Spooky Season Reads

Explore humanity through what haunt us in Supernatural Lore of Southern Utah!

From the fanciful and revelatory to the horrifying and sorrowful, the folklore of Southern Utah hints at a complex history. Whether spiritual or spooky, home-grown legends are a window to understanding local culture. Visit Grafton, Utah’s most haunted ghost town. Explore what haunts Southern Utah University in Cedar City, the St. George Temple and Touquerville’s “murder house.” Learn about skinwalkers and the theft of Native American beliefs. Examine the numerous urban legends surrounding Route 666, “The Devil’s Highway.” Uncover the secrets of the Mountain Meadows Massacre and the curse of Escalante Petrified Forest. Drawing on information from over two hundred interviews, Darren M. Edwards investigates the tales and myths that permeate and persist in communities throughout red rock country.

Eerie sightings and legendary haunts in the heart of the Idaho panhandle.

Spirits of pioneers who risked their lives in search of fortune still roam the old buildings in the Silver Valley. The ghosts of a young boy and teacher actively wander the halls of The Roosevelt Inn. A prisoner of war haunts the old fort where his torture and killing took place. Still waiting for her lover’s return, an expectant spirit haunts her favorite room in the Jameson Hotel. The skeletons of unfortunate soldiers lie where Fatty Carrol buried their bodies so long ago, and the phantoms of restless miners still linger in abandoned mines. Author Deborah Cuyle reveals Coeur d’Alene and the greater Silver Valley’s fascinating haunted history and the souls that refuse to leave.

The long history of San Jose has accumulated a remarkable amount of ghostly tales, from things that go bump in the night to its most famous haunt, the Winchester Mystery House.

A ghostly bride stalks the corridors of the Sainte Claire Hotel, and a spectral janitor still carries out his duties at Overfelt High. At the La Forêt Restaurant, long-dead miners from New Almaden are rumored to appear in rooms they once called home. The ancestral land of the Ohlone people might now be the home of high tech, but its haunted past remains.

Author, educator and lifelong resident Elizabeth Kile brings to life the memories of those who came before — and those who never left.

Author Heather Leigh Carroll-Landon guides readers on a spine-tingling tour through Florida’s haunted lighthouses. Lighthouses dot the Florida coast, there to help seafarers navigate their way to shore. But when tragedy comes for Florida, it often blows in from the sea, giving the lighthouses and the cursed men and women inside a first look at horror. The lively spirits of teenage sisters inhabit the St. Augustine Lighthouse, where an accident claimed their lives, suspending them in their playful youth. A storm wiped out the Sand Key Lighthouse in 1846, claiming the lives of 16 whose spirits now chatter away—generally in contented tones but sometimes straying into anger. A Civil War casualty roams near the Amelia Island Lighthouses, holding to a promise to see his love one last time before departure.

Spine-tingling tales of restless spirits.

San Diego is known for its sunshine and beautiful beaches but a dark history lurks beneath the surface. Shades of gamblers, thieves, and gunfighters wander the streets, and the spirit of a young woman who died mysteriously haunts the halls of the Del. On the oldest sailing vessel in San Diego Harbor, the ghost of a small child stowaway plays with guests, and the Old Town Saloon occasionally hosts an eerie visitor seeking libations. Wyatt Earp haunts the very room he stayed in at the Horton Grand Hotel, and the former crew of the USS Midway steadfastly man their posts, even after death.

Join authors Brian Clune and Bob Davis as they recount the eerie tales of what may be California’s most haunted city.

Travel back in time with the spirits of the San Juans.

Brave men and women came to seek their fortunes in the rough-and-tumble boomtown of Creede. Miners, merchants, dance hall girls, gunslingers and gamblers still haunt its streets and halls. How many ghosts are thought to haunt the historic Creede Hotel? How did the baddest man in camp meet his untimely end, and what do the old-timers say is buried under the floorboards at Freemon’s Ranch? What happened the night an actress from the Creede Repertory Theatre summoned a ghost to join her on stage?

Author Kandra Payne matches fascinating historic details with spine-tingling tales to find out what made the Creede Camp one of the wildest and spookiest boomtowns in the West.

Explore the haunted history of Oklahoma’s saloons, bars, brothels, and speakeasies.

Saloons and brothels were often the first businesses to spring into existence when the boomtowns of Oklahoma were formed overnight in the state’s early history. During Prohibition, they entertained in the shadows, and their stories have often been left untold. But those stories, and the forgotten women who were often at the center of them, still shaped an indelible legacy. Sometimes their echoes linger in the present, from a saloon patron who continues to tip a McAlester bar from the great beyond to the phantom of a Tulsa brothel worker that appears with enough energy to flip over a pizza pan. Brooke Montoya embarks on a journey through the haunted history of Oklahoma’s saloons, bars, brothels and speakeasies.