Pioneer Museum in the Former 1932 Alva General Hospital
901 14th Street, Alva, OK 73717
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Donation suggested; check current admission with the museum
Access
Limited Access
Multi-floor former hospital building; some upper floors bricked off
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1932 · Former Alva General Hospital (1932-1972) · 1893 Cherokee Outlet Land Run interpretive collection · 1976 reopening as Cherokee Strip Museum
Alva, in Woods County, Oklahoma, was one of the first towns founded after the 1893 Land Run that opened the Cherokee Outlet (popularly known as the Cherokee Strip) to non-Native homesteaders. The town was the original site of Northwestern State Normal School, now Northwestern Oklahoma State University.
The Cherokee Strip Museum Association was organized in January 1961 by representatives of Alva's civic and social clubs. The museum was first housed on the second floor of Herod Hall at Northwestern State College, then moved in May 1965 to the lower floor of the Alva City Library.
In June 1975, the Charles Morton Share Trust presented the former Alva General Hospital building to the museum association. The hospital, completed in 1932, had operated for forty years until its closure in 1972. The museum opened in the former hospital in 1976. Today the building holds more than forty rooms of exhibits covering pioneer life, the Cherokee Outlet, Native American history, military service, and a P.O.W. camp display.
In 2024, the Enid News and the Cherokee Strip Museum Association documented the museum staff's own paranormal experiences, including unexplained sounds and the discovery of objects out of place, anchoring the building's haunted reputation in firsthand institutional record-keeping rather than in folklore alone.
Sources
The Alva General Hospital operated from 1932 to 1972, and the building's hospital past is the foundation of its haunted reputation. When the Cherokee Strip Museum reopened in the building in 1976, many of the upper-floor rooms were bricked off rather than restored, including most of the second and third floors. The former surgery room on the second floor was left intact, and it is the focus of the most consistent reports.
Witnesses outside the museum at night describe seeing movement and indistinct figures in the surgery-room windows. The museum staff have published their own accounts in local press, describing unexplained sounds in unoccupied galleries and small objects found out of place between visits.
The surrounding ghost lore is presented as part of the building's character rather than as a primary attraction. The museum's mission centers on Cherokee Outlet and pioneer history, with the haunted reputation as a secondary draw.
Notable Entities
Walk through more than 40 themed rooms in the former Alva General Hospital, including a recreated school room, drug store, kitchen, Indian room, Army room, and P.O.W. camp display. The museum interprets the 1893 opening of the Cherokee Strip and the development of northwest Oklahoma.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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