Austin Archives - Ghosts and Haunted Places

Ghosts of Austin, Texas – Photos and Where to Find More

If you’re ghost hunting in or near Austin, mine was the first regional book to describe – with specific details and addresses – ghosts that haunt Austin, Columbus, and nearby communities.

The Ghosts of Austin, Texas, by Fiona Broome.

Discover over 100 haunted locations in and near Austin, Texas. Explore the eerie links between downtown Austin’s ghosts, including the city’s connection with Jack the Ripper, and the creek that keeps on haunting.

Available at Amazon.com and other fine booksellers.

Photos from haunted Austin, Texas and vicinity

Here’s the photo from the book cover, in more detail:

This picture was taken in Columbus, Texas, not far from Austin. I was there around dawn, and the sun had barely cleared the horizon behind me.

This is not a flash photo, and it was a normal Texas morning in Columbus City Cemetery.
There was no dust, and that’s not an insect, either.
As you can see from the photo (or if you visited the cemetery), there are no reflective surfaces to cause a lens flare.

I lightened the picture slightly (but did not alter the contrast or anything else) so you can see the orb and cemetery features more clearly.

That’s an extraordinary photograph, and it’s one of many from that cemetery.

This next photo was taken the same morning, pointing in the opposite direction. This isn’t a flash photo, either, but it has no orbs.

Nevertheless, I think you can see why I like researching at Columbus, Texas. It’s downright eerie.

Of course, Columbus is one of many locations in my book, The Ghosts of Austin. The main focus is on Austin, and it offers a wealth of haunted sites.

My favorite haunted cemetery in Austin

Oakwood Cemetery is among my favorite public haunts in Texas. It’s a large cemetery near downtown Austin. If you’re ghost hunting in Austin, plan to spend several hours there.

It’s surrounded by a fence you can see through. So, even after dark, you may get some great ghost photos and other evidence. (However, the neighborhood is mostly residential. Please respect their privacy.)

At any cemetery — including Oakwood — I look for grave markers with messages like this one:

“And never suffer me to be separated from thee” is a lovely sentiment. It’s also the kind of inscription that can indicate tragedy or at least deep unhappiness. Both are red flags that can suggest a haunting.

The marker, above, is one of many at Oakwood featuring emotional inscriptions.

Here’s another grave to look for. It’s a very damaged crypt. Any time you see a grave like this, check it for EMF, cold spots, EVP, and photographic anomalies.

In the following photo, you’ll see a similar, damaged grave in that same cemetery. Where’s the body or the coffin? (I hope it was moved to a safe location, or reburied in the ground beneath the open crypt.)

No matter where the body is, when you see an open grave like this, it’s a place to investigate with care.

Even more ghosts of Austin at Oakwood Cemetery?

The next photo features an odd family plot, also at Oakwood Cemetery. I understand the convenience of a low-maintenance grave site. However, this cement-covered plot is so unusual, I look at and wonder, “Are they trying to be sure everyone stays in their coffins?”

In general, always look for unusual graves.

For example, these two shell-covered graves stand out at Oakwood Cemetery.

In the next photo: Many of the cemetery’s headstones are worth researching. Here’s one to look into, if you’re planning a trip to Oakwood.

When I was there, I noticed odd EMF spikes around this grave. That doesn’t mean it was haunted, but it’s unusual enough to investigate.

I’m pretty sure it says, “M. Julia, wife of M. R. Reagan, & daughter of M. F. Bailey. Died July 23, 1861. Aged 26 years.”

(Double-check the actual stone to be certain. The photo isn’t clear and I may be misreading it, especially her parent’s surname.)

So, you’d be looking for records of a woman born around 1835, who married Mr. Reagan around 1855 or so, and died in 1861.

I’d start with death records for that date, and also check the 1860 census. It looks like her husband died September 30, 1865, so that’s another lead you can pursue.

With the EMF spikes I saw around that exact grave, I’ll bet there’s a tragic story, and perhaps a ghost.

