All states / Iowa
Explore 50 haunted places in Iowa. Read ghost stories, local history, source notes, and visiting information in the PHASM Haunted Atlas.
Dubuque, Iowa · Hotel
Callum Swift's Haunted Places account describes hotel staff and guests seeing a man wearing old-fashioned clothing on the upper floors. Some storytellers identify him as Al Capone, a name woven into the hotel's wider legend.
Ottumwa, Iowa · Hotel
A Callum Swift submission to Haunted Places describes a woman in white in the former basement ballroom and a suited man wandering the corridors. Other reports include a face in the basement, moving shadows and audible breathing when no one is visible.
West Des Moines, Iowa · Historic house
The Jordan House legend centers on a young daughter of the original owner, said to have died after a fall from a stair railing. Haunted Places reports that visitors still hear and see the child playing through the rooms.
Decorah, Iowa · Other
Gertrude is the third-floor trickster in the Larsen Hall legend collected by Haunted Places. She supposedly hides belongings, triggers alarms and exchanges contemporary clothing for old-fashioned garments. Student lore connects her with a prospective student killed before she could begin college.
Hopkinton, Iowa · Other
A submission by Chanelle H. to Haunted Places recounts visitors seeing a woman at a dormitory window. Local lore says she waits for a fiancé who went to war. In one account, a child noticed her, but the figure was gone when the rest of the family looked.
Malvern, Iowa · Hospital
Josh H.'s submission to Haunted Places reports shadow figures, unexplained voices and sudden bangs inside the former hotel and care home. Visitors also describe hair being tugged and the sensation of being grabbed.
Dubuque, Iowa · Other
Student lore collected by Haunted Places links Mary Frances Hall with founder Mary Frances Clarke. Reports include footsteps, a sense of being watched and a covered figure near the chapel. The fourth-floor storage area also has a reputation for unexplained activity.
Bentonsport / Keosauqua, Iowa · Hotel
Haunted Places describes a boy seen on the landing and felt tugging guests' clothing in Room 5. A spirit called Knapp is associated with Room 7, while Room 8 has a floating-head story. An elderly woman's apparition reportedly appears in upstairs bedrooms.
Davenport, Iowa · Other
Haunted Places collects reports of conversations without visible speakers, names called in empty rooms and unexplained footsteps. Furniture reportedly shifts, visitors feel a touch with nobody nearby, and occasional full human apparitions vanish before witnesses.
Madrid, Iowa · Cemetery
Haunted Places describes Sara, a child's spirit said to follow cemetery visitors while asking for someone called Ree. People report hearing her voice and feeling clothes pulled or a touch when they do not answer.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa · Cemetery
Haunted Places recounts the legend of Tillie, a young Czech girl said to wander Oak Hill with a burning candle. In the darker version of the tale, she tries to draw visitors into a mausoleum.
Iowa City, Iowa · Cemetery
Iowa City’s Black Angel watches over a family memorial in Oakland Cemetery. Local legends give its dark bronze a more unsettling meaning: a changing color, a dangerous touch and consequences for disrespect. The city preserves both the monument’s history and the rules for visiting it.
Ottumwa, Iowa · Cemetery
Haunted Places records dark forms perched on grave markers or slipping behind trees, together with whispers and footsteps through the grass. Another tale describes a white cat circling a visitor's feet before disappearing.
Palo, Iowa · Cemetery
Thirteen steps climb toward the burial ground in the local story recorded by Haunted Places. Visitors report human shapes, touches from unseen hands and voices noticed in recordings made at the cemetery.
Decorah, Iowa · Historic house
Haunted Places records a reputation for mischievous spirits at Porter House Museum. Its account does not identify a ghost or describe a particular encounter, so the surviving story is a lighthearted haunting tradition attached to the historic house.
Sioux City, Iowa · Theater
Haunted Places recounts a spectral electrician called Rodriguez, blamed for lights flickering and switching without explanation. A separate story within the same building concerns a boy whose crying is reportedly heard near cold spots.
Council Bluffs, Iowa · Prison
The old rotating-cell jail carries a story about a former jailer who never finished his watch. Haunted Places describes his spirit as still remaining on duty inside the unusual multi-level prison, now presented as a museum.
Hamburg, Iowa · Cemetery
Haunted Places records sightings of a woman's spirit kneeling before three statues of the Virgin Mary. Visitors have also reported mournful cries apparently coming from the statues themselves.
Russell, Iowa · Cemetery
The Stone King is said to sit on his grave behind the cemetery's trees, while more recent accounts describe a bright light approaching visitors. Haunted Places also collects stories of injured-looking apparitions and an unseen force that stopped people climbing stairs in the former family house.
Burlington, Iowa · Road or bridge
Lucinda is the spirit associated with Stony Hollow Road in the account collected by Haunted Places. The legend says she died after her lover failed to arrive for their escape together. Her apparition is sometimes linked with a rose said to foretell misfortune.
Kellerton / Mount Ayr, Iowa · Cemetery
The haunting reported by Haunted Places is centered in the trees surrounding Tedrow Cemetery. Visitors describe luminous shapes among the woods, dark figures and unexplained footsteps, with moans and other sounds coming from unseen sources.
Iowa Falls, Iowa · Other
At Ellsworth Community College, Haunted Places records voices and footsteps in Thompson Hall's basement. The story connects an apparition with town benefactor Mr. Ellsworth, whose name also appears in the lore of the cemetery across the street.
Fairfield, Iowa · Other
Haunted Places records objects shifting in the restaurant kitchen, quiet voices in the restrooms and footsteps from an upstairs floor when it was apparently empty. The account does not attach these disturbances to a named spirit.
Guthrie Center, Iowa · Cemetery
An unmarked concrete seat between two family plots has become Union Cemetery's Devil's Chair. Haunted Places records a longstanding local belief that sitting there brings a run of bad luck.