These Are The Most Haunted Places In Every State

The United States of America is an enormous country with a wide variety of people and cultures in it. It's also a country with a long, storied, and frequently very violent history. The combination of this crazy quilt-like patchwork of cultures stretching from sea to shining sea and lots of colorful and terrible things that have happened between those shores leads to there being an abundance of ghost stories in each of the 50 states.

Each state has its own unique flavor of ghost, from the witches of New England, to the moss-bedraggled Southern gothic, to the ghost towns of the Old West. Here is a look at some of the many hospitals, hotels, and asylums full to bursting with grim, grinning ghosts in each of America's 50 states.

(Note: by necessity, these ghost stories frequently mention death, murder, and suicide. If you are sensitive to these topics, be warned.)

According to the official Sloss Fright Furnace website, Sloss Furnaces operated as a blast furnace that produced steel from the 1880s until the 1970s, and its success in this field is what helped turn Birmingham into the largest metropolitan area in Alabama. However, the legend goes that in the early 1900s, a notoriously cruel foreman named James "Slag" Wormwood ran the graveyard shift with an iron fist. He forced his skeleton crew to work all hours of the night in stifling 120-degree heat to keep the furnace fed. It is said that Slag's harsh and dangerous management led to the death of 47 workers during his time as foreman, with many others being seriously hurt or even permanently disabled. In 1906, Slag met his end when he slipped and fell into the largest furnace, known as Big Alice, and melted instantly in the molten ore. There is much speculation over whether this was truly an accident.

Afterwards, workers began complaining of a demonic presence urging them to work harder and even physically shoving or burning them. There are more than 100 reports of encounters with the paranormal attributed to the ghost of old Slag.

According to its official website, the Red Onion Saloon in Skagway, Alaska, is a restaurant and bar where you can get pizza and nachos, but when it was built in the Gold Rush of 1897, it was known as the finest saloon, dance hall, and brothel in Skagway. As Haunted Rooms explains, the first floor of the building contained the saloon, while the upstairs contained the 10 rooms of the brothel. Interested customers would approach the bars of the saloon, behind which were placed 10 dolls representing the 10 sex workers upstairs. A doll sitting upright was available, while a doll lying down was, well, probably lying down. The most famous of all the sex workers of the Red Onion is Lydia, who apparently has stuck around until today.

Visitors to the Red Onion report encountering Lydia as footsteps overhead, the scent of perfume, cold spots, and even as a full-form apparition walking around her former room. It is also said that Lydia waters and tends to the plants of the Red Onion. The saloon offers both walking tours of Skagway and an in-house tour of the brothel museum, in which they say people might encounter Lydia.

The Jerome Grand Hotel in Jerome, Arizona, was originally built in 1927 as the United Verde Hospital and operated as such until 1950, when it closed, standing unused until it reopened as a hotel in 1996. According to AZ Central, more than 9,000 people died on those grounds in its time as a hospital, which may contribute to its reputation as the most haunted place in Arizona. The general manager says that they began experiencing reports of strange activity as soon as they opened, including disembodied voices and sightings of hospital gurneys in the hallways. Since that time, the manager says he fills a 300-page journal every year with reports of ghostly happenings in the hotel.

The majority of activity reportedly happens on the third floor, where the operating room once stood. People hear the sound of rolling gurney wheels and feel the ghost of a cat jumping on their bed and walking around. The most-reported room is room 32, where two suicides allegedly took place. Additionally, the elevator is said to be haunted by the ghost of a maintenance man who was crushed by the elevator car in 1935.

The Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, bills itself on its website as "America's Most Haunted Hotel," and they offer a number of legends to back that claim up. The hotel was built as a luxury resort in 1886, but it also spent some time serving as a women's college. The most pertinent era in the hotel's haunted history, however, begins in the 1930s when the hotel was purchased by a man named Norman Baker, a snake oil salesman who converted the hotel into a health resort where he — despite having zero medical training — claimed to have cures for any number of diseases, including cancer. The horrors of Barker's medical malpractice led to numerous deaths which are said to be the cause of the hotel's many hauntings today.

The America's Most Haunted Hotel website names a number of the more famous apparitions: Michael, a stonemason who died in the hotel's construction that still hangs out in Room 218; a ghostly cancer patient seen on the fourth floor fumbling with keys and cleaning up after untidy guests; a spectral 4-year-old who died of appendicitis, seen bouncing a ball in the halls; and many more.

California is an enormous state with a lot of famously haunted locations, including the Winchester Mystery House and the RMS Queen Mary, but as its official website trumpets, it's the Whaley House in San Diego that has the reputation as the most haunted house in America. The house was built by Thomas Whaley in 1856 to be the most elegant house in Southern California. In addition to being a family home, it also served as a courthouse, a theater, and a general store. However, the site of the home was also the spot on which notorious horse thief Yankee Jim Robinson had been executed, and this deadly act seems to have tainted the location. Soon after the Whaleys moved in, their 18-month-old son Thomas died of scarlet fever. Later, the Whaley daughter Victoria would commit suicide in the house.

According to Haunted Rooms, visitors to the Whaley House museum have encountered most of the family as ghosts. Thomas and his wife are said to appear as the unexplained odor of cigar smoke and perfume. The melancholy Victoria appears as a ghost in a long dress in an upstairs bedroom, and the giggles and footsteps of Baby Thomas are a constant presence.

While this list will attest to the fact that the United States is apparently packed to the gills with haunted hotels, only one spook-infested inn has the honor of being the inspiration for the most famous haunted hotel in all of horror literature and film, and that's the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. According to Uncover Colorado, the hotel was the brainchild of inventor Freelan Oscar Stanley, who had gone out to the fresh air of Colorado in the hopes of curing his tuberculosis. When the hotel opened in 1909, it was a modern marvel and a luxury destination for travelers to the western mountains. However, it had fallen into considerable disrepair by the 1970s when it was visited by author Stephen King and the nightmares he experienced in the notorious room 217 inspired his book "The Shining."