Official book description

The Ghosts of Austin, Texas was written by Fiona Broome, the founder of HollowHill.com, one of the Internet’s earliest, largest, and most respected ghost-related websites.

This book shares locations and stories of over 100 ghosts and haunted places in Austin, as well as those within a few hours’ drive of Austin. Photos in the book include haunted sites in Austin, Columbus, and San Antonio, Texas.

Ms. Broome was one of the first to report hauntings related to Jack the Ripper’s early years in Texas. (Since Fiona’s book was published in 2007, many “ghost tours” have included those sites in their routes.)

Fiona also identifies paranormal patterns that link many of Austin’s most famous haunted places. With this information, you may find even more haunted sites in and near Austin. Fiona gives you the tools to make your own discoveries.

Originally from New England, Fiona spent four fascinating years in the great state of Texas, researching ghosts and haunted places from Austin to Galveston.

Fiona specializes in unreported and under-reported haunted places that are open to the public. She approaches ghost hunting from an historical viewpoint, verifying and documenting ghosts’ actual histories whenever possible.

This book doesn’t repeat the same old “ghost stories.” It’s a fascinating study of over 130 ghosts and haunted places in and near Austin, Texas.

Many of them were unknown, prior to Ms. Broome’s 2002 – 2007 research.

The sites include:

The Driskill Hotel
Shoal Creek… and its curse
The Texas Governor’s Mansion
Austin’s former “red light” district
And over a hundred more, eerie, haunted locations in Austin, San Antonio, and nearby cities and towns.

This book includes true tales of ghostly encounters, street addresses of the haunted sites, helpful tips for ghost hunters, and eerie insights from “the other side.”

“…Spell-binding stories backed up with historical data and loads of photographs… recommended reading.” — Margaret Byl, Paranormal Investigator and writer

BUY THE BOOK

The Ghosts of Austin, Texas: Who the Ghosts Are and Where to Find Them, by Fiona Broome

Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Schiffer Publishing
Published: 15 June 2007
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0764326805
ISBN-13: 978-0764326806
Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pound
Available from Amazon.com

The 5 Most Haunted Places in Austin, Texas

5 most haunted places in Austin, Texas Austin, Texas is a wonderfully haunted city. Its ghosts are more colorful than most, with the kinds of histories you’d expect from a “Wild West” city.

From former corrupt sheriffs to colorful madams, and from cursed bricks to the ghost of a US President, Austin may have more ghosts per square foot than any city in America.

Many of Austin’s ghosts linger because they want to, not because they’re stuck in our earthly plane.

These are the five places that I’d visit with just a brief time to investigate Austin’s ghosts.

1. The Driskill Hotel

You have to stay somewhere when you’re in Austin, so why not stay at the city’s most elegant, haunted hotel?

In my book, The Ghosts of Austin, Texas, I devote an entire chapter to the Driskill’s great ghosts.

The lobby has at least two ghosts. One is a little girl who follows a bouncing ball (that manifests as an orb) on the staircase near the front desk.

Almost directly across the lobby from that staircase, a small room was once the hotel’s vault. It’s haunted by the cheerful ghost of a Depression-era hotel manager. When the banks closed during one financial crisis, the Driskill’s manager opened the vault and handed out cash to patrons. He trusted them to return the money when they could, and every one of them did. His ghost lingers through hard times and good, occasionally greeting guests in slightly outdated formal wear.

Be sure to visit the Maximilian Room, for some of America’s most haunted mirrors. (For their tragic history, see pages 18 & 19 in my book about Austin’s ghosts.)

Note: I’m not sure if that mirror is still in the Maximilian Room, and if it’s still haunted. Here’s what you need to know about haunted mirrors:

Upstairs, in addition to famous ghosts such as LBJ, you may catch a glimpse of the phantom hotel security guard. He’s always on the job, striding quickly through the halls. He’s making sure that everyone is safe and sound in this magnificent hotel.

