The United States is home to a rich and storied history that is often synonymous with its national landmarks, from the Washington Monument and the Statue of Liberty to Yellowstone National Park.
However, along with stories of perseverance, heroism, and self-sacrifice, American history is also riddled with dark deeds and grisly crimes—ranging from the rampages of serial killers to the evils of slavery and the genocide of the Trail of Tears.
With so much blood having been shed within its borders, it is inevitable that the country should become a haunted edifice in its own right—and that includes many of its most famous landmarks.
Some of these are places whose haunted histories are inextricable from their origins, while others only gained a haunted reputation after a gruesome tragedy.
Plenty of other famous landmarks have stories that would chill your blood—but here are five of the most haunting histories behind some of America’s most beloved tourist destinations.
The White House
The most famous house in America is also one of the most haunted. In fact, there are so many stories about ghostly occurrences in the home of the American president that whole books have been written on the subject.
These range from the ghosts of Abraham Lincoln and his son to an unknown spirit simply referred to as “the Thing,” which once “greatly frightened” the domestic staff of President Taft in 1911.
Other spirits reported to haunt 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue include former first lady Abigail Adams, who is said to hang laundry in the East Room, and several other former presidents, including Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and William Henry Harrison, the first president ever to die in the White House.
The Hollywood Sign
Until 1949, the legendary sign in the Santa Monica Mountains above LA’s Beachwood Canyon read “HOLLYWOODLAND.” In ’49, the last four letters were removed, but the rest of the sign has become an indelible landmark, as synonymous with American culture as apple pie or the stars and stripes.
But like the glamorous industry it represents, the Hollywood sign has been home to some dark history. In 1932, a woman who was hiking near the sign found several scattered belongings, including a woman’s jacket, a shoe, and a purse. Inside the purse was a suicide note, written by aspiring actress Peg Entwistle, whose body was found nearby.
Though she had been in several plays, Entwistle’s only major film role—a small part in the RKO film Thirteen Women—had yet to be released when she jumped to her death from the sign’s “H.” Since then, her ghost has often been seen in the area, along with the smell of gardenias, said to be the young woman’s favorite scent.
The Lizzie Borden House
So notorious is the crime that may or may not have been committed by Lizzie Borden in her Fall River, Massachusetts, home that it is still commemorated today in fiction, films, and even folk rhymes.
What we know is that sometime on the morning of August 4, 1892, someone brutally slew Lizzie’s father, Andrew, and stepmother, Abby, striking each more than ten times with a hatchet-like weapon.
Was the killer Lizzie Borden herself, then 32 years old? Many people certainly thought so, though she was ultimately acquitted, and lived out the rest of her life in Fall River—despite being ostracized by many of the townsfolk, especially when no one else was ever charged with the brutal crimes.
Today, this infamous murder house is a bed-and-breakfast that advertises itself as “America’s most haunted house.” And, indeed, many lodgers have reported cold spots, strange noises, the sensation of being watched, and other inexplicable events.
Alcatraz Island
Located in the middle of the San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz served as a federal prison until 1963, and is probably one of the most famous prisons in the world. As such, it has long dominated the public imagination, in films ranging from The Birdman of Alcatraz (made while the prison was still in operation) to the 1996 action thriller The Rock.
It’s also one of our nation’s most popular tourist attractions, with more than a million visitors each year. Before 1963, however, it was home to “the worst criminals of all time,” and like any prison, it saw its share of violence and brutality.
So it’s no wonder the place is a popular stop on San Francisco ghost tours, where visitors have reported everything from anonymous ghosts to celebrity crooks like Al Capone. Visitors are cautioned to pay special attention to cell 14D, where a prisoner was once mysteriously strangled to death in his cell after screaming that a “creature with glowing eyes” was coming to get him.
The Winchester Mystery House
There are plenty of haunted houses, but how many houses were actually built for ghosts? That is the claim to fame of this landmark in San Jose, California, which was once the home of Sarah Winchester, widow of William Winchester, whose father founded the Winchester Repeating Arms Company.
The popular legend goes that Sarah Winchester was haunted by the spirits of all those slain by Winchester firearms, and was told by a medium to construct a massive house as a sort of labyrinth to keep the spirits busy and confused.
“The sound of the hammer is never hushed,” reads one article in an 1895 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle, claiming that Sarah Winchester believed that when the house was entirely finished, she would die.
As such, the Winchester house is home to a variety of unique architectural features, including staircases that go nowhere and doors that open onto empty space. It’s also home to plenty of ghost stories.
Did Sarah Winchester really build it to accommodate spirits? Not according to historian Janan Boehme, who says that the Mystery House was actually built out of a sense of architectural adventurousness on Sarah Winchester’s part, and as a “philanthropic effort” to “provide her workers with employment amid a bad economy.”
Courtesy of Margaret Herrick Library
