Haunted Kentucky

147 haunted destinations cataloged across Kentucky, spanning 68 counties. The collection features outdoor, other dark tourism site, and haunted house — every listing verified with family ratings, accessibility info, and practical visit logistics.

147 locations 68 counties 13 classifications 70 wheelchair accessible

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Top 6

Outdoor / Natural Site

Mammoth Cave National Park

Mammoth Cave, KY

Mammoth Cave is the world's longest known cave system with over 426 surveyed miles of passages. The cave was developed as a tourist site beginning in the 1810s and is internationally significant for the work of enslaved African American guide Stephen Bishop, who mapped much of the system in the 1840s and 1850s. The park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and an International Biosphere Reserve.

$$ All Ages; Wild Cave Tour ages 16+; some tours have minimum age and height requirements Family: Moderate

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Lexington Cemetery

Lexington, KY

The Lexington Cemetery was chartered in 1848 and dedicated in 1849 as a rural-style burial ground, part of the 19th-century cemetery reform movement that produced landscaped, park-like burial grounds. The 170-acre site is an accredited arboretum and contains the graves of Henry Clay, Confederate cavalry general John Hunt Morgan, hundreds of Civil War soldiers from both sides, and Mary Todd Lincoln's family members.

$ All Ages Family: High

Museum / Historical Site

Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning

Lexington, KY

The Carnegie Center building was constructed in 1906 of Bedford limestone in the Classical Revival style as Lexington's first public library, funded by a $60,000 grant from the Carnegie Foundation. It served as the city's central library for most of the 20th century. After the library moved to East Main Street, the building reopened in 1992 as the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning under literacy advocate First Lady Barbara Bush.

$ All Ages Family: High

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

The Witches' Tree

Louisville, KY

According to widely retold local legend, a maple tree at the northwest corner of 6th and Park in Old Louisville was selected by a city committee in spring 1889 to provide the May pole for the 1890 May Day celebration. Eleven months to the day after the tree was cut, on March 27, 1890, one of the most destructive tornadoes in Kentucky's history tore through downtown Louisville, killing approximately 100 people. The current gnarled tree is said to have grown from the original stump after a lightning strike during the storm.

$ All Ages Family: High

HABS north elevation photograph of the Old Bank of Louisville Greek Revival facade at 316–322 West Main Street, now the lobby of Actors Theatre of Louisville

Theater / Performance Venue

Actors Theatre of Louisville

Louisville, KY

Actors Theatre of Louisville is the State Theatre of Kentucky and one of the country's leading regional theaters. Since 1972 it has been housed in the 1837 Greek Revival Old Bank of Louisville at 316 West Main Street, a National Historic Landmark designated in 1971, combined with an adjacent Victorian commercial building. Its 643-seat Pamela Brown Auditorium opened in October 1972 and is named for the late Louisville actress and Brown-family heiress.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted Hotel / Inn

The Brown Hotel

Louisville, KY

The Brown Hotel was built by Louisville businessman and developer James Graham Brown and opened on October 25, 1923. The 16-story Georgian Revival building, designed by Preston J. Bradshaw, is the birthplace of the Hot Brown sandwich (created by chef Fred Schmidt in 1926). Brown lived in a hotel suite until his death on March 20, 1969.

$$$ All Ages Family: High

More in Kentucky

Lexington — 17

The front facade of Ashland, the country estate of statesman Henry Clay, rebuilt in 1857 in Lexington, Kentucky

Museum / Historical Site

Ashland, The Henry Clay Estate

Lexington, KY

Ashland was the country estate of Henry Clay, the Kentucky senator, Speaker of the House, Secretary of State, and three-time presidential candidate known as the Great Compromiser. Clay began acquiring the land in 1804 and lived at Ashland from roughly 1806 until his death in 1852. The current mansion is an 1857 reconstruction by his son James Clay after the original house was demolished due to structural failures. The estate is a National Historic Landmark and a working historic-house museum on 17 surviving acres.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

Bodley-Bullock House

Lexington, KY

Built circa 1814 for Lexington mayor Thomas Pindell and shortly sold to General Thomas Bodley, a War of 1812 veteran, the Bodley-Bullock House is a Federal-style residence in the Gratz Park Historic District. It served as Union Army headquarters during the Civil War and was later owned by Dr. Waller Bullock and his wife Minnie, who left the property in trust to Transylvania University. The Junior League of Lexington has operated it as an event venue since 1985.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Haunted Hotel / Inn

The Campbell House

Lexington, KY

The Campbell House was constructed in 1951 as a luxury hotel in Lexington. Originally developed as a historic motor inn in an equestrian town, it has operated continuously as a hospitality facility and developed a reputation as one of Kentucky's most renowned haunted hotels.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Aerial survey view of Fire Station No. 4 (Vogt Reel House)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Other Dark Tourism Site

Fire Station No. 4 (Vogt Reel House)

Lexington, KY

Fire Station No. 4, also known as the Vogt Reel House, opened in 1904 at 246 Jefferson Street as a Jacobean Revival fire-and-hose house. It remains in active service as Lexington's oldest operating fire station. Firefighter Henry H. McDonald, age 67, died of a heart attack in his bunk on Christmas Day 1945 after 28 years on the job.

$ All Ages Family: High

Gratz Park Inn now The Sire Hotel Lexington former 1920 Lexington Clinic building

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Gratz Park Inn (The Sire Hotel Lexington)

Lexington, KY

The building at 120 West Second Street was constructed in 1920 as the Lexington Clinic, central Kentucky's first multi-specialty medical practice. It functioned as the clinic's main facility for decades before being converted to a boutique hotel called the Gratz Park Inn in 1988. The hotel was rebranded as The Sire Hotel Lexington, Tapestry Collection by Hilton, in the mid-2020s.

$$$ All Ages Family: High

The Cheapside block (now Henry A. Tandy Centennial Park) at the corner of Cheapside and West Short Street in downtown Lexington, Kentucky

Outdoor / Natural Site

Henry A. Tandy Centennial Park (formerly Cheapside Park)

Lexington, KY

The block between Upper and Mill streets has functioned as Lexington's central public space since the city's founding in 1781, originally as 'Public Square' and later 'Cheapside Park.' Before the Civil War it hosted one of Kentucky's largest slave auctions. In August 2020 it was renamed for Henry A. Tandy, the formerly-enslaved mason whose firm Tandy & Byrd laid the brick under the adjoining 1900 courthouse.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Haunted House / Historic Home

Hunt-Morgan House

Lexington, KY

The Hunt-Morgan House, known as Hopemont, was completed in 1814 for John Wesley Hunt, described by contemporaries as Kentucky's first millionaire. The Federal-style mansion in Lexington's Gratz Park Historic District later became the boyhood home of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan and the birthplace of Nobel laureate Thomas Hunt Morgan, making it one of the most historically layered private residences in the antebellum South.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

John Stark House

Lexington, KY

The Federal townhouse at 228 Market Street was built in 1813 by bricklayer Robert Grinstead and sold to farmer John Stark, the owner who gave the house its surviving name. Transylvania University rented the property in 1820 to house its president Horace Holley, and architect Gideon Shryock lived there in 1832 while supervising construction of Old Morrison. The house later became the home of Dr. Robert Peter, the Transylvania medical professor who served as a Union surgeon during the Civil War.