The Stanley's reputation for paranormal activity has only increased in the years since the publication of "The Shining," with the ghosts of Stanley and his wife being commonly sighted apparitions. Ghosts of children are said to run the halls, as well as there being a haunted pet cemetery and cave system under the hotel.

As the Hartford Courant explains, Dudleytown is an old colonial village in the northwestern corner of the state that has since been abandoned and garnered a reputation as being a cursed patch of land. According to legend, the village was established by the Dudley family in the 1700s, but they brought a curse with them that has subsequently brought ruin upon anyone who has tried to live there. Such stories include a massacre by Native Americans, death by lightning strike, epidemics, suicides, madness, and more. By 1880, they say, the village had been deserted by everyone except one man, who was later found roaming the woods in shredded clothing and babbling about demons.

In the years since that time, the area around Dudleytown has become notorious as a hotbed for paranormal activity, with reports of unnatural noises and sightings of ghosts around the area becoming common in recent years. As Damned Connecticut says, Ed and Lorraine Warren (of "The Conjuring" fame) declared the woods around Dudleytown officially "demonically possessed" in the 1970s. That said, Dudleytown has been closed to the public since the 1990s, so you'll just have to imagine the effects of the Dudley curse for yourself.

Fort Delaware, on Pea Patch Island in the Delaware River, was originally built in 1859 as a harbor defense, but soon became a prison for Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. According to Only in Your State, Fort Delaware was notorious at the time for its treatment of soldiers –many of which were captured on the bloody battlefields of Gettysburg — with the commanding officer at the facility gaining the nickname "General Terror." Some 13,000 prisoners were held in terrible conditions with rotting food, impotable water, and rampant disease and malnutrition, to say nothing of the tortures enacted by guards upon the prisoners. Around 2,700 men are said to have died in these hellish conditions, so it's not a huge surprise that legends say that many of their spirits have hung around.

The fort, now a state park, offers ghost seekers an hours-long tour of the grounds, in which you can tour the allegedly spook-filled barracks, mess hall, officers' quarters, and tunnel system. The Syfy series Ghost Hunters investigated the fort in 2008 and heard ghostly cannon fire in the tunnels as well as rattling chains, in addition to visual and even tactile experiences.

According to Old City Ghosts, the lead investigator from "Ghost Hunters" called the St. Augustine Lighthouse "the Mona Lisa of paranormal sites." The lighthouse was the first one built by the new American territorial government after Florida had been purchased from the Spanish in 1824, on the site of an old Spanish watchtower that dates back to the 16th century. The stretch of land on which the lighthouse stands today has seen piracy, war, shipwrecks, slave hunters, Nazis, and more. It's no surprise that with such a storied history that the lighthouse is said to be so haunted.

Some of the most famous spirits at the lighthouse are the ghosts of the children of Hezekiah Pittee, the man tasked with rebuilding the lighthouse in 1871. The children drowned there while playing around the construction site, and the official St. Augustine Lighthouse website says the playful spirits of these children still pull off spooky pranks on the site to this day. Other ghosts include the terrifying "Man in Blue," a violent poltergeist believed to be a former lighthouse keeper, and the ghostly cigar smoke of another former keeper.

As Only in Your State says, Savannah, Georgia, has a reputation as one of the most haunted cities in America, and the most haunted place in that haunted city is surely Bonaventure Cemetery. Made famous thanks to its centrality in the 1994 novel "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" and its film adaptation, it's hard to look at the grounds with their sprawling, gnarled oaks covered in dangling Spanish moss and not get a little chill up your spine. The Southern gothic vibes of the place are only enhanced by the numerous sculptures and monuments that surround the graves, including the famous "Bird Girl" sculpture from the novel.

One famous sculpture, however, accompanies the cemetery's most famous ghost: that of Little Gracie Watson, the daughter of a local hotel manager who died of pneumonia at just 6 years old in 1889. Ghost and Gravestones reports that visitors claim to have seen the little girl's ghost sitting by her grave and blood flowing from the statue's eyes. Other reported phenomena include the sound of infants crying near babies' graves, strange laughing, unseen dogs barking, and sculptures smiling or grimacing at people.

For most Americans, Hawaii has a reputation as a tropical paradise, a place to get away from stress and strife. But even places of such beauty can be home to ghosts, and with Hawaii's combination of rich mythology and bloody history, it's no surprise that it's such a place. And the most famously haunted area of the Aloha State is the Pali Highway on the island of Oahu, which runs from downtown Honolulu through mountains and tunnels to the windward coast. According to Only in Your State, legends from this stretch of road include a ghostly old woman and a dog who will appear and make your car stall if you try to carry pork across the island.

Honolulu Magazine records that there are many famously haunted spots along the highway, including Morgan's Corner, the site of a real murder where tales of more legendary murders are common; sacred ruins where night marchers — the spirits of ancient warriors — are said to frequent; a Chinese cemetery with a haunted tree, where the ghost of a girl who committed suicide can reveal which men have been unfaithful; Iolani Palace, haunted by the ghost of Queen Lili'uokalani; and many others.

According to the Travel Channel, the Old Idaho State Penitentiary was begun in 1870 as a one-cell jailhouse as a sign of an establishment of law in a territory angling for statehood. Before long, however, the jail had its prisoners working in a stone quarry to mine the very rocks that would be used to imprison them. Eventually, the penitentiary was made up of numerous buildings, all surrounded by a tall sandstone wall. For the next century, this prison would be home to over 13,000 convicts, both men and women, more than 100 of whom died within its walls of causes both natural and not. The prison became notorious both for its brutal conditions — extreme temperatures, improper plumbing, poor ventilation, and so on — as well as its dangerous criminals, including Raymond Allen Snowden, known as "Idaho's Jack the Ripper."

