Franklin - Carter House

If you're in Franklin, stop by the Carter House , which is a cool little tour of a house caught directly in the middle of the gunfire.  The son of this plantation owner was sent to fight literally in his own back yard during the battle, and died there. He has been seen in one of the bedrooms.  Also a toddler, said to be one of the original owner's children who died after a fall, haunts. 1140 Columbia Ave

Hendersonville - Trinity Broadcasting Theatre
Formerly Conway Twitty's "Twitty City", it is now the base for the giant pink and purple haired televangelist lady and her husband (Jan and Paul Crouch) who broadcast their Christian programming from here. A ghost of a man in black whose description sounds vaguely like Johnny Cash or Roy Orbison (take your pick) wanders the halls listening to the gospel get fired out to the nation from their 5000 watt mega tower. 44 Music Village Blvd

Hurricane Mills - Loretta And Mooney Lynn's Dude Ranch
Loretta Lynn makes no bones about the fact that she thinks her antebellum plantation house is haunted. If you catch her hour long special every October on the History channel, you'll see that she is a firm believer in several ghosts, including a lady in white who haunts the family graveyard that sits on the property, a confederate soldier (19 are supposedly buried around the property), rattling chain noises that come from an area that was once used for punishing slaves, and the violent spirit of the home's former owner. Lynn, who owns the entire village of Hurricane Mills, offers tours of the big house, and has a campground near it as well.  After taking Exit 143 off Interstate-40, travel eight miles north along the scenic Loretta Lynn Parkway. Look for entrance to Loretta Lynn Family Campground on left, marked by many directional signs. Open April - Oct  (931)296-7700

Lavergne/Smyrna - Fate Sanders Recreation Area

A little boy told two fishermen he was lost, and one of them went with him to look for his father. Awhile later, the fisherman who stayed with the truck heard the boy laughing, and assumed they had found his dad. The little boy came up to his truck after quite a long wait, still laughing, and tried to get the second fisherman to come see "something neat" his dad wanted to show him. The guy freaked at this point and peeled out - and the other guy was never seen again. He could still hear him laugh as he pulled away. It is said that the little boy's laughter can be heard at night. Take Murfreesboro Road and travel west from Nashville approximately 12 miles to Sam Ridley Parkway. Turn left on Sam Ridley Parkway and travel approximately 3 miles to Weakley Road. Turn left on Weakley Road and travel approximately 5 miles, crossing over J. Percy Priest Lake. Recreation area entrance will be approximately 1 mile past bridge crossing on your right.

Memphis - The National Ornamental Metal Museum

The Ornamental Metal Museum is formerly the Marine Hospital. Like just about every other hospital in the United States, the basement of the hospital held the morgue. A yellow fever epidemic broke out in Memphis in 1878.

Yellow fever victims die a miserable death, including:  (of course) high fever and jaundice, vomiting, constipation, epigastric distress, headache, muscle pains (especially in the neck, back, and legs), severe prostration (exhaution or weakness), restlessness, vomiting of blood, mucosal hemorrhages, petechiae and/or ecchymoses (multiple tiny pinpoint bruising), renal dysfunction and scanty or absent urination, dehydration, apathy, confusion, dark or tarry stools, abnormal uterine bleeding, progressing to delirium, convusions, coma, and finally death. Terminal signs include: hypothermia, agitated delirium, intractable hiccups(!!!), hypoglycemia, stupor, and coma. Yay. The morgue was literally stuffed with dead people during the epidemic.

The actual hospital is fenced off and hasn't been in use since the military left it empty in the 1980's. The museum is the former quarters for the medical personnel and officers. The basement used to connect with the hospital via an underground tunnel and serve as a small overflow morgue. Imprisoned workers who had renovated a "bloody chute" into a stairway ran screaming from the basement area in the 1980's. From that time until today, people have reported seeing apparitions of soldiers and overwhelming feelings of terror in certain parts of the building, especially the library and the aforementioned "bloody chute" staircase.  

Nashville - Capitol Records Building
Haunted by two reclusive sisters whose home sat on the site.

