Southern Ghost Stories

In this episode from the vault, Southern Ghost Stories travels to Savannah, Georgia, to explore 432 Abercorn Street—widely considered the most haunted house in one of America’s most haunted cities. Standing on the corner of Abercorn and East Gordon Street near Calhoun Square, this once-elegant 19th-century Greek Revival home sits directly over an old slave burial ground estimated to contain up to...

In 1886, Philadelphia developers built a row of brick houses on Lombard Street directly over the forgotten burial ground of the Fourth Presbyterian Church. What followed was a wave of paranormal chaos so intense that newspaper reporters rushed to interview the terrified tenants. From a scarred lady in white singing funeral hymns in empty kitchens and disembodied legs walking through hallways, to a...

On this episode of Southern Ghost Stories we venture into the heart of Jacksonville, Florida, to explore the Old City Cemetery, a mid-nineteenth-century resting place where history and local folklore bleed together. From the mass graves of the catastrophic 1888 yellow fever epidemic to the resting place of  Pee-wee’s Big Adventure star Alice Nunn, this cemetery holds generations of the city's coll...

In this episode of Southern Ghost Stories , host Allen Sircy takes listeners back to September 1916 for one of the strangest and most tragic chapters in Tennessee history: the public execution of Big Mary. As the five-ton star attraction of the Sparks World Famous Shows circus, Mary was beloved by audiences until a fatal encounter with an inexperienced handler during a parade in Kingsport sparked...

The Rutherford County Courthouse in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, stands as a living piece of American history—and perhaps something more. In this long lost episode from the vault, we explore the incredible legacy of one of Tennessee’s few remaining antebellum courthouses, tracking its journey through Union occupation, daring Confederate raids, and bizarre World War II military drills. We’ll dive into...

On this episode of Southern Ghost Stories we are talking about what happened on a freezing February afternoon in 1890, when the halls of American power became a slaughterhouse. William Preston Taulbee—the charismatic Kentucky politician known as "The Mountain Orator"—stepped onto the marble stairs of the U.S. Capitol, only to find himself staring down the barrel of a revolver. The man holding the...

Before it was Ripley’s Believe It or Not, St. Augustine's Castle Warden was a luxury hotel that became the scene of a deadly 1944 tragedy. Officially, the third-floor fire that killed two women was an accident, but for over eighty years, rumors have persisted about a contentious divorce, a cover-up, and a mysterious figure known only as "Mr. X." Tonight, we investigate the chilling timeline of the...

Today we’re diving into Coffee County, ennessee’s most chilling, century-old legend: the tragic curse of Sadie Baker. In the mid-1800s, a beautiful, mute stranger wandered into town, stole the heart of a wealthy local suitor, and paid the ultimate price when jealous townspeople branded her a witch. Forced into an open grave at Concord Cemetery and buried alive, she broke her lifelong silence with...

In this classic epsidoe from the vault, we’re exploring the dark history, missing history, and paranormal history of the Schamberger Building in Gallatin, Tennessee. Built in 1905 to house the Sumner County Bank and Trust Company, this landmark witnessed decades of financial prosperity—and a tragic, abrupt ending for a bank president in 1940. Today, the building holds two massive secrets: a 100-ye...

In the autumn of 1874, a forbidden romance in Cincinnati triggered a wave of vengeance that culminated in one of the most gruesome crimes in American history: the Tanyard Horror. After a secret relationship with a saloon keeper's daughter ended in tragedy, young immigrant Herman Schilling was brutally ambushed by a grieving father and an angry cowrker, stabbed with a pitchfork, and shoved into a r...

Step inside the iron gates of Savannah's Colonial Park Cemetery, where over ten thousand bodies are packed into just six acres—with entire sections resting right beneath the modern city sidewalks. In this episode of Southern Ghost Stories , American Hauntstorian Allen Sircy reveals that the true darkness of this historic burial ground goes far beyond phantom children and Civil War desecration. Ins...

If you've ever driven down Ben Allen Road in Nashville, you’ve passed the namesake of one of the most eccentric and feared men in 19th-century Tennessee. Born into immense wealth, Benjamin Allen rejected the family banking business to master the occult, alchemy, and hypnosis. Operating out of a grand mansion on Spruce Street, Allen became a 33rd-Degree Mason by day and a practitioner of the dark a...

