Haunted American History

In Guthrie, Oklahoma, one Victorian mansion has lived more lives than most towns. It began as the lavish home of a wealthy cotton baron, became a funeral home where the dead were prepared for burial, later housed a boarding school, and eventually transformed into one of Oklahoma's most famous haunted inns. Along the way, it became intertwined with the bizarre story of outlaw Elmer McCurdy, whose m...

On December 30, 1999, firefighters responding to a house fire in the tiny town of Welch, Oklahoma, uncovered the beginning of one of America's most heartbreaking unsolved mysteries. Two parents had been murdered. Two teenage girls had vanished without a trace. For nearly twenty years, investigators chased false confessions, overlooked critical evidence, and missed clues that had been sitting insid...

Picher, Oklahoma, was once one of the richest mining towns in America. It supplied the lead and zinc that helped win two world wars and made fortunes almost overnight. But beneath the prosperity, the town was slowly poisoning itself. Toxic chat piles, rivers that ran orange with acid, collapsing mine shafts, and children suffering from lead poisoning eventually turned Picher into the most contamin...

On the outskirts of Oklahoma City stood a quiet Catholic care home built to offer mercy to the sick and forgotten. Instead, it became the hunting ground of a young nurse who calmly confessed to smothering elderly patients simply to see what it felt like to kill. Decades later, the abandoned building became the center of ghost stories, flooded hallways, unexplained voices, and one of Oklahoma's mos...

On a lonely bridge outside Weatherford, Oklahoma, locals say you can still hear the sound of a horse-drawn buggy crossing in the dead of night. They speak of a grieving mother calling for her daughter, mysterious blue lights rising from the creek, and a ghost that may have become something far older than a restless spirit. But before there was a legend, there was a murder. Tonight, we unravel the...

For more than a century, the Skirvin Hilton Hotel has been the crown jewel of Oklahoma City. It has hosted presidents, oil barons, celebrities, and NBA superstars. But it's also home to one of America's most famous haunted hotel legends. Players have fled their rooms in the middle of the night, reported phantom crying babies, slamming doors, ghostly apparitions, and mysteriously running bathtubs....

Say the name "Bloody Mary," and almost everyone knows the rules. Stand in front of a mirror, turn out the lights, and call her name three times. But why? Tonight, we trace the legend from the tragic reign of Mary I of England and the folklore of Mary Worth to modern psychology, where a simple mirror experiment caused ordinary people to see monsters, dead relatives, and strangers staring back throu...

The American Revolution gave us heroes, traitors, and a nation. But according to local legend, it also left behind ghosts that never marched home. From the phantom woman of Horse Creek who foretold presidential assassinations, to George Washington riding through Pennsylvania on the eve of Independence Day, the restless spirit of Benedict Arnold fleeing toward the Hudson, and the exhausted soldiers...

During the Great Depression, someone stalked the shantytowns and rail yards of Cleveland, leaving behind dismembered bodies with surgical precision. The victims were forgotten drifters, the killer taunted the legendary Eliot Ness, and one suspect, a brilliant surgeon with political connections, may have escaped justice forever. Nearly ninety years later, DNA science is finally giving names back to...

A daily campfire-style podcast blending American history, folklore, and true crime.  What scares you?  Let’s find out. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For nearly twenty years, someone terrorized the quiet town of Circleville, Ohio, with thousands of anonymous letters exposing secrets, destroying marriages, accusing neighbors, and threatening murder. When a school bus driver unknowingly triggered a homemade booby trap designed to kill her, police believed they had finally caught the mysterious writer. But even after the suspect was locked away in...

On a lonely stretch of the Little Miami River outside Cincinnati, frightened witnesses have spent nearly seventy years reporting encounters with a bizarre creature unlike anything else in American folklore. Some described leathery, gray humanoids with frog-like faces. Others claimed it carried a magic wand that fired sparks into the night. Police officers opened fire, UFO investigators blamed alie...