Nashville - RCA Studio B

This legendary studio has recorded some of the greatest American singers and songwriters in history. Once frequented by Hank Snow, Jim Reeves, Earnest Tubb, Dolly Parton, Roy Orbison, Roger Miller, Waylon, Eddy Arnold, Connie Francis, and The Everly Brothers, it is - of course - that notorious peanut butter and 'nana sandwich lovin' ghost who reportedly haunts the place. Mr. Elvis Aron Presley, dead since 1977, recorded his breakout hit "Heartbreak Hotel" here, and went on to find legendary status on planet Earth, and perhaps beyond.

After the recording studio was converted to a TV production studio, production staff said that every time the name "Elvis" was mentioned (or at least quite a few different times) something odd would happen - ladders fell, light bulbs blew out, odd noises would ring through the studio, etc.

Oliver Springs -Harvey's Furniture & Appliance Co.
A white woman was murdered on the site this store is built; a young black child was blamed but suspicion was high that a longstanding dispute with another white family had resulted in her murder. The child "committed suicide", also suspiciously. Later the boy's name was cleared. Vague stories of "apparitions" seen at the site. 200 Main St

Memphis - Graceland

According to "Elvis Speaks From the Beyond and Other Celebrity Ghost Stories" by Hans Hozer (1993), a tourist to Graceland named Lorrain Hartz saw The King's apparition  at his former estate. A lady named Joy Hatfield claimed to have had such a connection with the ghost of Elvis that she wrote a book about her experiences (although I can't seem to find any record of an author by that name...) Another woman from New England claimed in the late 70's that Elvis repeatedly possessed her and caused her to sing for him through her mouth.

I have been to Graceland. Three times. The creepiest thing I remember was that when I visited as a kid in the 1980's, his old aunt still lived upstairs and therefore the area was forbidden to tourists. The upstairs bathroom is where he keeled over from a massive MI while straining on the toilet. Lots and lots of prescription downers make you really constipated. I also recall someone writing about going into that bathroom a quite long time after he died, and it hadn't been cleaned for some reason (no one wanted to disturb the scene for the investigators, I think...) and there was a stiff, dried washcloth hanging on the little rod by the soap dish, all cardboard-y with Elvis Bathwater and such. *shiver* I've made myself a bet that by the time I join Elvis in the great hereafter, the carefully protected upstairs bathroom will be part of the tour, preserved in plexiglass, like Lee Harvey Oswald's sniper's nest is in Dallas, for all to gawk at (for a minimal fee...).

Around Memphis - according to my sister, who lives in a suburb - local folks who are old enough to remember still absolutely love Elvis and talk about him and his little idiosyncracies as he would tool around town in his Cadillac. Every August, on the anniversary of his death, fanatics show up to pay homage. Nearly every year a fan succumbs to the intense delta heat in August.

• Two women claimed to have seen Elvis' face in the grain of the wood in the mouldings of their kitchen as they ate Dreamcicles and banana splits on the anniversary of his birthday.

• Tennessee farmer Claude Buchanon, who knew Elvis while he was alive, claims to have been visited by The King's apparition (who said, 'goodbye for awhile, Claude') in a field on his farm between Elvis' time of death and the time he learned of his death in the news, when Claude's wife came screaming out of the house to tell him what she heard on the radio.

• A woman named Janice McMichael, an acquaintence of Presley's late in his life, had a jacket that he had given to her and that she cherished after he died. She claims the jacket would move on it's hanger, fall repeatedly from the closet, become inexplicably wet, and cause her dog to bark at it. (the above three accounts are from The Ghost of Elvis and Other Celebrity Spirits, by Daniel Cohen, 1994)

• Check out this site for Elvis sightings including at a British chip shop and in the wood in some dude's shower.

• Elvis was at one point (long after his death...) accused of having ancestor(s) who owned Oprah Winfrey's ancestor(s) as slaves, and other variations of this state that the two are cousins - all because they each had a relative living in the same little Mississippi town during the same period of time sometime in the past. Oprah now owns an estate in Moteceto, CA that was once owned by Elvis' ex-wife Priscilla.

• Everything you ever wanted to know about Elvis worship on this site. Visit the 24 Hour Church of Elvis in Vegas.

Rugby

Rugby, Tennessee was established by English statesman, social reformer and novelist Thomas Hughes as a place that was cultured but free of some of the social trappings of Victorian England.