Due to its violent history, it's no surprise that the Old Idaho State Penitentiary has gained a reputation as the most haunted building in the Gem State since its closure in 1973. And 5 House, the building where Snowden was executed in 1957, is said to be especially haunted by the ghost of the old murderer.

While Chicago's Resurrection Cemetery is home to one of the most famous ghosts in American history, Resurrection Mary, the nearby Bachelor's Grove Cemetery, just outside Chicago in Midlothian, Illinois, is famous for just straight up having ghosts out the wazoo. As Atlas Obscura explains, the small graveyard was built around 1840 as part of a short-lived settlement and was abandoned around the turn of the 20th century. Since that time, the legends surrounding the 82-plot graveyard have only grown as it has attracted graverobbers, vandals, and ghost hunters alike (and, so the stories go, cultists and mobsters dumping bodies).

According to Windy City Ghosts, reported phenomena at Bachelor's Grove include a ghost dog with red eyes that chases people off the grounds, a ghostly farmer with a phantom horse, spectral vehicles with no drivers, your standard glowing orbs, dark figures in hooded robes, and a two-headed pond monster. There's also a shimmering, floating phantom farmhouse that appears and disappears at random, never in the same part of the graveyard twice. Most famous, however, is the woman in white, known as the Madonna of Bachelor's Grove, seen carrying her baby around the graveyard under the full moon.

As Haunted Rooms records, the French Lick Springs Hotel in French Lick, Indiana, was originally developed in 1845 by Dr. William Bowels (yes, really) as a health resort capitalizing on the area's natural sulfur springs. In 1888, however, the property was bought by the town's mayor, Thomas Taggart, who turned the health resort into luxury accommodations including 443 guest rooms, a spa, two golf courses, and of course, the local miracle water sold by the bottle. The hotel got a major restoration in 2006 and has become a popular travel destination ever since, despite the building's reputation as the most haunted hotel in the Hoosier State.

The most frequently seen ghost is that of Thomas Taggart himself, who is often seen (or his cigarettes smelled) doing all the jobs he used to do as proprietor of the hotel, riding the service elevator up and down, or — in what must be one of the most terrifying possible apparitions by an allegedly friendly ghost — riding a horse down the sixth-floor hallways. The other most commonly reported spirit is a bellhop that many guests assume is a current employee until they see his picture in old photographs of the hotel.

With a name like "the Villisca Ax-Murder House," you know it's got to be haunted. According to House Beautiful, the notorious murders that give the house its colorful name occurred in 1912, when eight people, including Josiah and Sarah Moore, their four children, and two visiting children, were killed by an unknown assailant with an ax. Besides the disturbingly grisly nature of the crime itself, the mystery of the event is compounded by strange details like the fact that the door was locked from the inside, all the windows and mirrors in the house were covered with cloth, and the house contains a secret hidden attic. More than a century later, the crime remains unsolved, but the spirits of the restless dead continue to cry out in turmoil, or so they say.

Apparitions within the murder house include strange giggling sounds, disembodied screams, a mysterious fog that appears and moves from room to room at the time of the murders, and visitors to the house beginning to act strangely. The house today is open as a kind of "murder hotel," where guests can rent out the house to stay overnight in hopes of spying a ghost.

As Kansas City Magazine explains, Atchison, Kansas, the historic home of aviatrix Amelia Earhart, is renowned as the most haunted city in Kansas. And the most haunted place in the most haunted town in the Sunflower State is the so-called Sallie House, which was the home of a local physician and whose name is that of his most infamous patient. According to legend, the Sallie who gives the house its name was a young girl whose mother brought her to the doctor's home with abdominal pain. The doctor believed she had appendicitis, and hurrying due to the severity of her pain, began operating before the anesthetic had a chance to take hold, causing the girl to die screaming in pain on the operating table.

According to the Atchison tourism website, paranormal activity at the house started to increase in the 1990s, when a young couple rented the house and experienced cold spots, objects moving by themselves, unexplained scratches on their bodies, mysterious fires, and their dog growling at seemingly empty corners. Today the house is available for tours, but visitors have to sign a waiver, as Sallie's ghost is said to occasionally get violent, especially towards men.

If you're a Northern Kentucky partisan, your particular favorite spooks might be the rowdy honky-tonk ghosts of Bobby Mackey's Music World, but for most of the Bluegrass State, the hottest hotbed of supernatural activity is the Waverly Hills Sanatorium. As Atlas Obscura explains, Waverly was built in the early 20th century in an attempt to provide a place of rest and convalescence for victims of tuberculosis, a respiratory disease that was an incurable scourge at the time. Their main approach to trying to fight the deadly disease was rest, sunlight, and good vibes. Despite this, people died in the facility on an almost daily basis until the facility closed in 1961.

Since that time, the abandoned facility has become known as an epicenter for the spirits of those who died of tuberculosis, especially in the underground tunnel known as the "body chute," through which the bodies of the dead were transported. The fifth floor is especially reputed to be haunted, where multiple nurses are said to have met their end at their own hand. Other sightings include a ghostly hearse, a woman with bleeding wrists, and a man in a white coat.

New Orleans is one of the most (allegedly) haunted cities in America, with famous spots like the horrific Lalaurie Mansion, the tomb of Marie Laveau, and a bar haunted by a pirate ghost. But perhaps the most notorious spot in Louisiana for ghosts is about 100 miles outside of New Orleans in St. Francisville, at the Myrtles Plantation. According to the Myrtles Plantation website, the site is home to as many as 12 different ghosts and was the location of (according to legend) 10 different murders. Naturally, any plantation is going to have a pretty fraught history, so the idea that stories of violence would pop up around it isn't too surprising.

Probably the most famous ghost of Myrtles is Chloe, who (according to American Hauntings) is said to have been a young enslaved girl forced into a relationship with her owner, Clark Woodruff. When Chloe was caught spying at keyholes, Woodruff cut one of her ears off. In revenge, Chloe poisoned Woodruff's wife and children, for which she was hanged. To this day there are numerous sightings of Chloe wearing the green turban she famously donned to cover up her missing ear.

