A visit to the most haunted city in Kansas

This past weekend Traci and I skipped our annual trek to the Brew Fest in Parkville, KS for the adventure of a lifetime. Our friends Jamie and Jeff invited us to go to Atchison, Kansas and take the "Haunted Tour" and then check out a house that was supposed to be inhabited by a ghost or two.

We drove about an hour North of Kansas City to the small town of Atchison and pulled into the Chamber of Commerce about 2pm. The haunted tour started at 6pm so we had some time to kill. We all decided to take the "Historical City Tour" and then go and grab something to eat. The city tour consisted of a ride on a pseudo trolley train through the streets of Atchison. We saw all three birthplaces of Amelia Earheart, the bluff that Lewis and Clark rested on for two days, lots of huge houses, and a half dozen haunted houses.

Our city tour chariot

Traci and Bill getting ready to board

The only way to ride.. back seat

This was a party house back in the day. The 3rd floor is a ball roomA view from the porch of the party house
Amelia Earhart's birth place

A picture of Amelia Earhart made of flowers

The tour lasted an hour and we were dropped off at the Chamber of Commerce with 3 hours to kill. We decided to drive back to some of the sites we saw on the tour and explored them on foot. We grabbed a bite of Mexican food and headed back for our 6pm scary tour.

Our haunted house tour chariot

The Gargoyle house

The gargoyles

The haunted house tour took place on the same trolley and went up and down some of the same roads we had been on earlier. The main difference between the tours was that the haunted one played ghost stories with scary music from an MP3 player. One other interesting thing that we noted on the tour was that there was LOTS of houses that had people gathered on the front porches. Not just one or two people, but 10-15 and they were grilling and drinking beers. Each group would stop what they were doing when the trolley rolled by and waved to us. I felt like a celebrity waving every couple of minutes to all the town folk. :-)

About an hour later, we completed our tour and wound up back where we started. One of the houses we saw on the tour was the Sallie house. This was a house that was allegedly haunted by a small girl that died from a ruptured appendix while she was being operated on before the anesthesia took affect. This place is usually closed to the public; however, it has been opened in the past for ghost hunters and some TV shows looking for ghosts. We were in for the treat of a lifetime as the house was being opened to the public for the first time ever and for a mere $10 a piece we were on our way.

We pulled up to the house and were greeted with a brief history of the house and asked to put on a pair of booties. The house was empty with the exception of an operating table, a bed, and some children's toys. People were milling about in every room taking pictures, laying on the floor and sharing ghost stories. The basement had been blocked off and no one was allowed to venture downstairs... more later... We took pictures all over the house and then ventured back on the porch to chat with the tour hosts. While on the porch, we were looking at the pictures we took and noticed that some of them had these white orbs in them. One of the hosts, Cindy, explained that these images were ghosts and we were lucky to have captured them.

The front of the Sallie house

The scary basement

In the living room... we have matching booties

Orb in one of the rooms

After dark orb

This got Traci, Jeff and Jamie all pumped up and they headed back in for more pictures. I spent the next hour getting to know the town people and hearing lots and lots of ghost stories. I learned that people thought that there were a couple of ghosts in the house. 1 was the small girl and the other was a not so friendly ghost who lived in the basement. Cindy explained that a while back a TV crew had been in the basement taping and ended up running out of the house as the ghost in the basement completely freaked them out. The crew said that they thought there was a vortex in the basement and they felt a lot of evil down there. Cindy believes that this is the reason the owner was keeping people from going down below. The house finally closed down at 9pm and Traci and company were kicked out. :-)

Two freaky things happened while I was perched on the porch. A lady came running out of the house completely freaked out. She was looking down into the basement and said she felt all the hair on the back of her neck stand on end and heard something coming from the basement directed at her. The second freaky thing came from a girl scout who was visiting from a nearby city. She took a picture out of one of the upstairs windows and in the reflection of the window was the image of a person in a dress. A real ghost hunter had been roaming around the house and was very interested in the picture. I saw the picture a couple of times and can confirm what was on the camera view finder. Weird stuff!!!

After the closing of the house, we went on a drive to find a place called Molly's Hollow. It was a place that was haunted by a girl who died after she professed her love to a boy and he told her to get lost. The Hollow was in the middle of a very dark park and we drove around for 15-20 before giving up on finding it. I asked everyone if they wanted to get out and walk in the park but no one stepped up to the challenge. :-)

We started our journey home and arrived about 11pm. We were all exhausted from our ghost hunting adventures in North Eastern Kansas.

I hope all your adventures are as exciting as ours.

Bill and Traci