Hughes was educated in Oxfordshire, most noteably at The Rugby School. He was a mover and shaker in parliament, and he completed three popular fictional novels which were all sentimental accounts of youthful adventures at Rugby School. "In 1880, he acquired the ownership of Franklin W. Smith's Plateau City and founded a settlement in America — Rugby, Tennessee — which was designed as an experiment in utopian living for the younger sons of the English gentry, although this later proved largely unsuccessful." (wikipedia) Well publicized, the community initially thrived with over seventy new structures being erected by many enthusiastic immigrants and Americans alike. Unfortunately, four years into the social experiment a typhoid epidemic claimed 7, and a fire shortly thereafter destroyed a communal building, Several unusually harsh winters disheartened the delicate Oxford-educated clan, who had come to Tennessee to "live off the land" in an agriculturally based economy. Hughes moved back to England, less a large portion of his wealth, where he died 16 years after the founding of the village in Brighton. A handful of believers held on despite land disputes, lack of funding and legal issues. The village is now a tourist attraction that is on the National Historic Register.

A young man named Brian Staggs, who was instrumental in the restoration of the village in the 1970's then died before he turned 30, is said to haunt the streets of Rugby in a phantom carriage. The Kingstone Lisle House, is haunted by Hughes' mother, who it was built for, and others say that the bedcovers will be found disheveled and snoring noises come from the bedroom. A dog and the original curator are said to haunt the village library, and the 1880 Newbury House B&B ( 5517 Rugby Hwy) is haunted by a jealous man who killed his younger wife and then himself (shadowlands). Another account, a little more detailed, says that the murder-suicide took place in the long burned down Tabard Inn in room 13, in 1887.  The man was jealous to the point of madness over a young man who made what he thought were inappropriate advances at his wife during a ball. (So, in Victorian terms, he was checking out her earlobe or wrist or something...) When the place later burned, the folklore says that hideous screams came from the murder chamber, and it was the last room to succumb to fire. The Newbury House was investigated by a paranormal team in the recent past, who claimed (like the Kinstone Lisle story) that the covers were carefully rolled off an investigator in the middle of the night and that said investigator felt a heaviness on her chest in the same room.

Morbid Travel Tip: There is a stone statue of Thomas Hughes at Rugby School (in England) that is missing the button holes to correspond to the buttons. The local folklore says that the artist became so depressed at his screw up that he killed himself.

Shiloh - Shiloh National Military Park

A pond that was called "The Bloody Pond" after the historic battle at Shiloh appears to flow red again at times. A benevolent lady in white appears to women and children who are lost are upset. Phantom soldiers replay the battle late at night.

Haunted Tennessee Theaters

Knoxville - The Bijou Theatre
The ghost of Union general Sanders died miserably of a gut wound in this former hotel. The news of his death was kept mum, and his body was buried in secret in order to keep morale up among the soldiers. No one knows where he was buried. His moans and cries are heard in the theater by patrons. 803 S Gay St

Memphis - The Orpheum Theater
The spirit of a 12 year old girl named "Mary" has been seen by many of the actors and visitors to the theater - including, by one account, Yul Brenner. She was killed in an accident outside the theater decades ago. Also, doors have been known to fling themselves open and shut.

Haunted Restaurants in Tennessee

Gallatin - Oliver's (formerly Loco Lupe's)

Formerly a jail, this old building boasts a ghost who walks about, mumbles, knocks on the walls, slams doors, turns faucets off and on and flushes the toilets. 122 W. Franklin Street


Gatlinburg - Greenbrier Restaurant
The ghost of a woman who committed suicide on premises is said to haunt this restaurant

Haunted Bars and Taverns in Tennessee

Knoxville - Baker Peters Jazz Club
The ghost of a pissed off confederate who used to live here has been reportedly caught on film by the proprietors of this former antebellum home of a doctor.  This antebellum building used to belong to a doctor who harbored two injured confederate soldiers. The Union army came and demanded the patients, and killed the doctor. His son found out a local postman had informed the Union soldiers of the harboring of confederate soldiers in the house. He killed the postman, then in turn was murdered in this building by the informer's friends. The son, named "Abner" is supposed to haunt the jazz club/ restaurant. Cold spots, moving objects, falling items, are reported today, and at some point in the past the candles on a chandelier were all twisted downward without logical explanation.

Between Wartburg and Lancing - Ye Olde Tavern
I couldn't find a website for this place, so I have no idea if it's still there. (If anybody knows, throw me a line and I'll update it) Located near the Montgomery Bridge, this tavern was a tavern in the old sense, that travelers could stay the night. Some were robbed, and their bodies tossed into the nearby river - hence the ghost stories.