$ All Ages Family: High

Theater / Performance Venue

Kentucky Theatre

Lexington, KY

The Kentucky Theatre opened October 4, 1922 as a 1,100-seat Adamesque movie palace on East Main Street, surviving the 1929 flood and a devastating 1987 fire. After city acquisition and restoration, it reopened in 1992 as a nonprofit arthouse cinema, with the original Wurlitzer pipe organ still in place.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

Loudoun House

Lexington, KY

Loudoun House is an 1852 Gothic Revival villa in Lexington, Kentucky, designed by the celebrated American architect Alexander Jackson Davis for Francis Key Hunt. It is one of the few surviving residential examples of Davis's Gothic Revival work and one of only three Davis-designed castellated villas in the United States. The building has housed LexArts (formerly the Lexington Art League) since 1984.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

Maria Dudley House

Lexington, KY

The Maria Dudley House was built in 1879 by Maria B. Dudley on what had previously been the side yard of the Hunt-Morgan House, in Lexington's Gratz Park Historic District. Designed by architect Phelix Lundin in a starkly Victorian style, the castle-like townhouse stands out among the predominantly Federal and Greek Revival buildings of the surrounding park. It remains a private residence today.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Museum / Historical Site

Mary Todd Lincoln House

Lexington, KY

The Mary Todd Lincoln House at 578 West Main Street was built circa 1803-1806 as a tavern called The Sign of the Green Tree. Robert Smith Todd purchased the 14-room Georgian brick house in 1832, and his daughter Mary lived there from age 13 until she left for Springfield, Illinois in 1839. The house opened to the public in 1977 as the first historic site in the United States dedicated to a First Lady.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Old Episcopal Burying Ground

Lexington, KY

Christ Church purchased this land in 1832 for use as a burial ground; the cemetery saw heavy use during the 1833 and 1849 cholera epidemics and again during the Civil War. A John McMurtry-designed stone chapel was added in 1867. Approximately 600 burials took place between 1833 and 1879. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, it is now Lexington's oldest surviving cemetery.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Richardsonian Romanesque limestone exterior and bulbous octagonal dome of the Old Fayette County Courthouse, now Lexington History Center, on West Main Street

Museum / Historical Site

Old Fayette County Courthouse (Lexington History Center)

Lexington, KY

The Old Fayette County Courthouse at 215 West Main is the fifth courthouse on a Lexington site whose first structure went up in 1782. The current Richardsonian-influenced building was designed by Cleveland architects Lehman & Schmitt and built 1898–1900 after the 1887 predecessor burned in 1897. Restored in 2018, it now serves as the Lexington History Center, civic event venue, and visitor center.

$ All Ages Family: High

Old Morrison, the 1834 Greek Revival main building of Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, designed by Gideon Shryock

Other Dark Tourism Site

Old Morrison (Transylvania University)

Lexington, KY

Old Morrison was completed in 1834 as the main building of Transylvania University, designed by Gideon Shryock in the Greek Revival style. It is named for benefactor Colonel James Morrison and was largely destroyed by a fire in May 1969 before being rebuilt and restored. A crypt at the north end holds remains attributed to 19th-century botanist Constantine Rafinesque.

$ All Ages Family: High

Museum / Historical Site

Latrobe's Pope Villa

Lexington, KY

Pope Villa was designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe — architect of the U.S. Capitol — for Kentucky Senator John Pope and his wife Eliza in 1811. The neoclassical villa is a square plan with a domed central rotunda on the second floor and is considered Latrobe's best surviving residential commission. After a 1987 fire damaged the interior, the Blue Grass Trust acquired the property and is conducting ongoing preservation.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Museum / Historical Site

Waveland State Historic Site

Lexington, KY

Waveland is a Greek Revival mansion completed in 1848 by Joseph Bryan, a grandnephew of Daniel Boone, on land originally surveyed by Boone himself. The 10-acre site is operated by Kentucky State Parks and preserves the main house, original slave quarters, smokehouse, and ice house. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Louisville — 14

Aerial survey view of Baxter Avenue Morgue

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Other Dark Tourism Site

Baxter Avenue Morgue

Louisville, KY

The Baxter Avenue Morgue building dates to the 1860s, when it operated as a morgue and crematorium serving the adjacent Eastern Cemetery and Cave Hill Cemetery in what is now Louisville's Highlands. Over the twentieth century the structure was used as a laundromat, as cold storage, and as an embalming school in the 1970s. It now operates year-round as a haunted attraction at 615 Baxter Avenue, with an officially branded Haunted Public Tour program.

$$ 16+ Family: Low

Museum / Historical Site

Belle of Louisville

Louisville, KY

The Belle of Louisville was built in 1914 in Pittsburgh as the Idlewild for the West Memphis Packet Company; she was renamed Avalon in 1948 and finally Belle of Louisville in 1962 when the city of Louisville purchased her. The vessel is a National Historic Landmark and is the oldest operating river steamboat in the United States.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Asylum / Hospital

Central State Hospital Cemeteries at E.P. Tom Sawyer State Park

Louisville, KY

Kentucky's Central State Hospital — originally the Fourth Kentucky Lunatic Asylum — operated from 1873 near the present site of E.P. Tom Sawyer State Park in Louisville. The campus housed up to 5,000 patients in 15 buildings and accumulated a documented history of patient abuse: an 1882 grand jury indicted staff for assault and a staff member faced murder charges for drowning a patient. The state demolished all 15 buildings in 1996 and converted the land to the state park, leaving two patient cemeteries with an estimated 5,000 unmarked graves.

$ All Ages Family: High

Richardsonian Romanesque limestone exterior of the Conrad-Caldwell House on St. James Court in Old Louisville

Haunted House / Historic Home

Conrad-Caldwell House Museum

Louisville, KY

The Conrad-Caldwell House was completed in 1895 for tanning industrialist Theophilus Conrad at 1402 St. James Court in Louisville's Old Louisville historic district. The Richardsonian Romanesque mansion of rough-cut limestone is operated today as a museum and is a centerpiece of one of the largest Victorian residential districts in the United States.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Beaux-Arts facade of the Ferguson Mansion, home of The Filson Historical Society, at 1310 S. 3rd Street in Old Louisville

Museum / Historical Site

Ferguson Mansion (The Filson Historical Society)

Louisville, KY

The Ferguson Mansion was built between 1901 and 1905 at a cost of roughly $100,000 — about ten times the price of neighboring Old Louisville homes — for cordage industrialist Edwin Hite Ferguson. After Ferguson lost his fortune in 1907 and sold the house in 1924, the Pearson family operated it as Pearson Funeral Home for almost half a century. The Filson Historical Society, founded in 1884, purchased the mansion in 1984 and moved its collections in after a renovation completed in spring 1986.

$ All Ages Family: High

Other Dark Tourism Site

First Church of Christ, Scientist

Louisville, KY

The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Old Louisville is a classical-revival Christian Science church on S. 3rd Street, distinguished by its columned front portico facing what was once Louisville's Millionaires Row. The congregation has occupied the building through the twentieth century and remains active today. Its location sits roughly two miles north of the former Camp Zachary Taylor, the largest U.S. WWI training cantonment, which figures heavily in the church's most famous local legend.

$ All Ages Family: High

Theater / Performance Venue

Louisville Palace Theatre

Louisville, KY

The Louisville Palace opened on September 1, 1928 as Loew's and United Artists State Theatre. Designed by atmospheric theater architect John Eberson in the Spanish Baroque style, it features sculpted busts of historical figures in its 'Spanish courtyard' ceiling. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and operates today as a 2,800-seat Live Nation concert venue.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Prison / Reformatory

Old Jefferson County Jail Building

Louisville, KY

The Old Jefferson County Jail at 514 West Liberty Street was built in 1905 in the Chicago architectural style by D.X. Murphy & Bros. It replaced an 1844 jail on Jefferson Street that had become structurally derelict. The building incarcerated prisoners until the 1980s, was converted to an office complex in 1983, and today houses the Commonwealth's Attorney, the Circuit Court Clerk, and the Archives and Records Department.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Pink Victorian mansion with French chateau turret at the south end of St. James Court in Old Louisville

Haunted House / Historic Home

The Pink Palace

Louisville, KY

The Pink Palace is a three-story Victorian mansion with a French chateau-style turret at 1473 St. James Court in Old Louisville. Built around 1891, it operated initially as the St. James Court Gentlemen's Club and Casino and was acquired in the 1910s by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, which painted the red brick exterior pink. It is a private residence and a fixture of Old Louisville ghost walks.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

Ronald-Brennan House

Louisville, KY

The Ronald-Brennan House at 631 South Fifth Street in downtown Louisville is a three-story Italianate townhouse built in 1868 for tobacco merchant Francis S. J. Ronald. In 1884 the property was sold to Irish-born inventor Thomas Brennan, whose family occupied the home until 1969. The house has operated as a museum since 1969 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Aerial survey view of Sauerkraut Cave (E.P. Tom Sawyer State Park)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Sauerkraut Cave (E.P. Tom Sawyer State Park)

