Arkansas History Goes Bump in the Night

October 17, 2000


Arkansas History Goes Bump in the Night
*****
By Jill M. Rohrbach, travel writer
Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism

History is "alive" in Arkansas and it goes bump in the night.

So, put another log on the fire and gather 'round for some spine-tingling, make-your-flesh-crawl legends from beyond the grave.

St. Francis County Museum:
How do a spoon and cookie disappear on one side of the kitchen and reappear on another? The staff of the St. Francis County Museum in Forrest City still can't answer that, even though it happened in their own building. Brian Hicks, the museum's former director, was talking to his sister in the kitchen one day. He put his spoon down on top of the microwave oven. When he reached to use the spoon again it was gone. They found it in a different corner of the room. The sister was eating a cookie at the time and she laid it down a few minutes later only to have the same thing happen. It mysteriously moved to the same spot in the kitchen where the spoon was found.

Board member Cynthia Starling confirms that odd events do occur in the historic Rush-Gates House that is home to the museum. The 1906 building formerly housed Dr. J.O. Rush's office and surgery room before Forrest City had a hospital. She says plenty of people died in the house as Dr. Rush did everything from delivering babies to acting as an undertaker.

Starling explains that the building alarm cannot be set until the door to the artifacts room is deadbolted. She has locked up the museum only to come back the next day and find the artifacts door wide open. Others have witnessed doors opening on their own during the day. Starling and other staff members also have experienced on several occasions hearing noises downstairs or upstairs. Upon checking, they found no one.

Ghost Mountain:
It seems that a certain fellow who lived back in the 1930s in an old log house on top of a mountain southeast of Drake Field airport in Fayetteville had a tendency to get inebriated, explains Phillip Steele, an author and historian who lives in Springdale. One night the man came home very drunk. His wife was caring for their sick child, who was crying incessantly. The man became so angry at the baby for keeping him awake that he jumped out of bed, grabbed the baby, stumbled outside and threw the baby down the well. The wife, of course, went into hysterics. She grabbed the well rope and jumped in to save her child. The horrible father took an axe and cut the rope, leaving his wife and child in the well. He left town, never to be seen again.

It is said, even still, when the moon is full you can walk by that well and hear the screams of a woman and the cries of a child.

Steele, who feels there may be some truth to the story, adds that the mountain is still referred to as Ghost Mountain by some. Steele has authored a book titled Ozark Tales and Superstitions and produced a video, Tales and Legends of the Ozarks. He has written a total of eight books focusing on the Ozarks, ranging in topics from Wild West figures to lost treasures to the Civil War.

Old State House:
Some say the ghost of a political figure from the past walks the halls of the Old State House in Little Rock which was built in 1833 and served as Arkansas' first capitol from 1836 to 1911.

In 1836, Speaker of the House John Wilson killed Rep. Joseph Anthony in the original House of Representatives Chamber of the Old State House. The incident happened during a special session that was to take action on, among other things, a bitterly disputed banking issue -- a matter on which Wilson and Anthony disagreed.

After the banking issue was debated, a member introduced an amendment that proposed accepting wolf pelts as payment for county taxes. Wilson and Anthony disagreed on this issue as well. Offended by a remark made by Anthony, speaker Wilson ruled him out of order and commanded him to sit down. However, Anthony refused to be seated and a knife fight between the two men ensued, resulting in Anthony's death. Stunned by the killing, the representatives left the hall and assembled in the Senate Chamber to appoint a committee to arrange for Anthony's burial. Wilson was expelled from office and indicted for murder, but was later acquitted on the grounds of "excusable homicide."

Legend has it that the ghost of Anthony (also referred to as "J.J.") still walks the halls of the museum.

Quapaw Quarter:
Many old buildings in Little Rock's famous Quapaw Quarter are said to be haunted.

Most of the hauntings involve unexplainable slamming doors and sounds of moving furniture, shades going up and down and lights that switch on and off on their own or closet doors that are shut at night only to be found open each morning.

King Opera House:
"Starring" at the King Opera House in Van Buren is a young actor who was killed almost a century ago. The young man was actually murdered a few blocks away at the train depot while he was trying to run away with the daughter of a prominent local doctor. A well-meaning friend of the family saw the couple waiting for the train and alerted the father who jumped in his buggy and whipped his horses into a frenzy to get to the train station. He arrived at the depot to retrieve his daughter and ended up whipping the young man to death. The daughter ran off, never to be seen again.

