This House is Home for Oddities

By R.A. DYER
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

AUSTIN -- An alleged tuft of Elvis' hair. Spooky recordings made by ghost hunters. A lipstick-stained cigarette -- but was it really the last one ever rolled by Marilyn Monroe?

Welcome to the Museum of Ephemerata, a collection of bizarre and troubling artifacts in a private home just east of the state Capitol. For suggested donations of a dime up to $4, visitors can witness a working model of a 19th-century Pepper's Ghost illusion or can decide for themselves whether the display of human horns is real.

The Museum of Ephemerata is a tribute to early 20th-century dime museums and sideshows made famous by P.T. Barnum and his ilk. Like the spectacles offered at roaming tent carnivals, the museum bridges the gap between science and pop culture.

"This taps into the history of museums in the broadest sense," said curator Scott Webel, 31. "It's both educational and entertainment. And everything we present, we can back up with history."

Located in two small front rooms in the tiny home that Webel shares with his wife and fellow curator Jen Hirt, the Museum of Ephemerata is more Sanford & Son than Smithsonian.

Patrons can thrill to gooey Ghostbusters-style ectoplasm and marvel at a stuffed pygmy kangaroo. There's a "hair wreath," which was supposedly woven from the hair of a dead person. Webel said he found it on eBay.

Is this stuff real or not? Who knows?

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