York, Maine, is one of the oldest European settlements in North America, and is in fact the oldest incorporated city in America, under the charter of King Charles I in 1642. As Haunted Rooms explains, the facility now known as the Museums of Old York is a combination of formerly separate historical sites The Old York Historical Improvement Society, The Old Gaol Museum Committee, and The Society for the Preservation of Historic Landmarks in York County. These days it is known as one of the most haunted spots in Maine.

New England, of course, is notorious for its witch trials, and York didn't escape witch mania. The current site of the museum was formerly the town hall where public executions were carried out in the town. The most famous entity of Old York is the so-called "White Witch," who is believed to be the ghost of one of the women executed during the witch trials. Visitors report doors opening and closing by themselves, cold spots, objects moving on their own, and, of course, full visual apparitions of the White Witch herself walking down the streets of the town, or even playing with children at the playground.

The bloodiest battle in the bloodiest war on U.S. soil was the 1862 Battle of Antietam, on a creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland. As the U.S. Department of Transportation explains, this Civil War battle was only four hours long, but saw the death or wounding of over 23,000 men who fought on a sunken road that separated two farm properties. Such violence of course begets legends of the spirits of the unquiet dead, echoes of the deaths that took place there. The Antietam battlefield is home to numerous tales of hauntings and apparitions.

The road where bodies fell on top of bodies is today known as Bloody Lane, and visitors have reported seeing the ghosts of soldiers marching up and down it, as well as smelling unexplained clouds of gunpowder. More strangely, there have been reports of disembodied singing heard floating around Bloody Lane. Burnside's Ridge, the site of many unmarked graves, is said to be home to strange balls of blue light and the mysterious sound of drums. Multiple buildings on the site of the battleground, including a church used as a hospital, bear a reputation for ghostly sights and sounds as well.

Thanks to the infamy of the Salem Witch Trials and the influential horror writing of New England native H.P. Lovecraft, Massachusetts has a reputation as the epicenter of a very specific flavor of horror, with Salem itself becoming a tourist hotspot at Halloween. While the whole town of Salem is famous for both witches and ghosts, one home in particular stands out as especially haunted: the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion, perhaps better known thanks to the Nathaniel Hawthorne novel inspired by it as "The House of the Seven Gables." As Ghost City Tours explains, Turner-Ingersoll was once the home of John Turner, a hat and shoe merchant whose success allowed him to build the gothic clapboard house with seven gables. A later owner, Samuel Ingersoll, added a secret staircase that would become infamous due to Hawthorne's novel.

The haunted history of the house is thought to be due to a curse laid on Salem by those wrongly executed in the witch trials. Sightings at the mansion include a figure walking up and down the secret staircase, a ghostly boy playing in the attic, and the ghost of Ingersoll's daughter, walking the halls and peering at the garden through the windows.

According to Click On Detroit, Mackinac Island is one of Michigan's most popular destinations for tourists, a small island state park in Lake Huron between the Upper and Lower Peninsulas full of historic buildings, unique shops, and of course, their famous horses, as cars have been banned there since the 19th century. But the charming tourist spot is also widely believed to be the most haunted location in Michigan. The ghostly presences of Mackinac are largely attributed to the violent history there, as the spot was originally home to Odawa natives, many of whom were killed as the British took over the island for their fur trade and fishing industry. Additionally, the island was home to a military fort where many people died in the War of 1812.

The island's Grand Hotel is one of the most common sites for ghost spotting, including the ghosts of workers who died in its construction and a mysterious entity with glowing red eyes. Mission Point Resort is home to Harvey, the ghost of a man who shot himself from heartbreak — unless he was murdered? There are also phantom limbs at Fort Mackinac and witches' ghosts at the Drowning Pool, among others.

The Wabasha Street Caves are a system of artificial caves dug in the 1800s as silica mines for use in making glass. The hollowed-out area became first a mushroom farm, then a speakeasy, then home to a nightclub frequented by gangsters, and eventually an event hall and tourist destination in St. Paul, Minnesota. However, according to Minnesota Daily, it is also the most haunted spot in the Gopher State. Besides the fact that it's a spooky underground locale, the association of the caves with restless spirits likely has to do primarily with the reputation of the Castle Royal Nightclub, which was a common hangout for notorious gangsters such as John Dillinger and "Baby Face" Nelson in the 1930s.

Employees of the caves say that hauntings are a daily thing down there, with unexplained whistling, strange footsteps, flickering chandelier lights, and ghosts walking through the corridors all a common occurrence. Legends abound of slain mobsters whose bodies were hidden in the caves and whose ghosts are thought to have stuck around to whisper spookily to visitors to their old tramping grounds under the streets of Saint Paul.

According to Visit Vicksburg, the most haunted spot in Mississippi is the McRaven House, a historic home constructed around 1797 that has since that time had a much-storied and violent history. The house itself was built by Andrew Glass, a highwayman who would rob people traveling the Natchez Trace and store his plunder at McRaven House. Later, Mary Elizabeth Howard, the 15-year-old wife of the house's new owner, would die in childbirth in one of the house's bedrooms. During the Civil War, the house served as a Confederate field hospital until its owner was shot just outside the home by Union troops. Eventually, the Murray family would move in and four of them would die inside the McRaven house. Since 2015, however, the house has been open to the public.

The official McRaven House Tours website says that the ghosts most commonly sighted on the grounds are Mary Elizabeth Howard, who is said to constantly turn lights on and off and appear on the staircase, and whose well-preserved shawl is said to emit a strange heat; John Bobb, the Civil War-era owner whose ghost still prowls the balcony; and Andrew Glass himself.

