The Most Haunted Places in Kansas

Ranked

1. 1. Fort Riley (Custer House & Main Post) Fort Riley · Battlefield / Military Site · Family Comfort: High

   HauntBound identified six distinct published accounts at this military site, across five kinds of published source. One later publication retells those accounts. Reported phenomena include apparitions.

   6 original accounts · documented across 4 decades, 1920-2017 · retold in 1 later publication

2. 

   2. Sallie House Atchison · Haunted House / Historic Home · Family Comfort: Low

   This mid-1800s Atchison house doubled as home and medical office for Dr. Charles Finney; local legend, never confirmed in any record, holds that a young girl died on his basement operating table during an emergency surgery. In 1993, tenants Tony and Debra Pickman documented scratches appearing on Tony's body on camera along with unexplained fires; investigators have since described a nursery so consistently active that trained dogs reportedly refuse to enter it.

   3 original accounts · documented across 2 decades, 1992-2018 · retold in 11 later publications

3. 

   3. Brown Grand Theatre Concordia · Theater / Performance Venue · Family Comfort: High

   HauntBound identified two distinct published accounts at this working theater, across four kinds of published source. Three later publications retell those accounts. Reported phenomena include apparitions and disembodied voices.

   2 original accounts · documented across 3 decades, 1907-1970 · retold in 3 later publications

4. 4. Old Cowtown Museum (Murdock House) Wichita · Museum / Historical Site · Family Comfort: High

   The centerpiece of this 23-acre frontier-Wichita museum is the 1874 home of newspaper founder Col. Marshall Murdock, where his eight-year-old daughter's funeral was held in the parlor after she died of spinal meningitis in 1883. Visitors and staff report a pigtailed girl looking out an upstairs window, a taller shadow descending the staircase, disembodied voices, and, during one investigation, a candle said to lift from its holder.

   3 original accounts · documented in 2022 · retold in 1 later publication

5. 

   5. Old Fort Hays Hays · Battlefield / Military Site · Family Comfort: Moderate

   This frontier Army post, active from 1865 to 1889, garrisoned elements of Custer's 7th Cavalry and hosted Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody; during an 1867 cholera outbreak, hospital worker Elizabeth Polly nursed dying soldiers and walked evenings to a nearby bluff before she herself died of the disease. Locals report a glowing blue light on that hill, said to be Polly still searching for the grave she requested but never received.

   2 original accounts · documented across 2 decades, 1917-1950 · retold in 4 later publications

6. 6. Hutchinson Public Library Hutchinson · Other Dark Tourism Site · Family Comfort: High

   HauntBound identified two distinct published accounts at this documented site, across four kinds of published source. Six later publications retell those accounts. Reported phenomena include a sensed presence and apparitions.

   2 original accounts · documented across 2 decades, 1975-2003 · retold in 6 later publications

7. 7. The Rookery (Fort Leavenworth) Leavenworth · Haunted House / Historic Home · Family Comfort: High Private, not open to visitors

   Built in 1832 at Fort Leavenworth, The Rookery is the oldest continuously inhabited building on an active U.S. Army post and briefly housed George Custer in 1867, before his court-martial that year. Generations of officers' families have reported unexplained footsteps, objects moved without cause, and cold spots in rooms with no outside air source, including a 2010 account published by the Army itself describing one family's experience in the quarters.

   4 original accounts · documented across 1 decade, 2000-2009 · retold in 1 later publication

8. 

   8. New Century AirCenter Gardner · Other Dark Tourism Site · Family Comfort: High

   Naval Air Station Olathe opened in 1942 and trained John Glenn among its first cadets before closing in 1970 and being redeveloped into today's New Century AirCenter. In the late 1950s or early 1960s a pilot died attempting a night landing in bad weather and crashed into a hangar wall; security guards there since have reported directional voices with no source, whistles, footsteps on empty catwalks, and locks and doors that will not stay put.

   1 original account (known through later citation) · documented across 2 decades, 1950-1960 · retold in 1 later publication

9. 

   9. Stull Cemetery Stull · Cemetery / Burial Ground · Family Comfort: High

   HauntBound identified three distinct published accounts at this burial ground, across five kinds of published source. Seven later publications retell those accounts. Reported phenomena include phantom sounds.

   3 original accounts · documented in 1970 · retold in 7 later publications

10. 

    10. Eaton Place (Carey House / Eaton Hotel) Wichita · Other Dark Tourism Site · Family Comfort: High Private, not open to visitors

    Built in 1887 as the Carey House by Wichita mayor John Carey, this hotel became infamous when temperance activist Carrie Nation stormed its barroom in 1900, smashing mirrors and bar decor with a hatchet; it was renamed the Eaton Hotel and converted to apartments in 1999. Legend describes a woman killed in the hotel whose case was never solved, said to walk the upper floors lifting phone receivers and disturbing roses left in the building.

    1 original account · documented across 3 decades, 1886-1929

Superlatives