Louisville, KY

Sauerkraut Cave is a small limestone cave located on the grounds of E.P. Tom Sawyer State Park in eastern Louisville. The site began as Virginia militia officer Isaac Hite's grant lands; the cave was modified for use by the Central Kentucky Lunatic Asylum (founded 1873, later Central State Hospital, also known as Lakeland Asylum) for cold storage of sauerkraut and other supplies. The asylum's 15-building campus housed up to 5,000 patients before being demolished in 1996; the park opened to the public in 1974.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Beaux-Arts Baroque exterior of the Seelbach Hilton in downtown Louisville at South Fourth Street

Haunted Hotel / Inn

The Seelbach Hilton Louisville

Louisville, KY

The Seelbach Hotel opened in 1905 in downtown Louisville, built by Bavarian-born brothers Otto and Louis Seelbach as a Beaux-Arts Baroque luxury establishment. It has hosted nine U.S. presidents and was a favorite of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who set Tom and Daisy Buchanan's wedding there in The Great Gatsby. The hotel is on the National Register of Historic Places and operates today as part of the Hilton portfolio.

$$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Other Dark Tourism Site

Walnut Street Baptist Church

Louisville, KY

Walnut Street Baptist Church organized in 1849 and originally met at the corner of 4th and Walnut Streets (now Muhammad Ali Boulevard) in downtown Louisville. In 1902 the congregation moved into its current Gothic Revival sanctuary at the corner of South 3rd and St. Catherine Streets in Old Louisville, where it remains today. The building's gargoyle-decorated exterior and corner location have made it one of the most recognizable churches in the Old Louisville preservation district.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

Widmer House (Jacob Widmer House)

Louisville, KY

The four-bedroom Chateauesque-style residence at 1228 South 3rd Street was built in 1895 and is associated by name with the Jacob Widmer family, one of several German-American households that settled along Old Louisville's S. 3rd Street corridor in the late nineteenth century. The house is one of the showpieces of the largest contiguous Victorian-era preservation district in the United States.

$ All Ages Family: High

Owensboro — 7

Aerial survey view of Ben Hawes State Park

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Ben Hawes State Park

Owensboro, KY

Ben Hawes State Park encompasses woodland in Owensboro area. Local folklore references 18th century witch trial execution within park lands.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Haunted Dining / Bar

The Cupola Club (formerly Campbell Club Building)

Owensboro, KY

The historic Campbell Club Building on Frederica Street in downtown Owensboro has long been a fixture in the city's commercial corridor. Paranormal investigators and local media have repeatedly cited it as one of the most haunted locations in Kentucky.

$ All Ages Family: High

True Crime Site

Daviess County Courthouse (Lynching Site)

Owensboro, KY

The Daviess County Courthouse grounds carry documented history of racial violence. Historical records confirm lynchings of Black men on trees adjacent to the courthouse between Reconstruction and WWII. On August 14, 1936, Rainey Bethea was publicly executed by hanging at a scaffold erected in a nearby lot — an event that drew an estimated 20,000 spectators and is recorded as the last public execution in United States history.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Haunted Dining / Bar

The Miller House Restaurant

Owensboro, KY

The building at 301 E 5th Street in Owensboro was constructed in 1905 as the private home of Elmer and Lizzy Miller. It served as a family residence for decades before a 2007 tornado caused significant damage. The building was restored and reopened as a restaurant in 2009, retaining its original interior character including the wooden staircase that has become central to its paranormal reputation.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Museum / Historical Site

Owensboro Museum of Science and History

Owensboro, KY

The Owensboro Museum of Science and History operates in a downtown building adjacent to the Daviess County corridor and has earned a place in local haunted lore through unexplained incidents documented by Owensboro police officers responding to security alarms.

$ All Ages Family: High

Theater / Performance Venue

RiverPark Center (Turley Building)

Owensboro, KY

The Turley Building was constructed in 1873 and sits on the Owensboro riverfront along the Ohio River. It has housed RiverPark Center, Owensboro's primary performing arts venue, and is recognized locally as one of the five most haunted buildings in the city.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Aerial survey view of Rosehill Elmwood Cemetery

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Rosehill Elmwood Cemetery

Owensboro, KY

On August 14, 1936, Rainey Bethea was publicly hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky — the last public execution in American history, witnessed by an estimated 20,000 spectators. An African-American man convicted of rape and murder, Bethea was executed in the county where the crime occurred under a Kentucky statute that required public hangings for rape convictions. His body was interred in the Potter's Field section of Rosehill Elmwood Cemetery in an unmarked pauper's grave.

$ All Ages Family: High

Bowling Green — 5

Haunted Dining / Bar

440 Main Restaurant (Getty Building)

Bowling Green, KY

The Getty Building was constructed in 1871 and is one of Bowling Green's oldest surviving commercial structures. It has housed 440 Main restaurant and is part of the city's Heritage Walk historic district.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Ghost Tour / Walking Tour

Bowling Green Ghost Tours (Unseen BG)

Bowling Green, KY

Bowling Green, established in 1798 as the Warren County seat, carries a Civil War legacy as the Confederate capital of Kentucky from October 1861 to February 1862. The city saw extensive fortification and destruction during the war before its evacuation by Confederate forces ahead of advancing Union troops.

$$ All Ages (21+ for the Pauline Tabor tour) Family: High

Aerial survey view of Old Richardsville Road Bridge

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Old Richardsville Road Bridge

Bowling Green, KY

The Old Richardsville Road Bridge is a rare three-span cast and wrought-iron bowstring truss structure built between 1860-1889 by the King Bridge Company of Cleveland, Ohio. It crosses the Barren River in Warren County and was inducted into the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Outdoor / Natural Site

Lost River Cave

Bowling Green, KY

Lost River Cave is a seven-mile system in Bowling Green, KY, used as a major Union Army camp from 1862 to 1865. Soldiers carved their names in the limestone walls. The cave later became the site of one of Kentucky's largest illegal dump operations before a major remediation effort.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Theater / Performance Venue

Van Meter Hall, Western Kentucky University

Bowling Green, KY

Van Meter Hall opened in 1911 as Western Kentucky University's first building, serving as the anchor of the institution's historic hilltop campus. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

$ All Ages Family: High

Frankfort — 5

True Crime Site

Governor William Goebel Assassination Site

Frankfort, KY

On January 30, 1900, Governor-elect William Goebel was shot by an unknown sniper as he walked across the Old State Capitol grounds in Frankfort. He died four days later, on February 3, 1900 — making him the only U.S. governor to be assassinated while in or approaching office. The shooting came amid a bitterly contested gubernatorial election and the political violence of Gilded Age Kentucky. The shooter was never definitively identified; several men were convicted and later pardoned.

$ All Ages Family: High

Museum / Historical Site

Kentucky Military History Museum

Frankfort, KY

The Kentucky State Arsenal was constructed in 1850 in a deliberate Gothic fortress style — crenellated towers, thick stone walls — to project institutional authority in the state capital. During the Civil War it served as a Union munitions factory; Confederate forces under General Bragg briefly occupied Frankfort in October 1862, making it the only Union capital temporarily captured by Confederate troops. The building now operates as the Kentucky Military History Museum under the Kentucky Historical Society.

$ All Ages Family: High

Federal-style facade of the Old Governor's Mansion at 420 High Street, Frankfort, Kentucky, built 1798

Haunted House / Historic Home

Kentucky Old Governor's Mansion

Frankfort, KY

Built in 1798, the Old Governor's Mansion served as the official residence of Kentucky's governor until 1914, when the current mansion was completed. The Federal-style home housed 33 Kentucky governors over 116 years and is documented as the oldest governor's residence in the United States to have functioned as an official executive residence. It is now used as the official residence of the Lieutenant Governor.

