Miscellaneous
Haunted Country Places
In our next section, we will take a look at haunted places that don’t easily fit into the previous categories, so they are mysterious but also miscellaneous. Some of the following ghost stories are connected to country music’s most famous celebrities. I thought, for example, you might want to discover a ghost or two lurking in Elvis Presley’s hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi. I also wanted to pass on a few tales about outlaw country ghosts. Not all the stars in country got their start singing in church. A few singers began their careers in the gut of the most depressing—and possibly haunted—prisons and reform schools in America, places like Preston School of Industry and Folsom State Prison.
But it’s not just buildings that can be haunted and it’s not just people who can be spirits, according to many paranormal theorists. Supernatural events can cover vast swaths of land, they say. It’s as if the land itself is imbued with occult power. Some of those haunted hot spots are located in the South and Midwest, the heart of country music.
Certainly, one could make the accusation that the entire city of Nashville is haunted. With its violent Civil War history mixing with the high spirits of country’s biggest dreamers, Nashville has more ghosts on a per-block basis than other cities. But, as mentioned before, Branson, Missouri, a popular new site for country music, is situated in the center of one of America’s most mystical regions—the Ozarks. While maybe not as densely populated with spooks as Nashville, it runs a pretty close second when you consider the ghost stories that surround the second city of country music.
Interestingly, these haunted regions don’t just become the stuff of legend in country music; they become the stuff of songs. Much of the ghostlore in these places became fodder for country songwriters. We’ll review a couple of those tunes and trace back their narratives to country music’s most haunted places.