Franklin County Town on Route 66 with Multiple Haunted Sites
Sullivan, MO 63080
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Driving tour of public locations. Free to visit exterior. Individual attraction fees may apply.
Access
Limited Access
Multiple sites across Sullivan; mix of urban streets and rural roads
Equipment
Photos OK
Sullivan is a city of approximately 7,000 in Franklin County, Missouri, situated along historic Route 66 roughly 70 miles southwest of St. Louis. The city serves as a gateway to the Missouri Ozarks and has a downtown historic district along the old highway corridor.
The Shadowlands Haunted Places Index listing for 'Sullivan' without a specific venue address reflects the city's general paranormal reputation rather than a single location. Regional sources identify several distinct sites in and around Sullivan with individual ghost traditions.
Woodlock Cemetery — actually located outside the tiny town of Davisville in Shannon County, near Salem, but consistently associated with Sullivan-area ghost lore — sits on a hillside reached by long stone steps through a stone archway. Its most distinctive feature is the headstones arranged in a large circle around a single central marker, where the Woodlock family is said to have performed a nighttime burial ceremony involving torches placed in holes around the central headstone. The land is now private property, and trespassing is discouraged.
The Bourbon Road Ghost Lights, on a winding rural route near Sullivan, have been reported as floating luminescent orbs since at least the early 1960s, when a Sullivan High School science teacher and a companion spent a night searching for the lights and reportedly saw them. The reports place the phenomenon within Missouri's broader ghost-light tradition.
The former Ramada Inn — now a Holiday Inn — on the main highway carries a tradition about a girl named Aggie who is said to have died after falling from a barn window. The Possum Hollow Road bridge is associated with a reported fatal vehicle accident. Sullivan is also home to Terror on Route 66, a theatrical haunted attraction at the seasonal end of the spectrum.
Sources
Sullivan, Missouri's paranormal landscape is distributed across several distinct locations, each with its own tradition.
Woodlock Cemetery sits on a hillside outside Davisville, reached by long stone steps through a stone archway. The cemetery's most unusual feature is the circular layout of its headstones around a single central marker — the focal point of what local tradition holds was a nighttime Woodlock-family burial ceremony involving torches placed in holes around the central stone. Reports include apparitions and a phantom horse. Skeptics who have visited describe an uneasy feeling in the space.
On Bourbon Road, a rural route near Sullivan, residents and travelers have reported floating orbs for decades — luminescent lights that appear along the road and in the surrounding woods. In the early 1960s, a science teacher at Sullivan High School went out with a friend to investigate accounts students were sharing; according to local lore, the pair did see the lights after spending all night searching. The Bourbon Road lights fall into the Missouri 'ghost light' tradition documented across the state.
The former Ramada Inn — now a Holiday Inn on the main highway — carries a tradition involving Aggie, a girl said to have died after falling from a barn window on the original property, who has been reported on the premises.
Possum Hollow Road has a bridge associated with a reported fatal vehicle accident. Paranormal phenomena associated with accident sites are among the most common categories in regional folklore. None of these accounts in Sullivan have been the subject of formal paranormal investigation documentation available in public sources.
Drive the Sullivan, Missouri area to pass locations associated with regional ghost lore: Woodlock Cemetery on its hilltop above town, the former Holiday Inn where Aggie the little girl is said to haunt, and Bourbon Road where mysterious floating lights have been reported for decades. Sullivan is also home to Terror on Route 66, a theatrical seasonal haunted attraction.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Milan, MO
Milan, the county seat of Sullivan County, Missouri, sits on land with a pre-European occupation history that became visible during courthouse construction. Excavation for the second Sullivan County Courthouse in the 1850s disturbed a V-shaped earthen mound elevated approximately 15 feet, from which three Native American skeletal remains were recovered. Milan has been the county seat since Sullivan County's formation and the C-2 school district has served the community for generations.
Glenrio, NM
Glenrio is a former railroad and Route 66 settlement straddling the Texas-New Mexico state line in Deaf Smith and Quay counties. Founded in 1903 as a Rock Island Railroad siding, it became a popular Route 66 service stop between Amarillo and Tucumcari before Interstate 40 bypassed the town in September 1973. The 31.7-acre Glenrio Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.
Raytown, MO
Rickey Road is a short rural backroad in Raytown, Missouri, in the southeastern Kansas City metro. The road runs through wooded terrain off Old Noland Road and includes a wooden bridge and a series of chevron signs that anchor the local legend cycle.