THE OMAHA DAILY BEE — JULY 17, 1887
Globe-Democrat: “Did you ever hear tell of the ghost of Heiser’s hill?”
The question was asked by a gray-haired guard to whom a Globe-Democrat correspondent was talking about the ghostly inhabitants of the park. He had already told the newspaper man of the peacock lady, the spectral bootman and the ghostly lion-tamer.
In answer to his question the newspaper man said he had not, and asked to hear the story. “No? Why I thought every one had heard about him. Heiser’s Hill is on the west side of the park near Ninetieth street, and old man Heiser lived there in a shanty long before the park was thought of. They say he was a miser, and had a big hoard of buried gold somewhere near his cabin. However that may be, and I never heard that any one ever found any of it. Old Heiser lived entirely alone, never did a day’s work, yet always seemed to have money enough to buy groceries. One night he took poison, and besides, cut his throat from ear to ear with a razor. Several days after a horrid odor called the attention of some passers-by, and they went to the cabin door which they found unlocked, and after knocking sometime in vain they found the old man’s corpse in the first stages of decomposition with the worms crawling in and out of his nose and mouth.
In his hand, still held tight with a death grip, was a lock of golden wavy hair, and an old fashioned silk mitten lay on the floor beside him. The mitten was made for a very small