For generations, people have traveled a lonely road outside Vermilion, Ohio, searching for the burned remains of the infamous Gore Orphanage. They listen for the screams of children, hunt for ghostly apparitions in the woods, and repeat the story of a fire that supposedly claimed more than a hundred young lives. There's just one problem... it never happened. The real history behind Gore Orphanage...

Hidden deep within the forests of southeastern Ohio lies the abandoned railroad town of Moonville, a place where more than two dozen people lost their lives along a deadly stretch of track. Today, the rails are gone, but visitors still report phantom lanterns, a headless brakeman, the scent of lavender drifting through the tunnel, and the sound of unseen footsteps charging through the darkness. To...

For centuries, the towering peaks of the Himalayas have hidden stories of a mysterious wildman said to roam the snow. Western explorers called it the Abominable Snowman. Local Sherpas knew it by many different names. But the greatest Yeti mystery wasn't found on a mountain—it was hidden inside a Hollywood actress's suitcase. From Jimmy Stewart's bizarre role in smuggling a mummified finger to stol...

What do a bottomless lake in Wisconsin, a flooded inland sea in North Dakota, and a coastal lagoon in Oregon have in common? According to local legends, all three are home to something ancient lurking beneath the water. From horned water spirits and giant serpents to tentacled monsters that drag canoes into the depths, the various Devils Lakes of America have inspired centuries of fear, folklore,...

On April 11, 1981, fifteen-year-old Barbara Cotton walked out of her home in Williston, North Dakota, and vanished without a trace. For decades, police dismissed her disappearance as a runaway case, relying on a timeline that may have been completely wrong. But as witnesses came forward, suspects died, and independent investigators uncovered long-forgotten leads, the story became far more disturbi...

For decades, people have whispered that the abandoned ghost town of Tagus, North Dakota, hides a gateway to Hell beneath the ruins of a burned church. Stories of Satanic cults, endless staircases descending into darkness, phantom trains, and hellhounds stalking the prairie have transformed the forgotten town into one of the state's most infamous legends. But beneath the folklore lies a far strange...

Hidden in the Turtle Mountains near the Canadian border sits the crumbling remains of San Haven, a place that began as a hopeful tuberculosis sanatorium and ended as one of North Dakota's most controversial institutions. Patients arrived seeking healing, but many never left. Decades later, abandoned wards, empty elevator shafts, and haunting stories transformed the forgotten complex into one of th...

HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm   YouTube -  https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory   TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com   Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   LINKS FOR MY DEBUT NOVEL, THE FORGOTTEN BOROUGH   Barnes and Noble -   https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-forgotten-borough-christopher-feinstein/1148274794?ean=9...

HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm   YouTube -  https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory   TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com   Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   LINKS FOR MY DEBUT NOVEL, THE FORGOTTEN BOROUGH   Barnes and Noble -   https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-forgotten-borough-christopher-feinstein/1148274794?ean=9...

  HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm   YouTube -  https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory   TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com   Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   LINKS FOR MY DEBUT NOVEL, THE FORGOTTEN BOROUGH   Barnes and Noble -   https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-forgotten-borough-christopher-feinstein/1148274794?ean...

HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm   YouTube -  https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory   TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com   Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   LINKS FOR MY DEBUT NOVEL, THE FORGOTTEN BOROUGH   Barnes and Noble -   https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-forgotten-borough-christopher-feinstein/1148274794?ean=9...

In the winter of 1954, the quiet town of Bladenboro, North Carolina, found itself under siege. Dogs, livestock, and family pets were discovered with crushed skulls and bodies mysteriously drained of blood. Witnesses described a massive cat-like creature with glowing eyes and a scream that sounded like a crying woman or a baby in the night. Armed hunters flooded the swamps, newspapers dubbed it a v...

On a humid summer night in Asheville, drivers crossing the Craven Street Bridge sometimes report an impossible sight... a naked boy sprinting beside their cars before vanishing into thin air. But the ghost story is only the beginning. Beneath the bridge lies a history of deadly floods, a child lost to the ancient French Broad River, and the horrific lynching of Hezekiah Rankin. Tonight, we uncover...