Mathias Ham House Historic Site tops Iowa's new evidence-ranked haunted index

Mathias Ham House Historic Site in Dubuque ranks #1 in HauntBound's 2026 index of Iowa's most haunted places, which ranks sites by published evidence rather than reputation. Villisca Axe Murder House, the state's most famous haunted site, ranks #9. Dubuque County holds two of the top ten.

The top five:

1. Mathias Ham House Historic Site, Dubuque
2. Stony Hollow Road, Burlington
3. Edinburgh Manor, Scotch Grove
4. Oakland Cemetery, Iowa City
5. Lawther Hall, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls (exterior viewing only)

Farrar Schoolhouse in Maxwell (visits by guided tour only) has the most distinct published accounts of any Iowa site, eight. The oldest documented site is Historic Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison, dating to 1839. Mathias Ham House Historic Site in Dubuque is the index's most family-friendly pick in the state. Apparitions are the most commonly reported phenomenon, on record at 42 sites. The ranking weighs how independent the accounts are and how many decades they span, not only how many there are, so the most documented site is not always the one ranked first.

"We rank by evidence, not legend: independent published accounts, documented history, and how far back the reports go. We don't claim ghosts are real, or that they aren't. We document where the reports concentrate, and we show our work," said Ben Fineman, editor of HauntBound.

HauntBound ranks each state's places by the documented record of reported haunting phenomena: the quantity, independence, persistence and documentary quality of published reports. A story retold many times counts for less than independent accounts, and a source that only establishes a building's history never counts as evidence of a haunting. The index does not try to determine whether paranormal phenomena are real. The 2026 index reflects sources identified and classified as of September 15, 2026.

For media:The full ranking: https://hauntbound.com/most-haunted/iowa/The fact sheet, with city-by-city numbers and cleared images: https://hauntbound.com/press/fact-sheets/iowa/Interviews by email and city-by-city data on request.

HauntBound (hauntbound.com) is a family-friendly field guide to more than 6,000 documented haunted and historic places across the United States, ranked by published evidence rather than legend. No venue pays to be listed or ranked.

Media contact: Ben Fineman, Editor, HauntBound, editor@hauntbound.com

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