Amboy Thrift Store under new ownership, group investigates spooky happenings at iconic building

AMBOY – Don Stebbins is getting a bit more than he bargained for when he decided to set up shop in Amboy.

Stebbins, 76, is the owner and operator of the Amboy Thrift Store, located at 202 E. Main St. It is a typical resale shop, with clothes, household items, collectables, jewelry, books and CDs for sale. All items are donated.

Proceeds are going toward fixing up the building that was in need of repairs, particularly the roof, as well as preparing two upstairs apartments for renters.

In the not-too-distant future, Stebbins hopes to divert some money to the Amboy Depot Museum. He is on the Depot Museum Commission.

“The support of family, friends and the Amboy community has been overwhelming,” Stebbins said. “The quantity and quality has been beyond what I expected.”

Stebbins grew up in Lee Center, and would often come over to Amboy to two of his favorite places. One was a movie theater, which is the current home to Amboy Food and Liquor, and the other was a drugstore where his thrift shop is currently located.

“The Amboy Theater was down the street,” Stebbins said. “I’d come down on Saturday, take in a movie, and then come to the drugstore and have a Green River at the soda fountain. It was kind of a ritual. Yeah, this place has meaning for me.”

Stebbins, a 1962 Franklin Grove High School graduate, moved to Portland, Oregon in 1968. He ran a machinery store from February of 1969 until April of 2003, when he retired. He came back to Amboy in July of 2012 for a visit, then decided he didn’t want to leave.

When the opportunity came to buy the building that had been a drugstore for most of its existence, Stebbins jumped at the chance.

“With the COVID thing and staying at home all of the time, I wanted a reason to open the door and get out of the house, be a little bit social and give something back to the community,” Stebbins said.

Stebbins has been in contact with the Amboy volunteer fire department and city hall as a place a person in need can go for items in case of a fire or some other kind of emergency. One person has taken him up on that offer so far.

“Give me a call and if a person needs some clothes or whatever, we’ll take care of you,” Stebbins said.

The Amboy Thrift Store is open Tuesday through Friday from noon to 4 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Stebbins is there during those hours, along with two volunteers who help sort donated items and get them to the floor.

Some added charm, if one wants to look at it that way, is there appears to be some sort of paranormal activity in the building. Stebbins can cite many instances.

A woman moved out of an upstairs apartment in June, and she told Stebbins of some unexplainable noises.

“There’s a stairway between the main level and the second story,” Stebbins said, “and during the night, it was like kids running up and down those stairs all of the time. She’d yell at them, ‘Calm down,’ and they’d settle down for a while.”

There was another time a person appeared to be in the drugstore in a white coat, like a druggist would wear.

“When the soda fountain was still here, there were some people sitting there, and somebody came out from the back in a white jacket, like a drug store person would wear,” Stebbins said. “Everybody turned, and she just disappeared. She wasn’t really here, but everybody saw that.”

Stebbins has seen shadows multiple times when no object or person was there to cause it. There was also a particularly eerie encounter that he could not explain.

“I went into the basement, did some things down there, came up, turned the lights out,” Stebbins said, “and before I left the store, the lights were back on again. This has happened a number of times. It’s not an electrical thing. The switch was actually flipped, and I did not leave the premises. Something is doing that.”

This past Saturday, Stebbins had a crew come in that specializes in paranormal activity. They set up cameras and microphones all over the building’s three floors, and monitored the situation from 7 p.m. until 1 a.m. Their findings will be passed on to Stebbins in about a month, and he expects something strange to be reported.

“There was a group in the basement, and I was sitting here in my little office, and I was completely quiet,” Stebbins said. “I knew if I was moving around, they would wonder. When they came upstairs, they mentioned something about me moving around. I said, ‘No, I didn’t make a move or a sound.’ They said, ‘Well, somebody was moving around up there,’ but it wasn’t me.”

Stebbins isn’t afraid of what might be haunting his building. In fact, he’s embracing the whole situation.

“I don’t let it scare me,” Stebbins said. “I’m looking forward to my first real encounter, so to speak. I don’t think I would freak, but I don’t know.”

With Halloween right around the corner, Stebbins is hoping that encounter may happen soon.

“I’m thinking I may be down here late into the evening on Halloween, just by myself,” Stebbins said. “I’ll just sit here quietly and see what happens.”