The Lemp Mansion in St. Louis, Missouri, is not only the most haunted place in the Show-Me State, it is, according to Legends of America, one of the 10 most haunted places in the United States. The house, which is currently a dinner theater and bed and breakfast, was originally the family home of Johann Adam Lemp, who emigrated there from Germany in 1838 and made a fortune brewing beer. The house witnessed a number of terrible tragedies, starting with the death of young Frederick Lemp, which devastated his father William so much that he shot himself inside the house in 1904. Legend says that profligate heir William Jr. kept an illegitimate son with Down Syndrome imprisoned in the attic. More tragic deaths and suicides plagued the family through the generations.

Today, staff members at the mansion claim to have witnessed strange apparitions and sounds, doors that lock and unlock by themselves, and a piano that plays with no pianist. The attic is said to be home to William Jr.'s discarded son, rudely called the "Monkey Face Boy," and the area in the basement leading to the brewery's old caves is known as the "Gates of Hell."

As Visit Southwest Montana explains, the Old Montana Prison in Deer Lodge, Montana, was Big Sky Country's state prison from 1870 until 1979, and during that time it was home to terrible conditions for its prisoners and a number of horrifying incidents. The most notorious event in the prison's history is the riot of 1959, in which prisoners took control of the prison for 36 hours, during which time they imprisoned guards in "the Hole," killed the deputy warden, and held the warden hostage in hopes of attaining better living conditions for the inmates. Their demands were instead met with the National Guard being summoned and ended with the ringleaders committing suicide.

After the prison was closed in 1979, it became a museum, and the facility is now notorious for paranormal activity. Only in Your State records that the prison museum is host to the typical strange figures, eerie mists, and cold spots, but "the Hole" is thought to contain a malevolent spirit that has physically shoved people. One friendly ghost is said to be that of "Turkey Pete," a well-loved but mentally ill inmate who "sold" nearby turkeys to other prisoners in exchange for fake money.

Hummel Park in Omaha, Nebraska, packs a lot of legends into its 200 acres. According to Only in Your State, the historic park has a legacy of wild legends going back over a century, all of which add up to it being possibly the most haunted place in the Cornhusker State. The stories say the park was originally that most classic of haunted locations, a Native American burial ground. Beyond that, the trees at the park are said to be permanently bent due to a series of lynchings that took there in the early 1900s. Legends say an abandoned shelter known as "Devil's Den" is the location of numerous satanic rituals and sacrifices. Likewise, stories say that there is a hidden colony of albinos that have been hiding in the woods since the 1950s.

Now, is any of that true? The North Omaha History website says definitely not. That said, the park is home to a set of steps called the Morphing Stairs because they never have the same set of steps twice and might lead to Hell (possibly not true), and an overlook called the Devil's Slide where many suicides are alleged to have happened (probably not).

Virginia City, Nevada, was a boomtown in the mid-1800s thanks to the Comstock Lode, the first major lode of silver ore discovered in the United States. As Travel Nevada explains, the city was at a dazzling height of prosperity in the 1870s, and the cool hangout for the richest people in town was the city's oldest saloon, the Washoe Club. The group of wealthy citizens who hung out at the Washoe became known as the Millionaires Club and included tycoons, magnates, and politicians. The town's fortunes declined over time as the Comstock was tapped out, and the saloon today is perhaps best known as the most haunted building in a city already famous for being the most haunted in the Silver State.

According to the Travel Channel, the old saloon, now a museum, is home to a number of famous ghosts. Perhaps the most famous is the so-called "Lady in Blue" who is frequently spied at the top of the saloon's spiral staircase. Other ghosts include that of a frightened little girl, as well as a crusty old prospector who allegedly steals unattended drinks from patrons at the bar.

As New England Today recounts, the legend of Ocean Born Mary goes as follows: Mary Wallace was born to a pair of Scotch-Irish immigrants in 1720 on the ship bringing them to America. Almost immediately after her birth, the ship was captured by pirates, but the captain was moved to mercy when he heard the baby crying and promised to let them all go free if the baby was named "Mary" after one of his relatives. The mother agreed, and the pirate also gave her some green silk to use to make the girl's wedding dress. Mary eventually grew up and settled in Henniker, New Hampshire, living an otherwise fairly normal life.

After her death, however, a new tenant at the home that would come to be known as the Ocean Born Mary house began to tell everyone he could about how Mary's ghost still frequented the house and could often be seen rocking in her rocking chair. He further claimed that Mary had reunited with the pirate captain in her widowhood and his treasure was buried in the orchard. Don't let the fact that Mary never actually lived in this house stop you from enjoying the legends.

New Jersey is home to Clinton Road, somewhat famously the most haunted road in America, but the Garden State is also host to a much more famous and much larger region said to be packed to the gills with ghosts, monsters, and devils: the 1.1 million-acre region of preserved woodlands in southern New Jersey known as the Pine Barrens. As Insider explains, the most famous entity of the Pinelands is the cryptid known as the Jersey Devil, who, according to legend, is the offspring of a human woman who cursed her 13th child to become the devil, turning him into a creature with a goat's head, bat wings, and a pointed tail. But the Devil is far from the only spooky creature said to lurk in the Pine Barrens.

The ghost of a Black doctor who was lynched is said to roam the forest helping people who get lost among the pines. A ghostly white stag is likewise said to warn travelers of danger. The numerous ghost towns within the Barrens are also said to be full of the restless dead, including the spirits of workers from the old mills and factories that used to operate there.

According to Legends of America, the KiMo Theater in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was built in 1927 by entrepreneur Oreste Bachechi in a unique style that combines Native American sensibilities with the then-current Art Deco aesthetic. After a long and storied history as a hall for vaudeville, silent movies, and the performing arts, among others, the KiMo Theater is currently a local institution, an official entry on the Register of Historic Places, and one of the most haunted places in the Land of Enchantment.

The most famous ghost in the theater is known as Bobby, said to be the ghost of a young boy who died when the theater's boiler exploded in the basement in 1951. Bobby is allegedly a quite mischievous ghost, often playing pranks and tricks on the theater's staff and guests alike, and he is generally seen on the staircase wearing a striped t-shirt and jeans. Staff try to appease the "young" spirit by hanging donuts and other treats on the pipes backstage, and Bobby causes trouble if these are ever removed. Other ghosts include an unknown woman in a bonnet who is often seen strolling the halls.