2. Buffalo Billiards [Closed]

Location: 201 East Sixth Street, Austin, TX (Buffalo Billiards may have closed, but that address may still be haunted.)

Buffalo Billiards was less than a block away from the Driskill Hotel. In 1861, as the Missouri Hotel, it was Austin’s first “boarding house” and a popular place for a cowboy to find a date… for an hour or so.

When I investigated the area, the former brothel was one of Austin’s most popular night spots. At the time, I said: “Stop in for a drink and some food, and you’ll see tourists, locals, and scantily-clothed ghosts among the crowd.”

Now, it’s closed, per this article: Buffalo Billiards, A Longtime Downtown Austin Bar, Closed Permanently.

3. The Spaghetti Warehouse [Closed]

Location: 117 West Fourth Street, Austin, TX (Per Yelp, it’s now closed.)

When you’re ready for a good, filling meal, Austin’s Spaghetti Warehouse is the place to eat… and encounter ghosts.

Ask your waiter about the latest ghost sightings at the Spaghetti Warehouse. Most of the staff seem to have first-person stories to share.

In addition to quirky poltergeist activity, ask about the ghost who appears as a man – or just legs – around the restaurant’s vault.

An alternative, still open for business (2023): Stroll up the street to the upscale gay men’s bar, Oilcan Harry’s. (In fact, it’s the oldest operating LGBTQ+ bar in Austin.)

There, look carefully for one of Austin’s most colorful ghosts, the late madam Blanche Dumont. She’ll be among the dancers.

4. Texas Capitol Building

(Start at the Visitors’ Ctr: 112 E 11th Street, Austin, TX)

Day and night, you’ll see ghosts around the Capitol building. The most famous is probably Governor Edmund Jackson Davis (1827 – 1883) who is seen gazing from a first-floor window. On foggy and misty days – especially around mid-winter – and around dusk, he’s seen walking on the paved paths around the Capitol building. He’s tall and has a mustache, but people most often comment on his chilling stare. He often pauses when he sees someone, stares at them, and doesn’t move until they’ve passed him.

If you’re at the Capitol, be sure to walk past the Texas Governor’s Mansion. It has a dramatic history with multiple hauntings. I recommend early morning photos at the mansion grounds, as well.

5. Oakwood Cemetery and Oakwood Annex Cemetery

Location: Navasota St., Austin, TX

Oakwood Cemetery and its annex may be Austin’s most beautiful and haunted cemetery. There, you can visit the graves of many of Austin’s ghosts including Susannah Wilkerson Dickinson and Ben Thompson.

Most of Austin’s cemeteries close at dusk – and you should not visit that area alone at any time, but especially as nightfall approaches.

However, if you visit that neighborhood with friends, and the cemetery is closed, you can take photos through the openings in the fences around Oakwood.

(If you’ve been in the cemetery during the day, you’ll know exactly where to point your camera to capture eerie, phantom images.)

Austin features many more, chilling locations where you can encounter ghosts and other frightening entities.

Some of them – such as the nightly appearance of as many as a million bats, around one downtown Austin bridge – are entertaining.

Others, such as the ghost of Jack the Ripper and his victims, are best avoided unless you have nerves of steel.

Looking for More Ghosts in Austin…?

For more ghosts (and true ghost stories) around Austin, read my book, The Ghosts of Austin, Texas.

However, as of 2023, many of those haunted locations are now closed or are under different ownership.

IMPORTANT: Sites are often haunted because of what happened at those physical locations. Whether the site is now a corporate office building or a fast-food restaurant, it may still be haunted.

Here’s what I’d said about my 2008 book:

In its pages, I list over 130 ghosts and haunted places in and near Austin, Texas.

You’ll discover:

The Driskill Hotel’s many ghosts.
A detailed list of Austin’s most haunted cemeteries and some of their most infamous graves.
The eerie connection between Austin and Jack the Ripper.
Why the Shoal Creek Curse lingers over Austin and – possibly – surrounding communities.