$ All Ages Family: High

Museum / Historical Site

Kentucky Old State Capitol

Frankfort, KY

Kentucky's capitol from 1830 to 1910, the Old State Capitol was the site where Governor William Goebel was shot on January 30, 1900 — the only sitting U.S. governor to be assassinated in American history. The building also houses the Conjure Chest, documented by state historical records as a piece of furniture whose original owner had it cursed after a slave craftsman was killed during its construction; 18 people connected to the owner died within the following decade.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Haunted House / Historic Home

Liberty Hall Historic Site

Frankfort, KY

Liberty Hall was built in 1796 for John Brown, Kentucky's first U.S. Senator, on a site overlooking the Kentucky River in Frankfort. Brown and his family occupied the Federal-style mansion for decades; the adjacent Orlando Brown House, built in 1835, was constructed for his son. The Kentucky Landmarks Foundation owns and operates both properties as a museum.

$ All Ages Family: High

Paducah — 5

Aerial survey view of German Cemetery (St. John the Evangelist)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

German Cemetery (St. John the Evangelist)

Paducah, KY

St. John the Evangelist parish near Lone Oak in Paducah was founded in 1839 by German Catholic immigrants who had settled in western Kentucky, which is why its burial ground is locally known as the 'German Cemetery.' The first log church was raised about 1849 and replaced by a frame structure in 1869. The cemetery beside the church remains in use.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Ghost Tour / Walking Tour

Market House Theatre (River City Ghost Tours)

Paducah, KY

Market House Theatre has operated the River City Ghost Tour in Paducah annually since the 1990s. The tour is research-based, drawing on newspaper accounts, letters, and firsthand documents rather than invented folklore, covering documented incidents of violence, death, and social upheaval in Paducah's history.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Oak Grove Cemetery

Paducah, KY

Oak Grove Cemetery, established in 1847, is Paducah's historic municipal cemetery in McCracken County, with more than 33,000 burials. Its most famous resident is Della Robinson Barnes (1874–1897), youngest daughter of city councilman George F. Barnes, who died at age 22 of accidental morphine poisoning. Her father commissioned a life-size Italian-carved memorial statue that has since been heavily vandalized.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted Dining / Bar

Stella's Restaurant (C.C. Cohen Building)

Paducah, KY

The C.C. Cohen Building at 103 Market House Square in Paducah was constructed circa 1865 and became the home and business of the Cohen family for over a century. In the 1920s, son Carl Cohen was beaten so severely in a robbery that he was permanently disabled. Daughter Stella Cohen Peine spent decades in the building, dying alone upstairs in 1980 of an official cause of heart attack, with suspected malnutrition noted in accounts.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Museum / Historical Site

Whitehaven Welcome Center

Paducah, KY

Originally built in 1865, Whitehaven was expanded into a 22-room Classical Revival mansion by 1903. After the last occupants left in 1968, the building was abandoned and vandalized before a 1982 restoration converted it into a unique Kentucky Welcome Center — the only historic mansion in the US serving as a highway rest area.

$ All Ages Family: High

Ashland — 4

Ghost Tour / Walking Tour

Ashland Haunted History Ghost Tour

Ashland, KY

Ashland, Kentucky developed as an iron and steel hub on the Ohio River in the second half of the 19th century. The city's downtown core carries the weight of multiple documented tragedies — an 1881 triple murder, a 1959 mass-casualty fire, and decades of industrial-era incidents — that form the foundation of the organized ghost-tour circuit.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Asylum / Hospital

Bellefonte Hospital

Ashland, KY

Our Lady of Bellefonte Hospital was a Catholic acute-care hospital founded in 1953 by the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor near Ashland, Kentucky. It served eastern Kentucky for nearly seven decades before Bon Secours Mercy Health closed inpatient operations in April 2020. The building has since been repurposed as a behavioral health and addiction recovery center.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Aerial survey view of Columbia Theater Fire Site

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Other Dark Tourism Site

Columbia Theater Fire Site

Ashland, KY

On February 14, 1959, eleven people died in a gas explosion and fire at a Greenup Avenue apartment building in Ashland, Kentucky — the former Columbia Theater, built in 1891. Six of the dead were members of the McKenzie family, trapped in an interior apartment with no window access when the building's sole exit was cut off by flames.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Theater / Performance Venue

Paramount Arts Center

Ashland, KY

The Paramount Arts Center opened September 5, 1931 in Ashland, Kentucky as one of the first movie palaces purpose-built for sound film. Designed by Rapp and Rapp, the theater closed in 1971 and was rescued from demolition by the Greater Ashland Foundation, reopening as a performing-arts center in 1972.

$$ All Ages (varies by show) Family: High

Bardstown — 4

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Jailer's Inn Bed and Breakfast

Bardstown, KY

The Nelson County Jail property housed prisoners from 1797 until the facility's closure in 1987, making it the oldest continuously operating jail complex in Kentucky. The front limestone building was constructed in 1819 with walls 30 inches thick, and the structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Jailer's Inn Bed and Breakfast has operated in the renovated front jail since the late 1980s.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Haunted House / Historic Home

My Old Kentucky Home State Park (Federal Hill)

Bardstown, KY

Federal Hill was built in 1795 by Judge John Rowan on a plantation property in Bardstown; it became known worldwide after composer Stephen Foster immortalized it in the state song of Kentucky, which was adopted in 1928.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Old Talbott Tavern

Bardstown, KY

Built in 1779 as a stagecoach stop on the Wilderness Road, the Old Talbott Tavern is documented as Kentucky's oldest western stagecoach inn. It hosted travelers including Daniel Boone, Abraham Lincoln during a 1795 trip through the region, and — per multiple contemporaneous accounts — Jesse James and his gang, who allegedly shot pistol holes into the French murals on the upper floor during a stay in the 1880s.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

Wickland (Home of Three Governors)

Bardstown, KY

Wickland was constructed in 1828 for Charles A. Wickliffe, a Kentucky governor and later U.S. Postmaster General. The Federal-style mansion subsequently housed two additional Kentucky governors — Robert P. Letcher and Luke Pryor Blackburn — making it unique among antebellum Kentucky homes. The property remained in private family hands for most of its history before opening for tours.

$ All Ages Family: High

Covington — 4

Haunted House / Historic Home

Amos Shinkle Townhouse

Covington, KY

Amos Shinkle built this Greco-Italianate mansion in 1854. A prominent industrialist and transportation entrepreneur, Shinkle was also an active Underground Railroad conductor, using the property's carriage house to shelter freedom seekers crossing the Ohio River from slavery in Kentucky.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Museum / Historical Site

Baker-Hunt Art and Cultural Center

Covington, KY

The Baker-Hunt Foundation occupies a pair of 19th-century mansions on Greenup Street in Covington, Kentucky, endowed by Margaretta Baker-Hunt after a series of personal losses. She directed the foundation to support classes in art, religion, and — unusually for a cultural institution — psychic research.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

Carneal House Inn

Covington, KY

Built around 1815 by Thomas D. Carneal, a co-founder of Covington, Kentucky, the house is the oldest surviving brick structure in the city. It was subsequently expanded by Congressman William Wright Southgate, whose family occupied it through the mid-nineteenth century.

$$$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted Dining / Bar

Molly Malone's Irish Pub (Hermes Building)

Covington, KY

The Hermes Building at 112 W 4th Street was constructed in 1888 and served as temporary Covington City Hall. The building later witnessed a notable murder trial and a fatal domestic shooting before becoming Jack Quinn's Irish Pub and, subsequently, Molly Malone's.

$$ 21+ Family: High

Newport — 4

True Crime Site

Campbell County Courthouse

Newport, KY

On March 20, 1897, Scott Jackson and Alonzo Walling were hanged behind the Newport courthouse for the 1896 murder of Pearl Bryan, a 22-year-old woman from Greencastle, Indiana. Both men were convicted of decapitating Bryan; her head was never recovered. The executions were the last public hangings in Newport.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Aerial survey view of General James Taylor Park (Newport Barracks Site)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Battlefield / Military Site

General James Taylor Park (Newport Barracks Site)

Newport, KY

The Newport Barracks were established in 1803 at the confluence of the Ohio and Licking Rivers, making them one of the earliest permanent U.S. Army installations in the Northwest Territory. The barracks served as a training and staging ground; notable officers who served there before the Civil War include Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, and William T. Sherman. The complex was later used as a Civil War hospital and prisoner-of-war facility before being demolished.

