Haunted Cemeteries of Iowa

Kansas became the 34th state in 1861. It covers 82,277 square miles with a population of 2.9 million in 2014. It has 4,578 documented cemeteries. Here are ten of the most haunted.

Wildmead Cemetery is at the end of Cemetery Drive and bounded on the north by West 95th Street in Nickerson in Reno County. There are around 2,000 interments dating back to the 1850s.

This cemetery has a guardian. It appears in the form of a woman or a demon or even just as a bright light. The guardian supposedly protects visitors to the cemetery who are there visiting friends and loved ones. But beware, people who do not have legitimate reasons for being in the graveyard will definitely see the guardian in the form of a demon and be chased away immediately.

Jones Cemetery can be found on a dirt road off 29th Avenue in Canton in McPherson County. There are only 20 interments here. There are six members of the Jones family buried here between 1892 and 1931.

The ghost residing here is probably Edgar Miller. He was killed by Indians while headed west on the Santa Fe Trail in 1865. In 1873 Martin M. Jones bought the land where Edgar was buried to use the land around it as a cemetery. Edgar’s ghost is sometimes seen wandering among the tombstones.

Table Mound Cemetery is also known as Diphtheria Hill Cemetery. It is located near Idana in Clay County on the western slope of Table Mounds. There are only 15 identified graves here. No one knows for sure exactly how many bodies are actually buried here.

The known dates are from between 1877 to 1883. There was a diphtheria outbreak during this period and victims were taken to this hill for burial. Unfortunately, it seems some of the victims may not have been dead yet. The crying and voices of both children and adults can be heard coming from this graveyard. Orbs and other strange lights have been recorded. Almost everyone reports feelings of being watched.

Alma City Cemetery is located on Old K18 Road at Center Point Road in Alma in Wabaunsee County. It is a medium-sized cemetery with nearly 2,000 interments. The graves date back to the 1870s.

There are two hauntings in this cemetery. One is all the people who are buried here. It seems they just refuse to move on. No sightings have been reported with the naked eye, but photographs and videos are full of mists and orbs and even full-bodied apparitions.

The other story is about the farmer who owned the land before it was a cemetery. The old man who lived there was known to be mean and ill-tempered. The new town of Alma needed a place for a cemetery and the farmer was approached several times about selling a piece of his land to them, but he always refused.

The story goes that one day while he was drawing water from the well someone came up behind him and pushed him into the well. He had no family and one one knew what had happened to him so the town took his land for the cemetery.

The well was boarded up, but people claimed to see the old farmer walking around. The well came to be known as “The Devil’s Chair” because supposedly anyone who sat on it would disappear, never to be seen again.

Rochester Cemetery is in Shawnee County on NW Lee Drive in Topeka. Topeka and the cemetery were both founded in 1854 and it is the oldest cemetery in the city. There are over 10,000 interments here. The oldest is that of 4-year-old James Hammond in 1803.

The legend at this cemetery is about the Albino Woman. The story is that she is a living person who suffers from albinism so she only goes out at night to visit the graveyard. There is a theory that she died and still visits the cemetery as an apparition.

An EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) was captured here of a man’s voice saying, “Leave or die.” Orbs and mists have also been photographed.

Round Mound Cemetery is located on Osborne Road south of Atchison and east of Cummings in Atchison County. There are about 370 interments here dating back to the 1840s.

This graveyard is said to be haunted by a witch. Screams can be heard coming from the graves. The cemetery sits atop a rounded hill, but the wind never blows here.

Several years ago there was an article in Time magazine listing this cemetery as one of the most haunted places on earth.

Stull Cemetery is located on N. 1600 Road in the unincorporated community of Stull in Douglas County. There are close to 600 interments here and it is considered the most haunted cemetery in Kansas. Stull Cemetery is known as one of the seven gateways to hell.

Stull is a very tiny town with only a few buildings and residents. Douglas County covers 457 square miles but only has a little over 100,000 living souls there. On the surface it appears to be a peaceful, sleepy little town.

The legend states that somewhere in the little, dilapidated Stull Cemetery is a stairway that goes straight to hell. Of course, the stairs are incredibly hard to find and the hidden seal that covers them only opens twice a year: Halloween and the Spring Equinox.

There was an abandoned church that eventually crumbled to the ground. The stories about the church itself are numerous. One story is that the church was used by witches and other occult groups. The church had no roof but it was protected by an unknown force that kept the rain from falling into it. The church was eventually bulldozed but no one seems to know who did it.

An amazingly tall pine tree grew in the cemetery straight up through a tombstone, cutting it in half. Legend has it that the tree was used to hang witches. The tree and the church were considered guideposts to finding the path to the mystical steps to hell.

Lorenz Schlichter Memorial Cemetery is at the end of 6th Lane in the small town of Le Roy in Coffey County. It is also called Child’s Play Cemetery by the locals. There are only a little over 100 interments here. Several of the graves belong to members of the Schlichter family, including the cemetery’s namesake, Franz Lorenz Schlichter, who was buried here in 1906. The oldest grave is that of a baby in 1853.

One of the legends about this cemetery is that if you park your clean car in the cemetery grounds and wait for a few minutes you will hear and feel and thump against the outside of the car. Afterwards, there will be an adult sized hand print on the back window and children’s hand prints all over the car.

Elcado Cemetery is found at the end of Road 26 after it crosses Bronco Road near Peru in Chautauqua County. There are roughly 600 interments here dating back to the early 1870s.

There has been a white, misty figure reported flitting through the trees and around the tombstones. The apparition itself is particularly scary, but the noises throughout the graveyard are.

Visitors have reported unexplainable chain-rattling sounds accompanied by crying, screaming, laughter, whispering and groaning.

Elmwood Cemetery has nearly 2,000 interments and is located on Elmwood Drive in Coffeyville in Montgomery County. Four of the five members of the infamous Dalton Gang are buried here. The fifth, Dick Broadwell, is buried at Hutchinson Eastside Cemetery in Reno County. Four of the five members died on October 5, 1892 while attempting to rob two banks simultaneously. Frank Dalton had died five years earlier trying to capture whiskey runners. There are also several townspeople buried here who died trying to protect the banks.

The cemetery is said to be haunted by both the bank robbers and the town folk. Strange noises are heard and shadows actively try to chase away visitors. almost all visitors reported the uneasy feeling of being constantly watched.