Memphis - Ernestine and Hazel's

This place looks like, for lack of gentler words, a real shit-hole. In other words, just my kind of place.

Grab a "Soul Burger" and visit this former dry goods store and brothel to take in the seedy vibe of a Memphis of yesteryear. the former upstairs hotel/brothel has been left open to be explored, strewn with vintage, slightly dilapidated furniture. Vintage, as well, is Nate the bartender. Wilson Pickett was a former regular hotel customer, and the owners lay the claim that "The Midnight Hour" and "Mustang Sally" were both written while he was a hotel resident with writing partner Steve Cropper.People say the juke joint is haunted by apparitions that appear around the bar, and by unusual moans and voices from the upstairs. The jukebox frequently malfunctions.

Just be careful. If you've ever been to Memphis, then you know as well as I do that it is NOT the right city to go drunkenly wandering into the wrong part of town.

531 South Main Street
Memphis, Tennessee
901-523-9754

Memphis Tourism Website

Nashville - Market Street Pub and Brewery

Chairs mysteriously move around in front of employees cleaning up at night. Malfunctions with the lights, and swinging light fixtures are also common. 134 Second Ave N

Haunted Tennessee Roads, Parks, and Bridges

Caryville - Red Ash Cemetery
The road along this cemetery is home to an 8 foot tall, half-Goat who has a pentagram carved in his forehead. Also, a blue spook light has been spotted here.

Morbid Travel Tip: Camden - Patsy Cline Death Site

Besides being the fictional home of Earl, Camden's other claim to fame is: superstar singer Patsy Cline (Virginia Patterson Hensley) died in a plane crash in a field here in 1963. (Is it too soon to reference "I Fall To Pieces" without sounding like a cad? Yes, Yes... still too soon.) I have a feeling after seeing the widely circulated crash site shot that poor old Patsy didn't feel a thing. Bless you, you sweet songbird, for making even the hardest criminals shed a little tear in their beer. Check out Scott's site with it's super detailed account of the star's last moments on Earth. Roadside America has a detailed set of directions: "Turn onto the SMALL side road RIGHT beside the SHELL gas station, you'll pass CAMDEN PARK keep going on Mt. Carmel road and you'll pass a LAND FILL and FIRETOWER road. Keep going and you'll see a GREEN sign on the LEFT side of the road andthe memorial is on the Right side down a little road that leads you to a tiny parking area. It was a surreal place."

Gatlinburg - Mystery Spot Formerly a tourist site called "Mystery Hill"  Dudley Creek Rd. and US 441 What is a Mystery Spot?

Cafeteria Madness!!

Urban legends surrounding Tennessee high school cafeterias include:
Sullivan East High in Bristol: "In the 80's" a girl was raped, murdered, and deposited in the cafeteria salad bar by a crazed janitor. Now every time the lunch ladies make salad they can hear a girl screaming in a "low voice".
Huntingdon High School" "In the 80's" (??) a crazed cafeteria lady murdered another lady, then cut off her head and made it into soup. Now the children say that whenever they serve the roast soup the woman can be heard crying out in agony.

Jellico - Post Office
Dead but still disgruntled postal employees are heard talking upstairs at night and footsteps are heard if you are in the building at night. Jellico is north of Knoxville near the Kentucky border.

Johnson City - Okolona road exit
This one sounds like my favorite: a "Gravity Hill"! As the story goes, a guy was pushing his stalled car on this road, with his girlfriend steering for him. A car came speeding out of nowhere and smashed into them, killing them both. Now, if you put your car in neutral, it rolls uphill - and supposedly your windows will develop phantom handprints.

Kingsport - Netherland Inn Road
A man killed along this road in the 1920's stumbles about in a trench coat, and is seen by unwitting passersby.

Near Knoxville - Clinton Highway
If traveling on this highway in the wee hours of the morning, you can hear the whispers of "I'm innocent", from a man who was unjustly hung along the roadway in 1875.

Knoxville - Gay Street
Whether the bars along this street are adorned with rainbow banners, I do not know - but the legend says that the spirit of the loser of a politically fueled duel walks the street every September 27th.