$ All Ages Family: High

True Crime Site

Otto Printing Building

Newport, KY

The commercial building at 511 York Street in Newport was constructed in 1850. Otto Printing has occupied the building since 1918, making it one of the longer-running commercial tenants in the city's historic York Street corridor.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted Dining / Bar

Thompson House (Southgate House)

Newport, KY

Built in 1812 by Richard Southgate — Kentucky state representative and one of Newport's founders — the 19,106-square-foot mansion has served as a private residence, social hall, and live-music venue across more than two centuries.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Pikeville — 4

Haunted House / Historic Home

Creekmore Mansion (York House)

Pikeville, KY

The York House at 209 Elm Street was built in 1918 by Augusta Dils York, a prominent Pikeville family, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Creekmore family later occupied the mansion, which gave rise to the local legend that defines its current reputation.

$ All Ages Family: High

True Crime Site

Ellison 'Cotton Top' Mounts Hanging Site

Pikeville, KY

On February 18, 1890, Ellison 'Cotton Top' Mounts was hanged on Kentucky Avenue in Pikeville before an estimated five to six thousand spectators—the only Hatfield family member executed in connection with the Hatfield-McCoy Feud, despite Kentucky law prohibiting public executions at the time.

$ All Ages Family: High

True Crime Site

Hatfield & McCoy Feud Sites Walking Trail (Pikeville)

Pikeville, KY

Pikeville served as the legal center of the Hatfield-McCoy Feud, hosting feud-related trials at the Pike County Courthouse and witnessing the 1890 public hanging of Ellison 'Cotton Top' Mounts, the last feud-related execution. The Big Sandy Heritage Center Museum anchors the self-guided trail with the world's largest collection of feud artifacts.

$ All Ages Family: High

Aerial survey view of Pikeville Cemetery

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Pikeville Cemetery

Pikeville, KY

Octavia Smith Hatcher, wife of Pikeville businessman James Hatcher, was buried alive in May 1891 after an encephalitis-induced coma left her apparently dead. When exhumed days later, the casket lining was shredded and her fingernails were bloody — evidence she had regained consciousness underground. James Hatcher erected a life-size marble monument over her grave; it remains the tallest in Pikeville Cemetery and one of the most recognized dark-history landmarks in eastern Kentucky.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Elizabethtown — 3

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Other Dark Tourism Site

Bethlehem Academy

Elizabethtown, KY

Historic building operated as convent then hotel before becoming restaurant. Building carries dark history of alleged murders.

$$ All Ages Family: Low

Aerial survey view of Grandview Cemetery (Kasey's Cemetery / Gates of Hell)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Grandview Cemetery (Kasey's Cemetery / Gates of Hell)

Elizabethtown, KY

Grandview Cemetery, locally known as Kasey's Cemetery or by the nickname Gates of Hell, is a rural burial ground at the end of St. John Road outside Elizabethtown, Kentucky, in Hardin County. The cemetery contains graves dating to the 1700s and 1800s and the ruins of an iron and stone gate.

$ All Ages (daylight only recommended) Family: Moderate

Aerial survey view of Grandview Cemetery

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Grandview Cemetery

Elizabethtown, KY

Grandview Cemetery — also called Kasey's Cemetery and known locally as the 'Gates of Hell' — is a small abandoned eighteenth- and nineteenth-century burying ground in a wooded clearing west of Elizabethtown, Kentucky. The cemetery contains stones from the 1700s and 1800s and the partial ruins of an iron-and-stone gate. It is best understood as a regional folklore site with limited verifiable history.

$ All Ages Family: Low

Harrodsburg — 3

Aerial survey view of Harrodsburg Herald Building

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Other Dark Tourism Site

Harrodsburg Herald Building

Harrodsburg, KY

The building at 101 W Broadway in Harrodsburg dates to 1843, constructed as the Benjamin Passmore Hotel — a substantial structure in what was then Kentucky's oldest permanent settlement. Later known as Mercer House, the building eventually became home to the Harrodsburg Herald, the local newspaper.

$ 18+ Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

Rocky Point Manor

Harrodsburg, KY

Rocky Point Manor was built in 1810 for attorney and circuit judge James Haggin, son of one of Kentucky's earliest settlers. The Federal-style mansion sat on approximately 400 acres next to the site of Fort Harrod, Kentucky's first permanent settlement. Following the October 8, 1862 Battle of Perryville, the manor's basement served as an emergency field hospital for both Union and Confederate wounded, and a crawlspace along the wall was used as a temporary morgue.

$ All Ages Family: High

Museum / Historical Site

Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill

Harrodsburg, KY

Shaker missionaries arrived in central Kentucky in 1805 and established a farming community called Pleasant Hill approximately 25 miles southwest of Lexington. At its peak in the 1820s, the community comprised several hundred Believers across 3,000 acres of rolling Bluegrass farmland. The village declined through the latter half of the 19th century and closed in 1910. Restoration began in 1961, and today Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill is the largest restored Shaker village in the United States, with 34 original Shaker buildings intact.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Hopkinsville — 3

Aerial survey view of Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter Site

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Other Dark Tourism Site

Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter Site

Hopkinsville, KY

On the night of August 21–22, 1955, the Sutton family and their houseguests at a rural farmhouse in Kelly, Kentucky, reported a multi-hour confrontation with multiple small dark creatures with large glowing eyes. The incident was investigated by local police and reported in regional newspapers within days of the event.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

The Knight House

Hopkinsville, KY

The Knight House is the oldest surviving structure in Hopkinsville and Christian County, built between 1815 and 1820. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Knight family, prominent lawyers and real estate investors, occupied the house until the 1940s.

$$ 18+ Family: Moderate

Asylum / Hospital

Western State Hospital (Western Lunatic Asylum)

Hopkinsville, KY

Western Lunatic Asylum was established by the Kentucky General Assembly in 1848 and admitted its first patients in 1854. Designed on the Kirkbride Plan, it reached a peak population of 2,200 patients in 1953 and treated Confederate soldiers during the Civil War, some of whom were buried on the grounds.

$ All Ages Family: High

Maysville — 3

Asylum / Hospital

Hayswood Hospital

Maysville, KY

Hayswood Hospital opened in Maysville, Kentucky in 1915 as Hayswood Seminary, was renamed Hayswood Hospital in 1923, served Mason County and surrounding communities for six decades, and has stood abandoned since closing in 1983.

$ All Ages (exterior viewing only) Family: Moderate

Museum / Historical Site

Kentucky Gateway Museum Center

Maysville, KY

The Kentucky Gateway Museum Center in Maysville occupies a building partly traced to a 19th-century public library. William 'Billy' Hixson served as the library's first librarian and lived in the building as a reclusive hoarder until his death. The museum preserves Mason County history, including records on the slave trade and the Underground Railroad.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Theater / Performance Venue

Washington Opera House

Maysville, KY

The Washington Opera House in Old Washington—a preserved 19th-century village about four miles south of Maysville—was an active performance venue in the late 1800s. Actress Loretta Stambo collapsed on stage during a performance, was diagnosed with pneumonia, and died. Per her dying wish, she was interred in a coffin-sized space beneath the stage itself.

$ All Ages Family: High

Berea — 2

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Berea College

Berea, KY

Boone Tavern Hotel built 1908 on Berea College campus. Sub-basement dug in 1940s houses offices and laundry. Underground Railroad connection is folkloric rather than historically verified.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Boone Tavern Hotel & Restaurant

Berea, KY

The Boone Tavern Hotel opened in 1909 as the official guesthouse of Berea College, designed to host visitors to the institution and to serve as a training ground for college students working in hospitality under the college's labor program. It has operated continuously ever since, making it one of Kentucky's longest-running college-affiliated hotels.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Danville — 2

Other Dark Tourism Site

Breckinridge Hall, Centre College

Danville, KY

Breckinridge Hall was constructed at Centre College in 1892, named for Robert J. Breckinridge, a Presbyterian minister who was among the seminary's original professors and a key figure in Kentucky's public school system.

