All states / Tennessee
Explore 54 haunted places in Tennessee. Read ghost stories, local history, source notes, and visiting information in the PHASM Haunted Atlas.
Knoxville, Tennessee · Hospital
Visit Knoxville records reports of unexplained lights, voices and shadowy figures on the former hospital grounds now incorporated into Lakeshore Park. The haunting reputation attaches to the landscape and surviving buildings; most of the former hospital complex no longer stands.
Hurricane Mills, Tennessee · Historic house
A Tennessee economic-development article recounts Loretta Lynn returning from tour and seeing a woman in white crying on the balcony. When she asked who was upstairs, she was told no one else was home. Family members and guides tell similar stories of figures and disturbances around the house, making the balcony encounter central to its folklore.
Franklin, Tennessee · Historic house
Tennessee Tourism recounts a crying woman, a small girl at a window, drumming and possessions apparently shifting inside this Battle of Franklin house. The domestic figures share its folklore with the sounds of the fighting that once surrounded it.
Knoxville, Tennessee · Historic house
Tennessee Tourism records Evelyn Hazen’s claim that Jack, the ghost of an old friend, visited her at home for several weeks. The mansion now uses its family history and nineteenth-century Spiritualist traditions to frame seasonal séance reenactments; those staged experiences are separate from Evelyn’s reported encounters.
Bolivar, Tennessee · Historic house
Southern Spirit Guide records guests seeing a woman descend Magnolia Manor’s staircase and feeling a female presence touch them in their rooms. Some described their bedcovers being pulled away during the night. The house’s former bed-and-breakfast operation and repeated paranormal investigations helped circulate these domestic haunting accounts.
Knoxville, Tennessee · Cemetery
Old Gray’s best-known spectral resident is a dark-robed figure popularly called Black Aggie. Southern Spirit Guide describes decades of stories about the figure moving among the monuments, while explaining that the name traveled from similar legends elsewhere. The story concerns an apparition on these grounds, not proof that a particular statue is alive.
Bolivar, Tennessee · Prison
Southern Spirit Guide records a dark figure passing through the booking area and a woman sobbing in the former women’s cells. Investigators also reported a voice near the sheriff’s office and an unusual spirit request for a chocolate milkshake. The accounts concern the mid-century former jail on East Market Street.
Harriman, Tennessee · Hospital
The operator’s account centers on Joanna, a nurse said to continue her rounds in the former A3 intensive-care and cardiac unit. In the newer hospital wing, employees and townspeople also reported people at windows, children moving through the corridors and items shifting in empty rooms. The building’s medical use ended in 2013.
South Pittsburg, Tennessee · Hospital
The Ghost Research Society’s visits produced reports of crying in the geriatrics wing, voices in empty corridors and an apparent woman photographed in Martha’s Room. Former staff accounts add babies crying in an empty nursery, medicine carts moving and figures mistaken for intruders. These are investigator and witness interpretations of the former hospital.
Memphis, Tennessee · Theater
Memphis’s Orpheum Theatre is famous not only for its gilded auditorium, but for Mary, a mischievous child spirit whose story has become part of the venue’s own history.
Chattanooga, Tennessee · Natural landmark
Guides at Raccoon Mountain Caverns have described cigar smoke, whistling and a figure associated with night watchman Willie Cowan, who died in a 1966 fire. Southern Spirit Guide places these accounts along the cave-tour route and in the rebuilt visitor facilities. Writer Amy Petulla also reported a light during a scheduled blackout underground.
Knoxville, Tennessee · Historic house
Visit Knoxville describes Billy, a child spirit said to tap people’s arms, and Ann, a tall, thin woman with her hair in a bun. Passersby once mistook the latter for an after-hours intruder. Other stories feature footsteps, shadows and occasional unexplained cursing.
Spring Hill, Tennessee · Historic house
During a Rippavilla investigation, writer Lewis O. Powell IV heard a small male voice answer the group from an unoccupied side of a room. He also describes lamps found illuminated after investigators left the upstairs dark. Volunteers told him of tobacco and medicinal smells and dresses that had shifted on the beds.
Kingsport, Tennessee · Historic house
Rotherwood’s Lady in White is identified in local stories as Rowena Ross, searching by the Holston River for a lost sweetheart. Haunted Places also describes an unsettling laugh attributed to later owner Joshua Phipps. These are two strands of the mansion’s folklore; the tragic biographies are not independently established by the haunting entry.
Chattanooga, Tennessee · Natural landmark
In a story shared with Southern Spirit Guide by Chattanooga ghost-tour operator Amy Petulla, a late security guard announces himself through the smell of the sugar cookies once packed in his lunch. He is also blamed for loosening a cave lightbulb. Other guides have reported unseen interference with visitors’ belongings underground.
Nashville, Tennessee · Theater
Tennessee’s state-library folklore exhibit recounts Captain Ryman noisily pacing the aisles when he disapproves of a performance. A quieter figure, the Gray Man, is said to watch rehearsals from the balcony and vanish when approached. Staff stories also place Hank Williams’s voice in the building after closing.
Smyrna, Tennessee · Historic house
Employees quoted by the Rutherford County Historical Society identify two presences as Miss Jane and Grandma Elizabeth. One interpreter described looking up at a woman in an upstairs bedroom window when he knew the house was locked and empty; he found no one after going inside. Staff particularly associate activity with the grandmother’s bedroom.
Kingsport area, Tennessee · Road or bridge
Knox Paranormal Researchers records a crying baby, a woman appearing in a car’s back seat and engines supposedly refusing to restart in the tunnel. The group explicitly describes conflicting versions of how the haunting began. The dramatic family-murder stories attached to the Sensabaugh name are folklore, not established events.
Shiloh, Tennessee · Other
Tennessee Tourism recounts visitors and staff seeing apparitions and hearing drums, voices, footsteps and gunfire on the preserved Shiloh battlefield. These reports evoke the fighting without requiring a visible reenactment. The park’s Tennessee battlefield is treated here as one location, including its associated cemetery and named battlefield features.
Murfreesboro, Tennessee · Other
The Rutherford County Historical Society republishes accounts of a headless horseman identified in local lore as Union officer Julius Garesché. Riders supposedly see him near the battlefield and cemetery after his death during the 1862 fighting. A later newspaper account quotes a park employee saying that this apparition is the subject of frequent visitor inquiries.
Nashville, Tennessee · Other
According to the Haunted Places folklore entry, architect William Strickland and Capitol Commission leader Samuel Morgan continue their quarrels after death. Visitors supposedly hear the two men arguing inside the Capitol, where both were interred. The story adds that an unseen voice sometimes rebukes people who treat the furnishings disrespectfully.
Nashville, Tennessee · Prison
Nashville Ghosts summarizes the old prison’s reputation through cold pockets of air, unexplained sounds and shadow figures in deserted corridors. The figures are popularly identified as former prisoners or guards. The account presents a long-running haunting tradition around the empty cellblocks without establishing the identities of any supposed spirits.
Memphis, Tennessee · Other
Investigators quoted by Southern Spirit Guide identify a friendly, gray-haired presence as founder Frank Liberto, still visiting the bar and basement. A second spirit, Marilyn, is said to dislike loud music and tap patrons on the shoulder. A bartender reported wine glasses shooting from the rack and shattering behind the bar.
Gatlinburg, Tennessee · Other
Gatlinburg Haunts identifies Lydia as the sad young figure reported around the staircase and upper landing. Staff accounts include food sliding or flying from pantry shelves, while guests describe a small woman who disappears when they look again. A jilted-bride story explains her presence in local lore, although that biography is not established history.