Spooked in Spokane: Here are 5 Spokane skeleton displays for Halloween

By now, Skelly is a Halloween institution. While Halloween lawn decorations are nothing new, they’ve grown scarier and more robust in Spokane and across the country thanks to the imposing 12-foot skeleton.

Having debuted in 2020 in Home Depot, Skelly slowly began to grace the lawns of Spokane. Held back by the level of demand, the skeleton was hard to buy in previous years.

While the store does not sell Skelly specifically, locally owned Halloween Express has seen a lot of sales for their lawn displays and animatronics this year.

“It’s people who just love decorating, and this is a great time to do it,” said Halloween Express manager Jarret Walter. “Some people in Spokane take Halloween very seriously.”

At Halloween Express, these larger lawn displays cost between $200 and $400. Purchasing Skelly at Home Depot can cost upwards of $300 – though the price is slashed in the off-season. More average-sized skeletons can be found for under $50.

One Spokane family has made it easier for community members to go around and check Halloween lawn displays.

For the last four years, Kevin King and his family posted an online map he calls “Spokane Spooky Houses”.

King, whose family used to host a haunted house every year, said they modeled it with the knowledge that people seek Christmas light displays every year.

“At first, it was just us driving around and finding other places and adding them to the map,” King said. “But then this year, especially, we’ve had a lot of people just message us and saying, ‘Hey, please add us.’ ”

As of right now, there are more than 120 places on the map, including a few in Idaho, that are decorated for Halloween.

King said he starts putting the map together mid-September and adds houses until Halloween.

“I’m not making any money off it,” King said. “I just do it for people to have a resource to go out and enjoy seeing decorations.”

Here are a few displays across town, both large and small.

Longfellow Avenue and G Street in north Spokane

Three years ago, Alex Cooper and his neighbor kept seeing the giant-sized skeletons all over Spokane.

“It was an impulse buy for me,” Cooper said. “I just really wanted one.”

Cooper said that when Halloween would come around, the neighbors would figure out how to make their skeletons look or wave at each other, making it a fun tradition.

“It was pretty funny – we had a pretty good competition,” Cooper said.

Although his friend has since moved to a different neighborhood, he wanted to continue that tradition and decorate the giant-sized skeleton.

This year, it was by having it hold a doll over a casket.

“We had a coffin with two skeletons – so that one was something that we just decided to zip-tie the dolls with hands and go with it,” Cooper said. “I haven’t gotten into the engineering part of the skeletons, but a lot of people figured out how to pose them differently, and it’s very unique watching what they do.”

Fireman Skelly on Southeast Boulevard between 29th and Regal

This specific Skelly has haunted commuters traveling across the South Hill for the past couple of years – regardless of the time of year. But this past summer, the decoration burned down in an electrical fire that took out much of the owner’s backyard.

“All that remains is his metal frame, the skeleton of a skeleton. We have decided against a candle light vigil. You will be missed,” the owner announced in a Reddit post earlier this year.

That Skelly has since been replaced by a skeleton that now greets passersby in a fireman’s hat.

Daisy Avenue near Allen Place in north Spokane

Joshua Scott got his giant-sized skeleton for a good deal.

“I actually got it off of Facebook marketplace,” said Scott, who bought it this year. “It was a little bit cheaper than brand-new.”

Scott said the giant skeleton chained to his house pulled together all the other skeleton decorations he already had all over the yard, the skeleton arch near the door and a few others propped up around the chimney.

“I still have got three more skeletons to bring out,” Scott said. “They’ll be in a fire pit that I made, and it looks kind of a hellacious sort of thing with two skeletons coming out of it.”

Wolfenstein Manor on Monroe Street at Eighth Avenue

Those driving down Monroe Street on the lower South Hill can take a turn at the snarling wolfman to see this house. The “Wolfenstein Manor” features all kinds of creepy crawlies, including their own take on Skelly.

This skeleton features a skirt and a political sign supporting Vice President Kamala Harris in the election slated just days after Halloween.

Ray Street going down the South Hill near 32nd Avenue

The Wilson family has been setting up its Halloween display for more than five years, and their production might be a little more involved than other entries on this list.

The brothers invite trick-or-treaters to come into their backyard for a series of scares, including those coming from nine live actors. Last year, they had 631 visitors, and they are expecting more than a thousand on Halloween night this year.

“It’s just a lot of fun. We like spooky stuff, and we love a hobby,” Grant Wilson said. “It’s just a lot of fun to give back to the community and see kids react the way we did when we saw a house like this.”

The experience is free to the public and has had lines around the block. They expect to spend upwards of $2,000 on Halloween night for candy and other expenses. And all of the different and giant displays have cost the family many more thousands of dollars over the years.

“We don’t change anything,” Wilson said. “We never will. This is just trick-or-treating, but, like, on an extreme level.”