Our Haunting Mission

Like many American towns, Fayetteville is haunted by an almost-forgotten past. The FAYETTEVILLE HAUNTS & OZARKS HAINTS walking tour of the historic downtown Fayetteville Square shares those secret stories and tells the tales of enduring ghostly legends as we walk the streets that you may think you already know… 

Equal parts history and mystery, this entertaining educational tour offers ‘true AND boo’ tales based upon meticulously researched accounts of the haunted folklore documented in and around Fayetteville, Arkansas. Walkabouts are also sprinkled with bonus material on legendary Ozarks Haints -- them in the hills what ain’t alive but sure as heck H’AINT DEAD neither!!

Founded by “Doc” & KT “The Ghost Lady” in 2019, our mission is to entertain and educate with TRUE ghost stories, haunted history, and Ozark folklore that comes from years of archival research, oral interviews, and collecting legendary narratives about local folktales as told by born-and-raised Fayettevillians… not Yankee carpetbaggers. We growed up in the hills here and know her tells.

The Book, the Ghost Tour, & the Ozarks Legends

The forthcoming FAYETTEVILLE HAUNTS & Ozarks Haints book and this walking tour of the downtown Fayetteville Square blends past and present to create an entertaining evening stroll that helps preserve our local history, document Ozark folkways, and actively contribute to our city's lively downtown culture. Even if you travel her streets daily, Fayetteville has undertold anecdotes to make you look at familiar terrain with new eyes. Join us as we share our growing catalog of ghostly lore, haunted spaces, legendary locals, and infamous tall tales of the Ozarks!

The tales we tell are every word true… give or take a winking hillbilly lie or two.

So put on your comfy shoes and bring a hand to hold! Come walk with us and we can swap stories about local ghosts, seen specters, and our favorite Fayetteville haunts!!

History of the Haunts

Before there was a Fayetteville, Arkansas was the contentious terrain of a magical Ozarks wilderness filled with Native American tribes, fantastic creatures, and jaw-dropping natural marvels. These hills were ‘Indian Territory’ well before the White Man laid claim to an Arkansaw Territory, becoming a remote haven for wild mountaineers and outlaw pioneers even as civilized settlements slowly took hold. As you might expect, these borderlands to an untamed wild west were also soon spawning tall tales and mythic legends. In an era of smartphones and online chatboards or Facebook, some stories still circulate in fragments, a few tall tales evolved, and other folklore has faded away. Folks tend to only revive interest in the old haunted tellings around Halloween, but our goal herein is to collect several favorites that also offer a slightly different version of Fayetteville history and its surrounding areas than maybe we remember from textbooks.

I’m ”Doc” the Hillbilly Hauntologist, born and raised amongst the green forest glades and gurgling cool creeks of Fayetteville’s rocky Ozark mountains — with scads of kinfolk scattered far up in the hills — so some of these stories are as familiar to me as calling the Hawgs on a Saturday. I frequently haunt library archives or musty old bookstores, as a PhD-trained researcher with a voracious tendency for story hoarding. Wherever I travel, I love to learn that spot’s history and uniquely favorite idiosyncrasies, but I also always find the ghost tour or a coffee shop teller who keeps the old stories alive. To me, knowing the history of a community isn’t just names with dates and places of notable happenings, but also the secret injustices or whispered rumors they’re reluctant to share with strangers and maybe half-believe themselves. We are all of us, individually and collectively, haunted by ghosts that require a proper reckoning. Ghost stories, I am quite convinced, offer up hidden histories of our community to the eager willing listener.

My daughter KT, “The Ghost Lady,” was intrigued by my book project so the idea of a walking ghost tour of Fayetteville was born. With red hair and green eyes, KT sees more than most and loves sharing tales. I’d already pioneered a very successful ghost tour in Denton TX and had long been building a catalogue of hometown haints, thus our family entrepreneurial adventure began. We both share a passion for stories about the fascinating people and places of our Ozarks home!

The FAYETTEVILLE HAUNTS Walking Ghost Tour of the downtown Fayetteville Square will host our debut walkabouts on Labor Day weekend 2019, on Friday August 30 and Saturday night August 31. We meet on the Northside corner of Center and East streets, facing across the Old Post Office across the street. Tickets are limited, so book your spirit squad for a tour today!