Recorded back in 2019 and recently recovered from an old hard drive, this lost episode of Southern Ghost Stories explores one of  Nashville’s most iconic honky-tonks: Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge. Originally opened in 1960 by Hattie Louise “Tootsie” Bess—and famously painted purple by mistake—this legendary watering hole right behind the Ryman Auditorium became the unofficial green room for country mus...

Nineteenth-century medicine was a grisly business where doctors had to break the law to learn their craft. In this episode, we dig into the dark world of "resurrectionists"—professional grave robbers who stalked cemeteries to supply medical schools with fresh cadavers. At the heart of the story is St. Louis’s most eccentric surgeon, Dr. Joseph Nash McDowell, a man who allegedly dodged an armed mob...

In this episode of Southern Ghost Stories , Allen Sircy deep-dives into the terrifying history of the Rougarou—the legendary Cajun werewolf that has haunted French settlements, eastern Canada, and the dark bayous of Louisiana for centuries. Far from a polished Hollywood movie monster, the Rougarou is a creature born of medieval European superstition, 16th-century French werewolf trials, and strict...

In this episode of Southern Ghost Stories , host Allen Sircy spotlights James K. Polk, the ruthlessly disciplined "Young Hickory" who radically transformed the U.S. map in just four years, only to become largely forgotten by modern history. After working himself to exhaustion and refusing to seek reelection, Polk's retirement plans quickly turned tragic when he succumbed to a brutal cholera outbre...

Recorded back in 2019 and recently recovered from an old hard drive, this lost episode of Southern Ghost Stories explores the infamous Sorrel Weed House in Savannah, Georgia — a mansion with a long history of tragedy, secrets, and reported paranormal activity. The episode dives into the deadly Siege of Savannah, the complicated life of Francis Sorrel, the mysterious deaths tied to the house, and t...

In this episode of Southern Ghost Stories , host Allen Sircy dives into the legendary 1955 siege of the Hopkinsville Goblins, where a terrified Kentucky family claimed their rural farmhouse was attacked by small, metallic, bulletproof creatures. While the incident quickly became one of the most famous close encounters in American history—spawning decades of UFO hysteria and theories ranging from e...

In this episode of Southern Ghost Stories, we dive into the horrifying true story of Eva Dugan, the first woman executed by the state of Arizona. What began as the mysterious disappearance of an elderly rancher outside Tucson quickly spiraled into one of the most controversial murder cases of the twentieth century involving a lonely desert grave, a mysterious drifter known only as “Jack,” accusati...

In this episode of Southern Ghost Stories, we explore one of Tennessee’s darkest true crime stories and the ghost legends that followed. In 1984, respected Murfreesboro businessman Russell Jones vanished without a trace, sparking months of rumors and speculation across Middle Tennessee. What investigators eventually uncovered behind a local meat packing facility on West College Street shocked the...

Recorded back in 2019 and recently recovered from an old hard drive, this lost episode of Southern Ghost Stories dives into the dark history and hauntings of Nashville’s infamous Southern Turf building. Opened in 1895 by notorious bookie Marcus Cartwright, the massive Queen Anne-style gambling hall and saloon became one of the wildest spots in the city’s old Men’s Quarter, filled with gamblers, po...

In this episode of Southern Ghost Stories, we dive into the bizarre true story of Professor Whiz, one of America’s most famous hypnotists during the twentieth century. From stage shows and radio broadcasts to fears of mind control and brainwashing, hypnosis became a national obsession during a time when Americans were fascinated—and terrified—by the hidden power of the subconscious mind. We explor...

Deep in the mist-covered valleys and dark hollows of the Appalachian Mountains, ancient Cherokee folklore still lingers like smoke through the trees. In this episode of Southern Ghost Stories , American Hauntstorian Allen Sircy strips away the campfire entertainment to explore the terrifying and fascinating entities that the Cherokee viewed as a reality of the natural world. From the deceptive, li...

In this episode of Southern Ghost Stories: Tennessee Tales Tuesday , host Allen Sircy heads into the rugged hills of East Tennessee to uncover the state's only documented witch trial. Long before paved roads reached the Cumberland Plateau, the isolated 1835 frontier community of Jamestown became consumed by superstition and fear, culminating in the arrest of an elderly recluse named Joseph "Old Ma...

In this episode of Southern Ghost Stories , host Allen Sircy heads north to uncover the haunted history of the 1876 Brooklyn Theatre fire, one of the deadliest disasters in American theater history and a cornerstone of New York true crime and folklore. Long before a tragic stage fire claimed nearly 300 lives, the grand venue was built directly over the forgotten St. John’s Burying Ground—sparking...