$ All Ages Family: High

Prison / Reformatory

Constitution Square Historic Site

Danville, KY

Constitution Square is a 3-acre open-air museum in Danville, Kentucky, preserving the site where ten constitutional conventions met between 1785 and 1792, ultimately producing Kentucky's first state constitution. The park includes replica buildings of the original courthouse, jail, meetinghouse, and Grayson's Tavern, plus the original first U.S. post office west of the Allegheny Mountains.

$ All Ages Family: High

Franklin — 2

Museum / Historical Site

Octagon Hall Museum

Franklin, KY

Andrew Jackson Caldwell laid the foundation of Octagon Hall in 1847, completing the distinctive eight-sided brick residence by approximately 1860. Built on 300 acres in Franklin, Kentucky, it served as a hospital for both Confederate and Union soldiers during the Civil War and as a hiding place for retreating Confederate troops. The Octagon Hall Foundation acquired the site in 2001 and operates it as a museum and investigation venue.

$$$ 18+ for all paranormal events Family: Low

Museum / Historical Site

Octagon Hall

Franklin, KY

Octagon Hall is an 1847 octagonal antebellum house in Franklin, Kentucky, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. It is one of two surviving octagonal structures in Kentucky and operated during the Civil War as a hospital for soldiers of both sides and a hideout for Confederate troops. Today it functions as a museum.

$$ All Ages for daytime tours; minimum age applies for paranormal investigations Family: Moderate

Harlan — 2

True Crime Site

Harlan County Courthouse

Harlan, KY

Constructed 1918–1922 in Beaux-Arts limestone, the Harlan County Courthouse served as the legal center of 'Bloody Harlan'—the coal-mining county that saw decades of labor violence and union suppression. The courthouse jail housed prisoners on the top floor while trials ran in the floors below; at least one defendant, Manzo Shepherd, was shot and killed in the courtroom during his own murder trial.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Aerial survey view of Sassy Trash (Former Hardware & Funeral Parlor)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Other Dark Tourism Site

Sassy Trash (Former Hardware & Funeral Parlor)

Harlan, KY

The building at 108 N. Main Street in downtown Harlan previously served as a hardware store with a funeral parlor operating on the upper floors—a combination common in early 20th-century Appalachian commercial buildings. It is now featured on the Kentucky After Dark dark-history trail.

$ All Ages Family: High

Marion — 2

Aerial survey view of Baker Hollow Road Cemetery

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Baker Hollow Road Cemetery

Marion, KY

Baker Hollow Road Cemetery is the local name for two small rural cemeteries known collectively as the Baker-Phillips Cemetery, located off Baker Church Road south of Morganfield in Crittenden County, Kentucky. The site is documented in regional genealogical records.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Aerial survey view of Pilot Knob Cemetery (Witch Child Grave)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Pilot Knob Cemetery (Witch Child Grave)

Marion, KY

Pilot Knob Cemetery in Crittenden County, Kentucky contains the grave of five-year-old Mary Evelyn Ford, who died May 31, 1916 of peritonitis. Her grave is the focus of a regional Kentucky legend, the Witch Child of Pilot's Knob, which has been thoroughly debunked by genealogical research.

$ All Ages (respect cemetery rules) Family: Moderate

Paintsville — 2

Haunted House / Historic Home

Mayo Memorial United Methodist Church

Paintsville, KY

Mayo Memorial United Methodist Church at 325 Third Street in Paintsville, Kentucky, was constructed beginning in 1908 at the direction of coal millionaire John C.C. Mayo. Built from native sandstone quarried at the Mayo family farm across Paint Creek and transported by aerial tram, the church features Italian-imported stained glass windows and an organ donated by Andrew Carnegie. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 26, 1989.

$ All Ages Family: High

Museum / Historical Site

Mayo Mansion

Paintsville, KY

Mayo Mansion at 405 Third Street in Paintsville, Kentucky, was built between 1905 and December 1912 for coal millionaire John Caldwell Calhoun Mayo and his wife Alice Jane Meek. The three-story, 43-room mansion cost $250,000 to construct. After Mayo's death in 1914, Alice donated the property to Sandy Valley Seminary. In 1945, the Sisters of Divine Providence established Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic School in the building, which continues to occupy it today.

$ All Ages Family: High

Pippa Passes — 2

Other Dark Tourism Site

Alice Lloyd College

Pippa Passes, KY

Alice Lloyd College is mountain college in Appalachia. Multiple buildings on campus reported to have paranormal activity.

$ Campus Community Family: High

Aerial survey view of Alice Lloyd Radio Station

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Other Dark Tourism Site

Alice Lloyd Radio Station

Pippa Passes, KY

Radio station on Alice Lloyd College campus serves broadcast functions for institutional and community purposes.

$ Staff Only Family: High

Richmond — 2

Keene Hall, the 16-story dormitory tower at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, lit red, white and blue with an American flag during a 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb event

Other Dark Tourism Site

Keene Hall 16th Floor

Richmond, KY

Keene Hall is a 16-story, 1969-built residence hall on the campus of Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky. It houses roughly 582 students across 308 rooms and reopened in August 2024 following an extensive renovation. The hall is named for William L. Keene, a longtime English professor who retired in 1965 after 39 years on the EKU faculty.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Main east elevation of Whitehall, the Italianate brick mansion of abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay on Clay Lane in Richmond, Kentucky, documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey

Haunted House / Historic Home

White Hall State Historic Site

Richmond, KY

White Hall in Richmond, Kentucky began in 1798-1799 as Clermont, the Federal-style home of Green Clay. His son, abolitionist publisher and diplomat Cassius Marcellus Clay, dramatically expanded it into a 44-room Italianate mansion in the 1860s. The Commonwealth of Kentucky acquired the home in 1968 and operates it as a state historic site.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Annville — 1

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Hwy 577

Annville, KY

Annville is a small unincorporated community in Jackson County, Kentucky, in the eastern Cumberland Plateau region. The graveyard off Hwy 577 is a rural cemetery typical of Appalachian communities, where family plots and small denominational burying grounds were established throughout the nineteenth century as settlement expanded into the region's hollows.

$ All Ages Family: High

Barbourville — 1

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Warfield Cemetery

Barbourville, KY

Warfield Cemetery is a rural burial ground in Knox County, Kentucky, located west of Barbourville near Walker Memorial Park off Highway 459. Its tombstones date from the late 1800s to the present. The cemetery has no fence or gate and is reached by a small footbridge, and it is documented in Knox County cemetery records and on Find a Grave.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Bloomfield — 1

Aerial survey view of Maple Grove Cemetery

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Maple Grove Cemetery

Bloomfield, KY

Maple Grove Cemetery in Bloomfield, Kentucky holds the shared grave of Anna Cooke Beauchamp and Jereboam O. Beauchamp, central figures of the 1825 Beauchamp-Sharp Tragedy. Jereboam was hanged in July 1826 for the murder of Kentucky legislator Solomon P. Sharp; Anna died of self-inflicted wounds in his cell hours before his execution. A Kentucky Historical Society marker stands at the site.

$ All Ages Family: High

Bradfordsville — 1

Aerial survey view of North Rolling Fork River

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

North Rolling Fork River

Bradfordsville, KY

The North Rolling Fork River flows through Marion County and runs parallel to the main streets of Bradfordsville, Kentucky. Bradfordsville is a small community at the confluence of the North and South Forks of the Rolling Fork River, historically sustained by agriculture and the river corridor. In the summer of 1965, a community-wide acoustic anomaly drew children and adults to the riverbank over multiple days.