According to NYC Ghosts, the infamous Rolling Hills Asylum in East Bethany, New York, was originally known as the Genesee County Poor Farm and was designed to be a shelter for not only the poor, but also widows, orphans, the mentally and physically disabled, and in some cases, criminals. During the poor farm's years of operation from 1827 to 1974, more than 1700 people are said to have died on the almshouse's grounds. As a result, the location is now known as one of the most haunted places not only in the Empire State but in all of America.

Famous ghosts at what is now known as Rolling Hills include Roy, the gentle spirit of a man with gigantism who was abandoned by his family due to his physical deformity. His large shadow is commonly seen roving the hallways. The much more malevolent ghost of a cruel nurse named Emmie, alleged to have performed Satanic rituals on the inmates of the farm, can be heard cackling in the infirmary. Ghosts are likewise often sighted in the psych ward, the solitary confinement cells, the morgue, and the mysterious "Shadow Hallway."

North Carolina is a state with a wide variety of environments and a wide variety of ghosts and haunts to go with them, from the haunted Biltmore Estate in the mountains of Asheville, to the Devil's Tramping Ground in the Piedmont, to Blackbeard's ghost in Teach's Hole on Ocracoke Island. But one of the oldest and most famous examples of unexplained paranormal activity in the Tarheel State are the Brown Mountain lights, a series of ghost lights that have been reported on or near Brown Mountain in the Pisgah National Forest for over a century, or even longer, according to legend.

As Carolina Country reports, the lights are said to appear in a number of different colors, including red, white, yellow, blue, and orange. They appear like anything from small candle lights to large fireballs, hovering over the ground before shooting up into the sky. A number of explanations have been proposed for the lights, including aliens, nitrous vapors, train lights, and the ghosts of Native American maidens searching for the souls of men who had died in battle. Whatever the cause of the lights, they are one of the spookiest phenomena North Carolina has to offer.

As Only in Your State says, North Dakota is a state well known for numerous sites of paranormal activity, as it's full of old and often abandoned towns that frequently have histories of violence attached either to American expansionist efforts or exploitative mining industries or good old Western-style lawlessness. One such historical location said to be full of ghosts is the Totten Trail Historic Inn in Fort Totten. The inn was built between 1867 and 1873 and originally served as living quarters for military officers, but spent most of its history as a boarding school for Native American children. According to legend, many Native children died on the grounds of the inn during the school's history.

For many years, visitors to the inn have reported strange happenings, including objects moving on their own, mysterious darting shadows, doors opening and closing, a feeling of being watched, and even sightings of full-on apparitions. Besides the ghosts of the children from the school, the inn is believed to be haunted by a man and woman who died at the inn just before its modern renovation and lurk in the building as shadowy entities.

The Ridges in Athens, Ohio, is a complex of buildings owned by Ohio University and used variously as classrooms, offices, and administration, but as Legends of America explains, the development was originally known as the Athens Lunatic Asylum, and it is said to be one of the most haunted locations in the Buckeye State. The original hospital was built in 1867 at the request of the Ohio legislature, and soon the elaborate Victorian facility housed 572 patients, almost double the intended population, which led to overcrowding and a tense atmosphere. During its history, the asylum was known for performing lobotomies, electroshock therapy, and other treatments considered archaic and inhumane today.

Ghosts of the former asylum include that of Margaret Shilling, who can be seen peering out of windows and trying in vain to escape the hospital grounds. Other spirits include former patients seen wandering the halls, the squeaking wheels of gurneys, unexplained lights, and the screams of patients resounding through the hallways. The basement is said to be full of the shackled ghosts of patients who were restrained there and forgotten, and the facility's large cemetery is supposed to be a common meeting point for witches.

Guthrie, Oklahoma, has a reputation as the most haunted city in the Sooner State, and perhaps the most spook-filled building in the city is the historic Stone Lion Inn. According to Haunted Rooms, the building that is now the inn was originally built in 1907 as the Houghton family home. The expansive mansion has four floors and sprawls over 8,000 square feet and was at the time of its construction the most expensive home in town. By the 1920s it was a funeral home, and in the 1980s it was renovated as a bed and breakfast. Apparently, some of its past tenants loved the house so much that they never left, even after death.

The ghosts of the inn are thought to include Irene Houghton, who died of whooping cough in the house and still roams the halls, moving objects (especially toys) around at a whim. The Houghton father has been witnessed smoking a pipe in the halls many times. Guests likewise report the sounds of ghostly children romping through the building, jumping on the beds, rolling balls across the floors, and even tucking guests into bed at night.

As Atlas Obscura explains, the ruined building in Portland, Oregon, now known as the Witch's Castle was originally the property of a man named Danford Balch, who hired another man named Mortimer Stump to help him clear the area. When Stump fell in love with Balch's daughter and the two eloped, Balch shot Stump in the face with a shotgun, for which he was arrested and executed in 1859. The property eventually came to belong to the city of Portland, which built the stone structure now known as the castle in the 1930s and used it as a park ranger station and public restrooms. The building was hit hard by a storm in the 1960s and was abandoned to the woods until partying teens discovered it in the 1980s, since which time it has been a popular hangout spot on weekends.

According to America's Haunted Roadtrip, the hollow stone shell of the former ranger station — whose backstory is notably absent of witches — is now covered in moss and graffiti but is thought to still be home to the feuding spirits of Balch and Stump, whose laughter, screams, and whispers are commonly heard in the area.

