KOKOMO, Ind. — In 2001, Pat Shuck felt something strange inside the dilapidated, 100-year old factory building at 1124 S. Union St. - a passing breeze in a windless room.
At the same moment, a friend standing by Shuck felt his leg hit by an unseen force inside the darkness of the building that Elwood Haynes constructed around 100 years ago to assemble some of the first automobiles in the country.
Was it an apparition? A ghost? For Shuck, director of the Kokomo chapter of Indiana Ghost Trackers, the evidence pointed to some kind of spectral presence.
The experience was exhilarating enough to spark a decade-long fascination with the crumbling building. It also spawned a desire to see a piece of Kokomo's automotive history renovated and restored.
"That night, I just fell in love with that building," Shuck said. "If I had the money, I'd buy it right now and fix it up."