$ All Ages Family: High

Busy — 1

Aerial survey view of Coffin Rock at Campbell Cemetery

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Coffin Rock at Campbell Cemetery

Busy, KY

Campbell Cemetery is a rural burial ground on Forked Mouth Road in the Busy community of Perry County, in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. Within the cemetery area is a large stone known locally as Coffin Rock. The cemetery is recorded in Find a Grave's Kentucky listings; the surrounding hollow is steep and remote.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Campbellsville — 1

Brick Administration Building at Campbellsville University in Kentucky

Museum / Historical Site

Campbellsville University - Fine Arts Building

Campbellsville, KY

The Fine Arts Building at Campbellsville University originated as a Catholic hospital facility, later converted to academic use. The building now houses the university's School of Art and serves as a center for creative instruction on the 80-acre main campus in central Kentucky.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Carlisle — 1

Battlefield / Military Site

Blue Licks Battlefield State Resort Park

Carlisle, KY

Blue Licks served as a natural mineral spring and salt lick along the Licking River before hosting the Battle of Blue Licks on August 19, 1782. This Revolutionary War engagement resulted in the deaths of approximately 70 Kentucky settlers, including militia leader Stephen Trigg and Daniel Boone's son Israel.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Clermont — 1

Jim Beam American Stillhouse distillery exterior in Clermont Kentucky

Other Dark Tourism Site

Jim Beam Distillery

Clermont, KY

The James B. Beam Distilling Company traces its roots to 1795, when Jacob Beam sold his first barrel of whiskey in Kentucky. The Clermont facility was established by James Beam in 1933 following the repeal of Prohibition and now encompasses 32 warehouses holding more than half a million barrels across 500 acres — one of the most productive bourbon campuses in American history.

$$ 21+ for tastings; all ages for property Family: Moderate

Columbia — 1

Aerial survey view of Lindsey Wilson College

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Other Dark Tourism Site

Lindsey Wilson College

Columbia, KY

Lindsey Wilson College was founded in January 1903 as Lindsey Wilson Training School by the Louisville Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The school was named in memory of Lindsey Wilson, the deceased nephew and stepson of Mrs. Catherine Wilson of Louisville, who contributed $6,000 toward the first building. The institution became Lindsey Wilson University in July 2025.

$ All Ages Family: High

Corbin — 1

Cumberland Falls 68-foot waterfall on the Cumberland River in Kentucky

Outdoor / Natural Site

Cumberland Falls State Resort Park

Corbin, KY

Cumberland Falls, a 68-foot waterfall on the Cumberland River in southern Kentucky, has been protected as a state resort park since 1930. The DuPont Lodge, named for the family that donated funds for its preservation after a controversial sale attempt, has anchored the park's visitor experience for nearly a century. The park is one of only two locations in the Western Hemisphere where a moonbow — a nighttime rainbow generated by moonlight through mist — can be reliably observed.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Cynthiana — 1

Aerial survey view of WCYN Radio Building (1790 Log Cabin)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Other Dark Tourism Site

WCYN Radio Building (1790 Log Cabin)

Cynthiana, KY

Built circa 1790 by Dr. James McPheefers and expanded in 1926, this log cabin at 111 Court Street is Cynthiana's oldest standing building. It has served as a law office and, most notably, as the home of WCYN radio station. WCYN began broadcasting in 1956 and the station has since relocated to South Main Street, but the log cabin remains associated with the station's early history and the building is a featured stop on the Cynthiana Ghost Walk.

$ All Ages Family: High

Evarts — 1

Aerial survey view of Black Mountain Elementary School

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Other Dark Tourism Site

Black Mountain Elementary School

Evarts, KY

Black Mountain Elementary School operates as educational institution in Evarts. Building serves standard school functions.

$ Students Only Family: High

Frenchburg — 1

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Carrington Rock

Frenchburg, KY

Frenchburg, Kentucky, sits in Menifee County in the eastern Kentucky knobs. The area saw Civil War activity in 1861 around McCormack's Gap as part of the Big Sandy Expedition, but no documented battlefield engagement has been recorded at Carrington Rock specifically.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Glasgow — 1

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Slash Bridge

Glasgow, KY

Slash Bridge is a small bridge carrying Old Munfordville Road across Beaver Creek in rural Barren County, Kentucky, between Glasgow and Cave City. The original crossing was a wooden covered bridge that was replaced after the Civil War by a steel-frame structure with a wooden deck. The crossing is documented in local Barren County folklore collections.

$ All Ages Family: Low

Grayson — 1

Aerial survey view of Gollihue Hollow (Johns Run)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Gollihue Hollow (Johns Run)

Grayson, KY

Gollihue Hollow is a wooded hollow in Carter County, eastern Kentucky, near Grayson and the community of Hitchins, in the Johns Run drainage. The Gollihue family name is well established in the area, attached to local cemeteries documented in Carter County records. The hollow is rural hunting and woodland country.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Hardburly — 1

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Coal Spring

Hardburly, KY

Hardburly is a coal camp community in Perry County, Kentucky, located on Jakes Branch (also spelled Jake Fork) approximately six miles northeast of Hazard. The Hardy-Burlingham Mining Company established the camp around 1918, and at its peak the operation employed up to 700 underground miners and handled 4,000 tons of coal daily. The community's name derived from the company name.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Hazard — 1

Aerial survey view of Tunnel Hill (Napfor Twin Tunnels)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Tunnel Hill (Napfor Twin Tunnels)

Hazard, KY

Tunnel Hill is a pair of active railroad tunnels — the 'twin tunnels' — on the back roads of the Napfor community near Hazard in Perry County, eastern Kentucky, with two cemeteries on the ridge directly above. The site is documented as a regional legend-tripping destination by the Unusual Kentucky folklore project and has been the subject of local paranormal investigations.

$ All Ages Family: Low

Henderson — 1

Aerial survey view of The Elm (Delker Carriage Building)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Other Dark Tourism Site

The Elm (Delker Carriage Building)

Henderson, KY

The Elm occupies a building constructed in 1904 as an extension of the George Delker carriage factory in historic downtown Henderson, Kentucky. It is now recognized as one of the state's most notable paranormal sites.

$ All Ages Family: High

Hyden — 1

Aerial survey view of Hurricane Creek Mine Road

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Hurricane Creek Mine Road

Hyden, KY

On December 30, 1970, an explosion caused by coal-dust ignition struck shafts 15 and 16 of the Finley Mine on Hurricane Creek Road near Hyden, Kentucky. All 38 day-shift workers inside perished in what remains the deadliest U.S. mine disaster since the 1968 Farmington explosion. The disaster occurred exactly one year after the Coal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1969 and prompted Congressional hearings on enforcement failures. A memorial completed in 2011 at the site features 38 helmets and a miner statue.

$ All Ages Family: High

Lebanon — 1

Aerial survey view of Saint Ivos Cemetery

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Saint Ivos Cemetery

Lebanon, KY

Saint Ivos Cemetery is a rural cemetery on Saint Ivos Road near Lebanon, the county seat of Marion County in the rolling farmland of central Kentucky's Holy Land region, an area long associated with early Catholic settlement. The cemetery is documented on Find a Grave among the cemeteries of Lebanon and Marion County.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Lynch — 1

Houses at the western end of First Street, seen from Pirate Way, in Lynch, Kentucky, United States. These houses are part of the Lynch Historic District, a historic district that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Outdoor / Natural Site

Lynch Mountain Road

Lynch, KY

Lynch Mountain Road is located in Harlan County, Kentucky, in the heart of the eastern Kentucky coalfields. The Lynch area was developed as a coal company town by U.S. Steel's United States Coal and Coke Company beginning in 1917, one of the largest such developments in Appalachian history. The surrounding mountain roads carry the legacy of intense labor conflict during the Harlan County War of the 1930s.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Madisonville — 1

Aerial survey view of Grapevine Cemetery

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Grapevine Cemetery

Madisonville, KY

Grapevine Cemetery was established around September 21, 1880, in the Madisonville area of western Kentucky. The cemetery is a working historic burial ground in Hopkins County. Its most-photographed monument is a damaged stone angel that local folklore associates with a number of regional legends.

$ All Ages (daylight only) Family: Moderate

Middlesboro — 1

Aerial survey view of Middlesboro Park, near Greenwood Rd.

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Middlesboro Park, near Greenwood Rd.

Middlesboro, KY

Middlesboro, Kentucky occupies the floor of an ancient meteor impact crater — one of only a few confirmed impact structures in the eastern United States, created roughly 300-400 million years ago. The city was developed in the 1890s as an industrial center by British investors who chose the site for its circular topography and proximity to Cumberland Gap. The park near Greenwood Road is a standard city park within this geologically unusual setting.