The Battle of Gettysburg was the turning point of the American Civil War in 1863, in which some 50,000 men died or were gravely injured, many of whom never received a proper burial. With that much violence and strife, it's no wonder that this landmark site of American history is said to be host to a large number of restless spirits. According to the Travel Channel, a large number of places on and around the battlefield are common spots to spy an apparition, including that of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

The Daniel Lady Farm, used as a Confederate field hospital during the battle, gave witness to thousands of dead and dying men, and it is said that the ghost of General Richard Ewell and 10,000 of his men still haunt this site. Likewise, the Baladerry Inn was the Union Army's field hospital, but strangely it is alleged to be haunted by Confederate soldiers buried under its tennis court. The inn's gazebo is a reported hotspot for spectral sightings, according to National Geographic. The battlefield itself is, of course, said to be home to innumerable souls of dead soldiers wandering around.

In 1970, the Perron family moved into a farmhouse previously known as the old Arnold Estate, a 200-acre farm in Harrisville, Rhode Island. As Only in Your State explains, soon the family found themselves being harassed by paranormal events and a general sense of uneasiness in their own home. As a result, the family called in infamous paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren to determine the cause of the spooky happenings in the house. The Warrens claimed that the house was haunted by the ghost of Bathsheba Sherman, a Satanist who lived in the house in the 19th century. She was said to be responsible for the hair-pulling, door slamming, night-screaming, and other phenomena happening in the Perron home.

If this sounds familiar, it's because it's the plot of the 2013 film "The Conjuring," based on events in the Perron home as recorded by the Warrens. The Arnold Estate, now known as the Farm on Round Top Road or just "The Conjuring House" is now available to tour, and guests have reported that strange and unexplained occurrences continue to happen there to this very day.

Hey, you know that show "Our Flag Means Death?" The one where Gentleman Pirate Stede Bonnet and Blackbeard do kisses and drink tea and stuff? Well, not to spoil the show, but in 1718, the real-life Stede Bonnet was hanged together with 30 of his men near White Point in Charleston, South Carolina, after a failed attempt to capture Charleston. According to Ghost City Tours, their bodies were left hanging for days to fester and rot in the sweltering southern sun before being tossed unceremoniously into the marshes as a sign of how unwelcome piracy was on South Carolina's shores. To this day, Battery Park and White Point Garden, a beautiful historical park filled with fountains and old-timey cannons, is still known as "the place where pirates are hanged."

The ghosts of the dozens of pirates hanged at White Point are said to still lurk in the bucolic garden, with visitors claiming to have seen faces peering out at them from the trees and apparitions of bodies swinging from the branches. At midnight, screams are said to tear through the air, and the faces of the executed pirates can be seen reflected in the water.

As Haunted Rooms explains, the Hotel Alex Johnson in Rapid City, South Dakota, was built in the 1920s by railroad tycoon Alex Johnson with the intention of being a spectacular tribute to the Black Hills area, as well as being a luxurious place to stay for people visiting nearby Mount Rushmore. In its century-long history, the hotel has given lodging to presidents, celebrities, and dignitaries, and was even used for the filming of Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1959 thriller "North by Northwest." Despite being a famous and well-loved spot for guests and tourists, the Hotel Alex Johnson is reputed to be the most haunted hotel in South Dakota, thanks in part to a number of unsolved deaths that occurred on the grounds.

There are three specific ghosts that are most commonly sighted by guests of the hotel. The first is that of Alex Johnson himself, who is said to stick around to make sure his hotel is being taken care of properly. Next is a little girl who runs up and down the 8th-floor hallway knocking on doors and giggling before vanishing. The third is the Lady in White, a bride who died there mysteriously on her wedding night.

In 1817, John Bell and his family started experiencing strange and startling phenomena at their Adams, Tennessee, cabin. Strange animals began appearing on the property, and soon there were strange knocking sounds coming from both outside and inside the house. The sounds only got stranger, adding the noises of rats chewing, rocks falling, chains rattling, and more to their repertoire over time. Eventually, the strange force behind these strange events started speaking to the Bell family, and as the official Bell Witch Cave website explains, the ghost identified itself as the witch of old Kate Batts and soon became known as the Bell Witch.

Kate, as she became known, soon tortured the family — especially patriarch John and daughter Betsy — on an almost daily basis for three years, pinching, pulling hair, poking with pins, and scratching. Once John Bell died in 1820, the witch considered her mission accomplished and left the family alone before returning briefly seven years later. It is believed Kate's spirit now haunts the cave on the Bell's property and is still responsible for strange happenings around Adams even today. The cave and cabin are open to the public for tours and even (presumably very spooky) river-tubing.

According to Forbes, Texas is the number one most haunted state in America, with more reports of paranormal sightings than anywhere else in the U.S. As a result, there are a number of very strong candidates for the haunted-est place in the Lone Star state, including the Alamo and the unexplained Marfa Lights, but perhaps the most likely place in Texas to spot a ghost is Austin's Driskill Hotel. As Austin Ghosts explains, the hotel was built in 1886 by cattle baron and warmonger Jesse Driskill, who made a fortune selling beef to the Confederate Army.

The ghosts of the Driskill include Jesse Driskill himself, who lost ownership of the hotel in a poker game shortly after its opening and can be seen smoking cigars in the guest rooms. Room 329 is said to be home to the ghost of a woman who killed herself after her fiance called off their wedding. A child who fell down the stairs reaching for her ball can still be seen bouncing her toy in the stairwell. There's a haunted painting on the 5th floor, and even the ghosts of Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson are said to hang around the ballroom.

According to U.S. Ghost Adventures, the Old Tooele Hospital in Tooele, Utah, was originally the family home for a man named Samuel F. Lee, but over time became first a poorhouse and then a public hospital. The Tooele Hospital was underfunded and didn't even have a morgue, so bodies were just piled up in an unrefrigerated room until the coroner could arrive. These days the site is used for a haunted attraction called Asylum 49.

Despite Asylum 49 being a tourist attraction, the site is said to be the location of much real paranormal activity. The ghosts of the grounds include that of former owner Samuel F. Lee and his young son Thomas, who plays pranks on visitors. The ghost of an elderly patient named Wes is said to aimlessly wander the building with a dangerous dark entity close behind. A spectral nurse named Maria is supposed to protect visitors from accidentally stepping through a portal to the "other side," of which the old hospital allegedly has several. There are a number of other well-known named spirits there, in addition to the traditional orbs, mists, and spooky sounds.

