On Saturday, October 24, from 6 to 8:30 p.m., the Young Friends of the Missouri Historical Society will open the storerooms of the Library & Research Center, 225 S. Skinker Blvd., to adults who want to see the parts of the collection the society itself calls “ominous, intriguing, and just a little bit creepy.” The event is called History After Dark. It comes with cocktails, appetizers, crafts and spirit raffles, which is the museum world’s way of saying alcohol will be near the artifacts.

Collection storage is where museums keep what they can’t or won’t hang on a wall: things too fragile, too strange, too sad or too awkward for a placard. A city with this much history, and this many ways of dying in it, has presumably acquired plenty. The society hasn’t said what’s in the storerooms, so we won’t pretend to know. The invitation is what’s confirmed: Halloween season, behind the scenes, drink in hand.

The collection is already a source for this site. It’s where the police lantern slide of gangster Dinty Colbeck comes from, along with several of the 1904 World’s Fair photographs. Those were the parts someone decided to digitize.

Tickets are through the Historical Society. The storerooms will be open until 8:30. What’s inside has been waiting a lot longer than that.