Later, she learned more about the history of the Victorian era and settled on the bustle dresses as her favorite — “You know, when they had the big badonkadonk!” she laughs.

The coded message on slips of paper in the Victorian-era silk dress bedeviled many for nearly a decade. A secret found in an old book cracked the case.

So many into-the-spirit attendees attend in full Victorian dress, with velvet capelets, lace-up boots, and pocketwatches making colorful, slightly steampunky cameos up and down beautiful Broad Street.