According to the Stowe Reporter, there is a legend in Stowe, Vermont, surrounding a covered bridge on the aptly named Covered Bridge Road. The story goes that in the 1920s, a teenage girl was waiting for her boyfriend at a certain covered bridge so that the two could elope. However, her boyfriend never showed, and in despair, the young girl, known from the legend as Emily, hanged herself from the rafters of the bridge. Alternatively, she was left at the altar and sped away from the church in a carriage that crashed over the bridge. Or some other variation.

Whatever the story, Emily's Bridge, as it has become known, is said to be one of the most haunted places in America, with visitors claiming those that drive through the covered bridge emerge with long, claw-like gouges down the sides of their cars. Likewise, the bridge is supposed to be home to strange visual phenomena such as orbs and unexplained lights, as well as a spooky woman's voice. One ghost hunter claims to have experienced terrible pains in his neck and a roaring sound in his ears when he went to look for Emily's ghost.

According to Atlas Obscura, the St. Albans Sanatorium in Radford, Virginia, was originally built as a Lutheran boys' school where the competitive atmosphere actually encouraged bullying, to the point that a number of students took their own lives there due to the stressful environment. In 1916, the building was converted into a psychiatric hospital designed to provide a more humane environment for patients than other such facilities across the U.S. at the time, boasting a bowling alley, a garden on the roof, and even a small farm on the grounds. Nevertheless, the sanatorium still performed cruel and experimental treatments on patients, including electroconvulsive therapy and lobotomies. St. Albans was also tragically understaffed and overcrowded, causing living conditions to become even worse until the facility was finally closed in the 1990s.

The negative energy of the terrible environment of the hospital seems to have left its mark on St. Albans. Today, the old building is open for scheduled tours, in which visitors claim to have seen full-body apparitions, shadowy figures, and mysteriously floating objects. Others have experienced hearing voices and even being touched by unseen entities.

Kells Irish Restaurant and Pub in Seattle, Washington, has been in the basement of the Butterworth Building near Pike Place Market since 2009. As Seattle Terrors explains, however, the Butterworth Building was originally the city's first permanent mortuary. The Butterworths did a lot of business in the early 1900s due to victims of mining accidents, plague, violence, and — according to legend — the malpractice of Dr. Linda Hazzard, who used a form of starvation to treat most illnesses.

Today the pub is said to still feel echoes of its death-filled past, with many of the ghosts said to be attracted to the fun and youthful energy of the modern establishment. One well-known ghost is that of a little girl with red hair though to have died of the flu pandemic in 1918, who plays pranks on patrons and makes toys for children. Another ghost, known as Charlie, is said to appear in the bar's mirrors before vanishing. Similarly, glasses are known to slide off the bar unprompted and mirrors shatter for no apparent reason. Unlike many other places on this list, the ghosts of Kells seem primarily interested in soaking up good vibes.

While the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum might be more famous, an argument can be made that the abandoned Lake Shawnee Amusement Park in Princeton, West Virginia, offers a more authentic haunting experience in the Mountain State. As Road Unraveled recounts, the amusement park was opened in 1926 as a nice place for local coal mining families to swim, picnic, and ride the Ferris wheel and swings. However, by the 1950s, the park was plagued with tragedy as children began dying there, with one girl being hit by a delivery truck while riding the swings and a boy drowning after getting stuck in the pool's drain. The park closed in 1966, but it reopened in the 1980s before closing permanently a few years later.

After the park had been closed, the owners discovered artifacts from the local Shawnee tribe buried on the property, including a mass grave. As you know from movies, native burial grounds mean hauntings. The girl who died on the swings is said to still sit on the abandoned ride. The drowned boy has been spotted roaming around various areas of the park. Visitors have also reported finding previously unseen shapes and figures in their pictures from the park.

Summerwind Mansion, near Land O'Lakes, Wisconsin, has had a haunted history since basically the very beginning. As Paranormal Investigators of Milwaukee explains, the large estate was originally known as the Lamont Mansion, converted from a fishing lodge to a private home by U.S. Commerce Secretary Robert Patterson Lamont in 1918. Even in those early days, Lamont's staff claimed to see a spectral woman walking around outside, and Lamont himself fired his gun at a figure later believed to have been a ghost. Later owners reported seeing apparitions all around the house and experiencing appliances breaking down unexpectedly, with at least one family leaving the house because they felt unsafe.

The house burned down in 1988, but that hasn't slowed down its reputation as one of the most haunted places in America. Ghosts of Summerwind include the ghost Lamont shot at in the basement, a mysterious skull found in the wall, a woman in a white dress, and rooms that inexplicably changed sizes while workers tried to renovate them. Eerily, one owner felt a supernatural compulsion to play the organ every night until he was exhausted.

The Wyoming Frontier Prison in Rawlings, Wyoming, also known as the Old Pen, operated as a penitentiary from 1901 until 1981, the first state prison in the Equality State. As the official Wyoming Frontier Prison website explains, the Old Pen consisted of 104 cells that housed about 13,500 people in its 80-year history, including 11 women. As you might guess, the prison suffered from overcrowding, as well as a lack of electricity, running water, and heat. Additional cell blocks, including solitary confinement, as well as some water and heating would be added later, but this only relieved the hostile environment slightly. The prison was known for brutal punishments, including a dungeon, a "punishment pole" to which men were tied and whipped, and various forms of capital punishment, including hanging and the gas chamber.

As Only in Your State records, visitors to the prison have reported all manner of ghostly activity. Strange voices resound in empty cells, dark figures appear and vanish, and an oppressive atmosphere lingers over the whole place. Hotspots for activity seem to be the showers, the chapel, the women's facility, the solitary confinement cells, and the gas chamber.