Witches, wagons and a jazz band: a century of Halloween in the Tri-Valley

Long before haunted houses and pumpkin-spice everything, Halloween in the Tri-Valley meant a dance in the schoolhouse, a few missing gates and a jazz band in Livermore. We went through a century of local newspapers and found that the valley has been dressing up, playing pranks and telling ghost stories for a long time.

1916: jack-o'-lanterns in an Alamo schoolhouse

On a Friday night in October 1916, the Alamo Mothers' Club held a Halloween and harvest dance at the schoolhouse. The Danville Journal called it "probably the best attended affair given in Alamo in many years." About 200 people came. The walls were covered with greenery, witches, goblins, black cats, corn stalks and grapes, and "jack-o'-lanterns lighted the rooms." The school children sang and recited, the floor was cleared for dancing, one of the mothers told fortunes, and the money went to the school's piano fund. (Danville Journal, Oct. 28, 1916)

The 1920s: missing gates and wagons in the street

Halloween night was for pranks. In Pleasanton in 1927 the excitement lasted past midnight, and "the residents of the city expected to find things mighty upset on Tuesday." In the end the damage was modest: some gates went missing and old wagons turned up in the street. Earlier that evening the PTA had thrown a Halloween party for nearly 200 grammar school children. (Livermore Journal, Nov. 2, 1927)

1927: two orchestras in Livermore

The grown-ups had a party of their own. The Young Ladies Institute's annual Halloween Ball in Livermore drew a record crowd in 1927, and the paper called it "one of the most successful dance affairs ever given in Livermore." The draw was a novelty: two orchestras, Jack Gardella and his Jazz Artists and the O'Neil and Case Music Masters, taking turns so the music never stopped. (Livermore Journal, Nov. 2, 1927) The ball was still going in 1931, when more than twenty couples came over from Pleasanton for it. (Livermore Journal, Nov. 5, 1931)

That same week in 1927, the children at the Del Valle Farm, a home for frail children next to the county sanatorium outside Livermore, had their own party. They came to supper in costumes and masks, and the staff met them dressed as witches and ghosts. (Livermore Journal, Nov. 2, 1927; Livermore Chamber of Commerce, 1927)

Dublin: a churchyard of pioneers

The valley's spookiest setting may also be its oldest: Old St. Raymond Church in Dublin, built in 1859, and the pioneer cemetery behind it. The first recorded burial there was Tom Donlon, who fell from the church roof while working on it in 1859. (Museum of the San Ramon Valley)

In recent years the City of Dublin has run "Ghosts of Dublin" at Heritage Park in late October: flashlight tours of the cemetery, ghost stories in the Sunday School Barn and an old black-and-white horror movie projected on its wall. The late tours have been for older teens and adults only. (Patch, 2016)

Pleasanton: Lily and the Ghost Walk

In Pleasanton, Halloween belongs to the Museum on Main's Ghost Walk, started more than a decade ago by museum board member Charles Huff. (Pleasanton Weekly, 2018) "Ghost hosts" carrying electromagnetic field meters lead groups to nine haunted spots downtown, where actors, some of them from a local teen improv troupe, play the town's ghosts. The museum says the walk "brings stories and experiences collected and documented from locals over the years." (Pleasanton Weekly, 2025)

The best-known ghost is Lily. A psychic once declared that the Pleasanton Hotel building was haunted by Lily, a woman who had worked there and was killed by a jealous man, and that his ghost haunts the Museum on Main. It's legend, not history, but people who have worked upstairs in the old hotel say they have felt her. (Pleasanton Weekly, 2018)

Danville: a costume parade and O'Neill's ghosts

In Danville, Halloween happens on Hartz Avenue. For about three decades the Danville Area Chamber of Commerce has run FallFest, a downtown street fair with a children's Halloween costume parade, trick-or-treating along the route, hand-blown glass pumpkins and a classic car show. (Danville Area Chamber of Commerce, 2021)

In 2022 the Eugene O'Neill Foundation added a literary twist. Its self-guided "Ghost Stroll" asked whether O'Neill's characters stayed behind at Tao House when he left in 1944. At 11 downtown businesses, a QR code played a short video of one of the "Ghosts of Tao House," filmed at the national historic site. (Eugene O'Neill Foundation)

This year

The old traditions are still here in new costumes: parties for the kids, a parade on Hartz Avenue, flashlight tours in Dublin and ghost walks in Pleasanton. Dates change every year, so check with the organizers before you go, and see our Halloween guide for this year's events across the Tri-Valley.