couldn't hear it. We asked several more questions and still no responses to them. Cheryl thought it sounds like the chain on the fan. Cheryl moved the K2 a little farther over on the bed but neither of us thought to move the camera with it. However, we can still hear our conversation and we never did get any other responses with the K2.
We later used a regular EMF meter to check the area around where the K2 meter sat on the bed. The reading was either zero or 0.1, which is not a high enough reading to set off the K2 meter. We are all a little amazed at this session. At times we were getting answers to questions, at times the meter flashed with no apparent pattern, and for long periods we would get no responses at all. We seem to agree as a group that the K2 session here is extremely interesting and worthy of inclusion but cannot be deemed as conclusive evidence of paranormal activity.
During our final session in the bedroom we had all investigators present. We tried using the ghost box for a short period of time. We did not get any recognizable words using the Ghost Box. We then resumed with the K2 meter. During this session we picked up an EVP. Cheryl asks the question “are you a Mexican” and you can hear a whispered “no”.
Also during this last session we noticed that the cord to the ceiling fan above the bed was swinging in a clockwise rotation. We also noticed that the fan wasn’t on, that the air conditioner was off, and there was no reason for this cord to be moving. Kevin tried to make the cord stop swinging and despite his efforts it just continued. The fan was not vibrating, There was just no reason for it to be moving. Cheryl says “I don’t know why you couldn’t make it stop”. At this point we pick up another EVP that says “help me”. At this time Kevin was listening with a parabolic microphone. Shortly after the EVP, Kevin tells the group that he thought he had heard a whispered “no”.
We concluded the investigation thinking that the K2 meter session was interesting not knowing that we had captured several good EVPs. After analyzing our evidence we feel that there is certainly some evidence that indicates paranormal activity is taking place at the Texas White House. We hope to conduct a follow up investigation in the future.
We are very appreciative to Grover for allowing us to come in and conduct an investigation at the Texas White House. It is a lovely home with an interesting history.
Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVPs)
EVP 1
EVP 1A
EVP 2
EVP 3
EVP 3A