In a much more animated legend, a psychotic young gal named Fanny Igo was so pissed that she couldn't see the circus parade going by on Gay street in 1882, that she started pelting the people in front of her with pebbles. When the police came, her behavior escalated. Embarrassed by his obviously off-kilter daughter's behavior, Mr. Igo (her dad, not her husband...) gave her a beating. Fanny, her last little thread of sanity slipping away, cut her dad's throat as he slept. If you get hit by a pebble on Gay street, it's Fanny serving her penance.  Lol... Fanny on Gay Street.

Mountain City - Doe Mountain

This area boasts some spook lights, or as locals here call them "the Doe Mountain Fireballs"

Memphis - Dueling Grounds Historical Site

Reportedly haunted, although no specific accounts are presented on the web. If you are taking I-55 North, the field will be on your right just as you get off the (Memphis/Arkansas) bridge. The sign is likely a bit overgrown and is in a field of some sort. It was the place that southern gentlemen would meet to duel in antebellum Memphis. *Thanks to This Site

Highway Between Little Rock and Memphis - Dead Elvis Hitchhiker

In 1980, three years after Elvis Presley's death, an over the road truck driver named Jack Matthews was returning home to Alabama for the Christmas holiday. He stopped about 100 miles west of Memphis to get gas (in my version of this story, it was across from the Truck O Mat in North Little Rock) and spoke briefly to a hobo who was trying to get to Memphis to see his "Mamma and Daddy" for Christmas. Mr. Matthews had bad experiences with hitchhikers prior to this and did not plan to give the man a ride, but then a little piece up the road he saw him with his bundle of belongings and had a sudden, inexplicable change of heart. As they rode to Memphis they chit-chatted about cars, as guys do, and the truck driver thought the man was just being cute as he told him he had "several Cadillacs", even though he was thumbing rides.

In my version of this story, they stopped at the best donut place in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE Howard's Do-Nuts, in West Memphis, Arkansas. There is a chain of these in metropolitan Memphis, but this location is the first and the only one still run by Howard (well, Howard's son anyway...). No, I am not getting paid in free eclairs, either. They are just that good that they must be mentioned.

Anyhoo, after a big Bavarian Creme and a chocolate Long John, Mr. Matthews dropped his mystery hiker off on Elvis Presley Boulevard (Rte 51), near Graceland, just as the baritone voiced man had requested. Just before dropping him off, he thought it polite to introduce himself. The man replied, "I'm Elvis Presley, sir" and hopped out. The truck driver stared at him after he claimed to be Elvis and was completely convinced, after looking closely at his face, that he was indeed Elvis Presley. He said that he was shaking uncontrollably from fright after the encounter, to the point he could barely navigate his truck out of Memphis. (from The Ghost of Elvis and Other Celebrity Spirits, by Daniel Cohen, 1994)

back to Ghosttraveller.com, Mama

(Disclaimer: it is upon the reader of this site to use good judgment in frequenting the places listed herein; it is not the responsibility of the proprietor of ghosttraveller.com if a reader commits an illegal act, such as trespassing,  based upon what he or she reads here.  It is the reader's responsibility to research the given areas discussed in this forum prior to visiting, and to ensure that it is not illegal to visit said place prior to visiting, or to obtain permission from the owner prior to visiting)

Bibliography

The Shadowlands : an invaluable resource on the net for ghost hunters !!

Weird Travels, The Travel Channel

Travel Channel Secrets, The Travel Channel

http://www.ghosts.org/bell/jackcook.html

http://members.tripod.com/~lindaluelinn/index-61.html

http://paranormalincorporated.blogspot.com/2010/09/case-files-ernestine-and-hazels.html
http://www.esquire.com/bestbars/bb-ernestine-and-hazels
http://paranormalincorporated.blogspot.com/2008/06/national-ornamental-metal-museum.html
http://www.examiner.com/haunted-places-in-memphis/the-haunting-of-the-national-ornamental-metal-museum-evp-videos-and-ghostly-slideshow

http://classicrock.about.com/od/history/a/ghost_stories.htm

http://www.bellwitch.org/

http://www.tennesseehistory.com/class/Xfiles.htm

http://johnnorrisbrown.com/paranormal-tn/rugby/index.htm

http://third-eye-paranormal.com/page.php?31

http://www.topix.com/forum/city/dandridge-tn/TR4GUJFQNJDEKERHE