And – if you live in Austin or you’ll be there for a few days – my book includes haunted sites around Austin, including Columbus, Texas.

(I describe Columbus’ strange history and many ghosts as something like a “theme park for ghost hunters.”)

The editing in this book is typical of when it was published – at the peak of the Ghost Hunters craze – but you won’t find a more complete (and personally researched) book about ghost hunting in Austin.

It’s the original guide to ghost hunting in Austin. If you’re serious about paranormal research it’s still the best way to find the physical locations of real ghosts when you’re in Texas’ capital city.

Find it at Amazon: The Ghosts of Austin, Texas, by Fiona Broome.

Austin Ghosts and the Shoal Creek Curse, TX

Austin, Texas has many ghosts. While researching Austin for my 2007 book, The Ghosts of Austin, Texas, I found patterns to many of the hauntings. Here’s one of them.

The Shoal Creek Curse

Ghosts of Austin, Texas - the Shoal Creek Curse O. Henry, the famous author and former resident of Austin, once wrote, “It is a well-known tradition in Austin and vicinity that there is a buried treasure of great value on the banks of Shoal Creek, about a mile west of the city…”

Two treasures were buried at Shoal Creek. One is from 1770 and the other is from 1836. One may have been found; the other wasn’t.

Searching for those treasures resulted in many deaths and hauntings. But, gold isn’t all that’s buried at Shoal Creek, and treasure hunters aren’t its only ghosts.

Gideon White was killed with several others during the 1842 massacre at Shoal Creek. No one is certain how many of the victims were buried at the site. (White’s grave at nearby Oakwood Cemetery is also haunted.)

There are many other unmarked graves at Shoal Creek. Many victims of cholera and yellow fever were hastily buried at the Creek.

These include soldiers who camped at the creek during the Civil War, and those who served with General Custer during his Reconstructionist occupation of Austin.

Most of those bodies were later removed and reinterred at Arlington National Cemetery, but about 35 graves were never found.

Then, in April 1915, a flash flood took even more lives along the banks of Shoal Creek.

Ghosts of Austin, Texas - book — If you’re interested in true ghost stories and haunted places in and around Austin, read Fiona’s best-selling book.

These are just a few of the tragedies associated with Shoal Creek, making it one of Austin’s most haunted areas.

Ghosts are reported at many sites around the creek, including the parking lot at Central Market.

But the ghosts don’t stop at Shoal Creek. Architect and builder Abner Cook used clay from Shoal Creek for bricks.

And then he built homes and public buildings around Austin. So far, I’ve found a ghost story at almost every site he built with Shoal Creek bricks.

In my book, The Ghosts of Austin, you’ll learn how Abner Cook’s business practices turned Austin into Texas’ most haunted city… and where to find his creepy, haunted sites.

(Visit his grave, too. I’m not sure it’s haunted, but nearby graves certainly are.)

The Ghosts of Austin, Texas describes over 130 ghosts and haunted places in and around Austin. From fun (but true) “ghost stories” to chilling tales of dark, haunted places, this book offers plenty to delight every ghost enthusiast.

Related article: The Five Most Haunted Places in Austin, Texas

Columbus, TX – Ghost Orbs

Columbus City Cemetery in Columbus, Texas, is a wonderful, photogenic cemetery about an hour and a half west of Houston, where I-10 meets Highway 71. It’s across from the second largest oak tree in Texas.

Columbus is well worth the drive, especially early in November when they celebrate “Live Oaks and Dead Folks,” in the city cemetery.

Ghost hunters should visit the cemetery just after dawn or at dusk. The cemetery is in a large, mostly-empty field, accessed from a dirt path that’s studded with tall weeds. In areas with poisonous snakes, it’s not smart to explore areas like this in the dark.

Because the cemetery is covered with trees that shield the graves, it’s possible to take flash photos after the sun comes up, if you get better results with artificial light.