$ All Ages Family: High

Millersburg — 1

Aerial survey view of Colville Covered Bridge

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Colville Covered Bridge

Millersburg, KY

The Colville Covered Bridge was built in 1877 by Jacob Bower of the Bower Bridge Company of Maysville, Kentucky. Spanning 124 feet across Hinkston Creek on Colville Road in Bourbon County, it is constructed of yellow poplar using a Burr truss (multiple king-post) design. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, it is one of only 11–13 covered bridges remaining in Kentucky out of more than 400 that once existed statewide.

$ All Ages Family: High

Morehead — 1

Aerial survey view of Morehead State University — Nunn Hall

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Other Dark Tourism Site

Morehead State University — Nunn Hall

Morehead, KY

Nunn Hall at Morehead State University in Morehead, Kentucky, was built in 1969 and named for Beula Nunn, wife of Governor Louie B. Nunn. The nine-story, 400-bed co-ed dormitory sits at the rear of the main campus, which was established in 1887 as Morehead Normal School. Morehead State is the only public university in the country located within a national forest — the Daniel Boone National Forest.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Oak Grove — 1

Aerial survey view of Ghost Bridge (Carter Road Bridge)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Ghost Bridge (Carter Road Bridge)

Oak Grove, KY

Ghost Bridge is the local name for a rural bridge on Carter Road near Oak Grove, Kentucky, in Christian County, just outside the gates of Fort Campbell on the Kentucky-Tennessee line. The crossing has been a regional legend-tripping site for decades and was the title location and filming site of the 2024 locally produced horror film 'Ghost Bridge.'

$ All Ages Family: Low

Olive Hill — 1

Aerial survey view of Bethel Hill Cemetery

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Bethel Hill Cemetery

Olive Hill, KY

Bethel Hill Cemetery is a rural burial ground in Carter County, near Olive Hill in eastern Kentucky. The community of Olive Hill grew up around Tygarts Creek beginning in the late 1700s and relocated to the railroad in 1882, and small hilltop cemeteries like Bethel served the surrounding farm families. The cemetery is documented in regional burial records and remains in use.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Perry Park — 1

Glenwood Hall, the antebellum manor house at the center of Perry Park Golf Resort in Owen County, Kentucky

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Perry Park Golf Resort and Glenwood Hall

Perry Park, KY

Perry Park sits on land originally hunted by Iroquois, Shawnee, Cherokee, and Miami peoples, settled in the early 1800s by Revolutionary War veteran Benjamin Perry and his family. Glenwood Hall, the manor house built between 1830 and 1850, became the clubhouse of Glenwood Hall Golf and Country Club in 1969 and remains in use today as a bed and breakfast and dining hall.

$$$ All Ages Family: High

Perryville — 1

Battlefield / Military Site

Perryville Battlefield State Historic Site

Perryville, KY

On October 8, 1862, more than 22,000 Union and Confederate soldiers clashed at Perryville in the largest and most destructive Civil War battle ever fought in Kentucky. The fighting produced approximately 7,600 casualties in a single afternoon. Confederate dead were left on the field for nearly a week before interment in mass graves, a fact that has shaped the site's reputation ever since.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Prestonsburg — 1

Aerial survey view of Adams Middle School

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Other Dark Tourism Site

Adams Middle School

Prestonsburg, KY

Active middle school in Prestonsburg serving educational functions.

$ Students Only Family: High

Providence — 1

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Wynn Cemetery

Providence, KY

Wynn Cemetery is a rural burial ground on Jim Wilson Road near Providence in Webster County, western Kentucky. It is cataloged in Kentucky cemetery registries and on Find a Grave. It contains two distinctive above-ground graves sealed with concrete slabs bearing the name HARVEY, which sit at the center of the cemetery's witch folklore.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Russellville — 1

Haunted House / Historic Home

The Sexton House

Russellville, KY

The Sexton House is a c.1870 brick house with a distinctive mansard-roofed tower standing at the edge of Maple Grove Cemetery in Russellville, Logan County, Kentucky. It was built as the residence of the cemetery's sexton (caretaker); local history credits its construction to Owen Mosley, who served as sexton of Maple Grove. The house remains a private residence.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Salyersville — 1

Aerial survey view of Mash Fork Cemetery

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Mash Fork Cemetery

Salyersville, KY

Mash Fork Cemetery sits in Magoffin County near Salyersville, a rural community in eastern Kentucky's Appalachian foothills. The Mash Fork community and its associated burial ground are documented in Magoffin County Historical Society cemetery records, which catalog graves along Mash Fork, Mine Fork, and nearby hollows. Settlement of the area dates to the early nineteenth century.

$ All Ages Family: High

Scottsville — 1

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

31E Bridge

Scottsville, KY

Highway 31E bridge near Scottsville carries traffic across waterways. Local folklore references older bridge structure that failed catastrophically.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Union — 1

Outdoor / Natural Site

Big Bone Lick State Historic Site

Union, KY

Big Bone Lick, designated the birthplace of American vertebrate paleontology, has hosted human activity for millennia. Native Americans first discovered the site; European explorers arrived in 1739. Thomas Jefferson commissioned the first organized fossil excavations in 1807 under William Clark's direction, recovering over 300 paleontological specimens.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Vancleve — 1

True Crime Site

Frozen Creek Flood Site

Vancleve, KY

Frozen Creek is a stream and rural community in northern Breathitt County, Kentucky, near Vancleve. Overnight on July 4-5, 1939, a cloudburst dropped up to nine inches of rain and sent a wall of water down the narrow valley, killing 52 people in Breathitt County (79 across 21 eastern Kentucky counties). The flood completely destroyed the Kentucky Mountain Bible Institute and swept away dozens of homes and barns.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

West Point — 1

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Ditto House Inn

West Point, KY

The Ditto House at 204 West Elm Street in West Point, Kentucky was constructed in 1823 by Abraham Ditto and his brother-in-law Samuel Lansdale as an inn serving Ohio River travelers. During the Civil War, the 9th Michigan Infantry converted the building into a field hospital that operated for approximately three years. The structure was restored in 1985 as a bed and breakfast.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Whitesburg — 1

Aerial survey view of Westwood Cemetery (Graveyard Hollow)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Westwood Cemetery (Graveyard Hollow)

Whitesburg, KY

Westwood Cemetery — long known locally as Graveyard Hollow — sits within the Westwood neighborhood off Ohio Avenue in Whitesburg, Letcher County. Its oldest section, sometimes called Sandlick Creek Cemetery, dates to at least 1842 (the year Whitesburg was founded) and contains the remains of dozens of Confederate soldiers who died at a field hospital near where Sandlick Creek emptied into the North Fork of the Kentucky River.

$ All Ages Family: High

Whitley City — 1

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Barren Fork Cemetery

Whitley City, KY

Barren Fork Cemetery is an active hilltop burial ground off US 27 near Whitley City in McCreary County, Kentucky, behind the Stearns Ranger District office. It is the most visible surviving element of the Barren Fork coal camp, a company town that operated from 1879 until the mid-1930s. The cemetery has been transcribed by the McCreary County KYGenWeb project, with burials reaching from the late nineteenth century to the present.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Winchester — 1

Museum / Historical Site

Bluegrass Heritage Museum

Winchester, KY

Built in 1887 by Dr. Ishmael as a medical facility, the Romanesque Revival structure became the Guerrant Clinic and Hospital in 1927. It operated as a medical institution until 1971, performing surgeries and serving as a hospital facility for Central Kentucky for nearly a century.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

By type

Outdoor / Natural Site (21) Other Dark Tourism Site (21) Haunted House / Historic Home (21) Cemetery / Burial Ground (21) Museum / Historical Site (20) Haunted Hotel / Inn (10) True Crime Site (8) Theater / Performance Venue (7) Haunted Dining / Bar (6) Asylum / Hospital (4) Ghost Tour / Walking Tour (3) Battlefield / Military Site (3) Prison / Reformatory (2)