Everyone loves a good ghost story. That’s what makes authors like Stephen King, Bentley Little and Robert R. McCammon so popular. Arkansas has more than a few ghost stories of its own. At the same time rural and urban, and once on the frontier of America and the site of Civil War battles, Arkansas has a rich history that makes the state a wellspring of haunted activity.
We continue our tour of “These Haunted States of America” in Arkansas. The Natural State” is home to 2,673,400 people, as well as some restless spirits. So, the next time you’re in Arkansas, here are 10 haunted locations to visit.
1. ARKADELPHIA: Henderson State University
When this was a Methodist college, a young boy fell in love with a girl from Ouachita Baptist University. The two schools are just across the street from each other. Friends of the boy convinced him that the relationship was fruitless because of the differing schools and religions, so he stopped seeing her. When the girl found out he was taking someone else to his homecoming dance she committed suicide. Now, every year during homecoming week, her shadowy form returns to the women’s dorms at Henderson State, searching for the girl who won her only love. Students here call her the “Black Lady.”
2. EUREKA SPRINGS: Crescent Hotel
A room in this resort hotel is haunted by the ghost of Michael, an Irish stonemason who worked on the hotel when it was being built in 1885. The man fell from the roof and died in the second-floor area which became Room 218. Now he plays tricks with the lights and TV, or pounds loudly from inside the thick walls in the room. There are also other spirits here. The ghost of a nurse dressed in white has been reported on the third floor. A gentleman in Victorian clothing haunts the lobby. He has been spotted at the bottom of the stairway and sitting at the lobby bar. Other apparitions have been sighted in Rooms 202 and 424. Built in the early 1880s, the resort hotel was used as a college in the 1920s and became a somewhat controversial hospital/health resort in the late 1930s. The confused ghost of Doctor Baker, the charlatan who ran the hospital in the 1930s, has been seen in the old recreation room and at the foot of the first-floor stairway.
This creek is haunted by the ghost of a woman who was murdered here on November 21, 1912. The body of Ella Barham was found cut into seven pieces at the entrance to an old mine shaft. A man named Odus Davidson was hanged for the murder, but that did not seem to placate Ella’s restless spirit. The creek is eighteen miles south of Harrison near Killebrew Ford on Pleasant Ridge.
4. HOLLYGROVE: Captain Mulls House
This house originally stood in St. Petersburg, Florida, but was moved to Hollygrove by a retired sea captain. He lived there with a Native American girl whom he loved very much. When she died he had her body embalmed and sealed in a glass casket, which he kept in the house. After his death in 1935, the girl was interred in a local cemetery. Sometimes the sounds of the Native American woman playing the piano can be heard coming from the deserted house, and many local residents believe that the place is haunted by her spirit. Today the Captain Mulls House is a private residence, so permission from the current owners must be obtained before entering the premises.
5. LITTLE ROCK: Highway 365
Several versions of the “Vanishing Hitchhiker” urban legend originate on the highways between Little Rock and the surrounding communities. Someone picks up a young girl hitchhiking, usually on a rainy night, and when the driver gets to the house where the girls wants to get out she disappears. The astounded driver knocks on the door of the residence only to be told that the ghost of the owner’s daughter returns on the anniversary of her death. The girl died in a car wreck at the spot where the driver picked her up. U.S. Highway 64 north of Little Rock is the stomping ground of another highway ghost, but this one has a name. Laura Starr Latta died a month before her twentieth birthday in an accident on the old road in 1899. The haunted area on Highway 365 is from Little Rock to Woodsen, and from Redfield to Pine Bluff. The area on U.S. Highway 64 runs from Conway to Morrilton.
The violent passions of years gone by have created a lingering ghost here. The apparition of a man dressed in a frock coat walks down the aisles of the Central Hall on the second floor. He is thought to be former Speaker of the House John Wilson. In 1837, after many heated debates with Representative Anthony, Wilson stabbed him to death in a scuffle on the floor of the august chamber. Wilson was acquitted on the grounds of “excusable homicide,” although his political career was ruined. There was even a coup here in 1872, when newly elected Governor Elisha Baxter was physically removed from office by the loser. A cannon was placed on the lawn to discourage Baxter’s return, but he set up another Governor’s office in a storefront down the street. President Grant had to step in to reinstate the legitimate head of Arkansas.
7. MONTICELLO: Old Allen House
This gothic Victorian house was built in 1900 by Joe Lee Allen, a prosperous Delta farmer. The ghost of one of his daughters, LaDell Allen, is said to haunt the house. In the 1940s she took her own life by drinking cyanide. The huge house was converted to apartments in the 1950s, and many tenants have reported ghostly manifestations. One couple trapped a phantom in a closet and struggled to shut the door on the giggling ghost. A doctor living in one of the rooms took a photograph of the dead girl’s reflection in a mirror. Literary scholars believe that author Carolyn Wilson based her book Scent of Lilac on her experiences while living here. Police have been called to the apartments on several occasions to investigate reports of prowlers on the upper floors, but no living person has ever been found. Today the Old Allen House is a private residence, so permission from the current owners must be obtained before entering the premises.
8. ONIA: Uncle Bud Moore House
Built in the 1890s, this house was the site of unusual happenings for many years. Former residents tell of strange noises, and doors opening and closing slowly by themselves. People in the area have seen the apparition of a man, never identified, who first appears to be lying on his back, then slowly rises and beckons them to follow him. The house burned down in the 1960s, but the ruins are still considered to be haunted.
The ghost of a young woman can be heard playing the piano in the music building here. She was a music student at the college in the early 1930s when she met a young man with whom she fell in love. The boy was killed in an automobile accident, and she spent her hours of grief playing a piano on the third floor of the building. She died of unknown causes before the semester was over. Soon people began reported hearing the sounds of a piano coming from the third floor late at night. Years later, when the old music building was torn down and replaced with a more modern structure, people on the second floor could still hear ghostly piano music coming from above, even though there was no third floor in the new building.
10. WARREN: Mark’s Mill
In April 1864, two Civil War skirmishes occurred here, and over one thousand soldiers lost their lives. The first battle started with a Union ambush of a train loaded with Confederate gold. A Confederate soldier blinded by an artillery shell managed to set fire to the car carrying the gold. He died later in a hospital, not knowing whether the treasure was safe from Yankee hands. It is said his ghost roams the area searching for the lost gold. After another engagement near here, Yankee soldiers hastily covered their losses by throwing the bodies of their fallen comrades down a well at Mark’s Mill. Sometimes, the plaintive moaning of the soldier’s spirits can be heard, pleading for a proper burial. Mark’s Mill is located on the Saline River.
Up Next on our Haunted Road Trip Across America: “Haunted California, Fifth in a Series of ‘These Haunted States of America’: 30 Haunted Places to Visit During Your Next Trip to California.