Janice Cochrane, opera house manager, says the Opera House ghost was first seen by a musician and set designer during the first production in the reopened theater in 1979. But, she adds that the director of a very recent play also claims to have seen and actually visited with the ghost. The apparition is said to materialize, dressed in a top hat and Victorian style "great coat" with a long cape.

While Cochrane is not ready to say she believes in the actor apparition, she admits she had a strange experience in the opera house two years ago at Halloween. Rehearsal had just finished for Cochrane's original play, The Legend of the Opera House Ghost. The actors went home, but Cochrane remained to finish details on the set. Suddenly she felt that someone else was in the theater with her. Not believing in ghosts, she tried to ignore it. But, the feeling became so strong it was "almost like the hairs were standing up on the back of my neck. I was very uncomfortable."

While reading a gothic book recently, Cochrane says she ran across some words that might explain the tie that binds the actor to the opera house even though he wasn't murdered there. She read, "A ghost will drift back to what anchored it to earth."

Cochrane now tells the tale of the ghost for tour groups. She can be reached at the King Opera House, (501) 474-2426. The opera house first opened in 1901.

Gurdon Ghost Light:
Most people describe the Gurdon "ghost light" phenomena as a bluish-green glow arcing from rail to rail along a deserted stretch of railroad track in south Clark County. Local legend says that in 1931 a railroad worker was slain along that same stretch of tracks. After the slaying, the "ghost light" began appearing.

Crossett:
Like Gurdon, Crossett had a railroad worker, a brakeman, who came to an untimely end when he was beheaded near the track. Now a ball of light can be seen swaying back and forth a few feet over the track as the brakeman looks for his lost head. Or is it his wife carrying the lantern and looking...?

Vanishing Hitchhiker:
By far the most popular ghost story is that of the vanishing hitchhiker, says Dr. Bill McNeil, folklorist.

As the story goes: It was a dark and stormy night...A young man was driving down Arkansas 365 south of Little Rock when he saw a young girl on the roadside. He offered to give her a lift and draped his coat over her shoulders because she was cold and soaked from the rain. She gave him directions to her house. When they arrived, the young man got out of the car and walked around to the other side to help her out of her seat -- but, no one was there.

Confused, the young man walked up to the house and knocked on the door. A woman answered and he explained what had just occurred. She said, "That young girl is my daughter, who was killed years ago. She hitchhikes back home once a year."

The young man then drove to the cemetery to see the young girl's grave. There he found his coat draped over her tombstone.

This is one version. "There's never just one story," says McNeil. Different stories have the hitchhiker on various roads (usually lonely country roads) and some don't contain the coat-loaning, cemetery ending. McNeil says the vanishing hitchhiker story actually dates back to the 1600s in Europe. It is adapted from tales of the Flying Dutchmen and the Flying Jew. He adds that pre-horseless carriages, the story had the woman being picked up by a man riding a horse.

"There have been ghost stories ever since there have been people," adds McNeil.

He explains that many ghost stories are readapted over time to fit modern understanding. And, the widely traveled tales that take on local manifestations are usually told by a friend of a friend.

People like ghost stories because they find them entertaining and some like to be scared, says McNeil. As a culture, he says we tend to be cynics. But we are also ambivalent. We like to be able to explain things and at the same time have things we simply cannot explain, he says.

As for McNeil, he adds, "I don't believe in ghosts."

McNeil is the folklorist for the Ozark Folk Center State Park in Mountain View and is a regular contributor to Ozark Mountaineer magazine. McNeil has also authored several books including, Ghost Stories in the American South, published by August House.

Other allegedly haunted places in Arkansas include the Old Van Buren Inn Bed and Breakfast and Restaurant in Van Buren; the Williams House Bed and Breakfast in Hot Springs; The Magnolia House in Little Rock; the Pulaski County Municipal Court and Juvenile Justice Complex in Little Rock; The Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs; the Saline County Public Library in Benton; Henderson State University in Arkadelphia; and Harding University in Searcy.
 

Submitted by the Arkansas Department of Parks & Tourism
One Capitol Mall, Little Rock, AR 72201, (501) 682-7606
E-mail: info@arkansas.com

May be used without permission. Credit line is appreciated:
"Arkansas Department of Parks & Tourism"