In the photo above, the sun was up, but I needed a flash photo to see much of anything there. The tree cover is that dense.

At the center of the photo, the dark object at horizon level is the angel monument that you’ll see in one of our daytime orb photos. (That’s the photo on the cover of my 2007 book, The Ghosts of Austin, Texas.)

Even in daylight, you can still capture orbs in photos at Columbus City Cemetery. That’s a rare treat for ghost hunters.

Columbus, TX – Daytime Ghost Orbs

Columbus City Cemetery, in Columbus, Texas, is one of the most photogenic cemeteries in southeast Texas, and it may be one of its most delightfully haunted.

In the daytime photo above, an orb appears near the angel monument. The skies were heavily overcast, so this wasn’t a lens flare; the sun wasn’t visible, and no flash was used.

During three separate visits to the cemetery, nearly every photo of this angel shows at least one orb, and sometimes two or three.

The eerie mists in the photo, Columbus, Texas – Ectoplasm are just to the left of the angel.

These graves are almost in the center of a very large field that’s been set aside as the Columbus City Cemetery at 1300 Walnut Street in Columbus, Texas. Only a small percentage of the graves have headstones, but those that do are often extraordinarily beautiful… and haunted.

This cemetery is described in more detail in my book, The Ghosts of Austin, Texas. That book contains a full chapter about haunted sites in nearby Columbus.

ghostbat

Columbus, Texas – Ghostly Ectoplasm?

Ectoplasm? I’m not sure what caused the odd misty areas in the unretouched photo at left. (And, to be honest, I’m not sure anyone knows what ectoplasm is. We usually use the term to mean an expansive area of colorful, translucent energy.)

Look for the whitish, pink, and red areas in the photo. I have no explanation for any of those anomalies. They remind me of the colorful orb-ish shapes in the anomalies at New Orleans’ Jackson Square.

The photo was taken with a tripod and a delayed shutter. I stood to the side of the camera. When the flash went off, I could clearly see anything that might have been in front of the camera.

In other words, I didn’t see any bugs to explain these odd, colorful areas.

There was no chance of a camera strap, jewelry, or hair reflecting light on the lens. Also, since I was over five feet away when the photo was taken, it’s not breath.

I took over 200 photos in this cemetery, and none of them show insects. As usual, I’d looked for bugs before taking any photos. I saw none except the mounds indicating fire ants. (I was in sandals and kept my distance.)

The Columbus City Cemetery — also called Old City Cemetery — is on Walnut Street in Columbus, Texas, not far from the middle of town. In 1870, it was deeded to the city as an existing cemetery.

No one is certain how old the graves are, but the earliest headstone is dated 1853.

This wasn’t the first time I’d seen non-orb anomalies in Columbus photos. I’d seen possible ecto in a photo taken during a “Live Oaks and Dead Folks” tour, a popular annual event in Columbus, Texas.

This is an especially interesting cemetery. Many of the grave markers were washed away in a flood at the end of 1913. Disturbed graves could explain the recurring fog-like mist or ectoplasm in photos. There are at least 500 unmarked graves there.

This cemetery also contains the grave of Jonathan W. Sargent (1877 – 1929), who was killed in a car accident near Columbus. He’d assisted Howard Carter in Egypt, and may have been a victim of the famous “curse” of King Tutankhamen’s tomb.

In addition, the cemetery was the final resting place of many Confederate soldiers, as well as victims of the 1873 yellow fever epidemic.

Any one of these could account for higher-than-average paranormal activity in this lovely cemetery.

I recommend this cemetery for ghost enthusiasts, but only during daytime hours. After dark, uneven ground and the possibility of snakes make investigations treacherous.

The cemetery is patrolled regularly by police, who visited while I was there. Day and night, they can see activity in the cemetery from at least three nearby roads, so don’t expect to escape notice when you’re in the cemetery.

Since Columbus Cemetery’s orbs can be photographed in daylight, an early morning or late afternoon visit could be worthwhile.