North Carolina [spooky]

eerie attractions | haunted hotels | local folklore

North Carolina

A round this time every year, no matter where you live, Halloween decorations spring up in suburbia, little kids get excited about trick-or-treating in costumes and local haunted houses invite you for a night of suspense and horror. Spooky delights are all in a day’s work for North Carolina, a state with so many hair-raising stories, legendary creatures of the night and ghoulish attractions that you can get your fill of spine-tingling experiences all year long. North Carolina even has a Haunted Trail (and a spooky podcast to accompany you) running through its three regions: the mountains, the Piedmont and the coast. Here lies a mixture of Cherokee sacred ground, Gullah culture, pirate folklore and just straight-up unexplained phenomena. It’s even got its own version of the Loch Ness monster. For the faint of heart, don’t worry; there are friendly ghosts here too—you might encounter a ghost cat rubbing against you, a wine-loving ghost at a winery or just a mischievous one stealing toilet paper at your hotel. No matter where you go in North Carolina, you can experience something that goes bump in the night (if you want to). Read on for our favorite haunts.

There’s a marker now noting the legend of Lydia’s Bridge in Jamestown, but the story goes back to 1920. On a slippery road, a driver lost control of his car on a sharp turn, causing it to flip over. Annie Lydia Jackson was a passenger and died from her injuries. Her hitchhiking ghost lurks near the bridge, flagging down drivers for a ride home. Originally opened in 1927 as a 2,200-seat vaudeville theater, the Carolina Theatre in Greensboro was billed as “The Showplace of the Carolinas.” It had the state’s first Vitaphone speakers, cutting-edge technology for the time. Decades later, the theater was converted into a 1,200-seat performing arts center. In 1981, a woman hid inside the theater after it closed for the night and is believed to have started the fire that killed her. Today, if you find your seat moving up and down while attending a show, it’s not due to it being faulty. That’s just the woman’s ghost.

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Omni Grove Park Inn, Asheville

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Lydia's Bridge, Jamestown

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Morrow Mountain State Park

B.B. Winborne Country Store and Law Office Museum in Murfreesboro

Venus flytrap

Road to Nowhere, Bryson City

Old North State Winery, Mt. Airy

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

Roanoke Island Inn, Manteo

Looking Glass Rock

Lake Norman

Hatteras Island

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Reed Gold Mine, Midland

Omni Grove Park Inn, Asheville

Merchants Millpond State Park

Piedmont About 100 years ago, there was an explosion of a building storefront in downtown Mt. Airy, in the Yadkin Valley, and it remained vacant for decades. It was only when Old North State Winery moved into the building in 2002 that a skeleton was found. Employees hear footsteps as well as doors opening and closing. Paranormal experts agree the building is haunted, so the winery has embraced it. “Restless Soul,” a blend of malbec, tannat and cabernet sauvignon, is a bestseller.

In life, Blackbeard presented a terrifying sight with multiple pistols and cutlasses strapped to his body and fiery fuses woven into his beard. Blackbeard, whose real name was Edward Teach, was ultimately beheaded in battle. In death, his spirit roams the waters of Teach’s Hole on Ocracoke Island as a ghostly light, searching for his head. Further inland, in the Coastal Plain, the Beaufort County Courthouse in Washington is haunted by the ghost of Reverend George Washington Carawan, who upon being found guilty of murder in 1853, pulled out a pistol and shot himself in the head. Visitors report hearing furniture shattering, glass breaking and gunshots ringing out.

Mountains Set along the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway, the village of Blowing Rock attracts people to its unique rock formation. From this natural wonder, people can see mountains and lush landscapes for miles. Opened in 1891 to accommodate visitors, the Green Park Inn is haunted by the daughter of the hotel’s founding family. Room 318 often has cold drafts, unexplained noises and ghost sightings. Close to the Blue Ridge Parkway, in bustling Asheville, the Omni Grove Park Inn drew an elite crowd to its opulence in the Roaring Twenties. This included a woman from a nearby town, who had just won the local beauty pageant, which crowned her the Pink Lady. Sadly, one night, that woman fell two stories to her death from the fifth-floor balcony of room 545. Since then, guests have reported seeing a pinkish glow, cold drafts and even the feeling of someone playing with their hair. The inn displays a pink dress to commemorate the legend.

Piedmont Sometimes a hotel can be so welcoming you never want to leave. That’s apparently how Dr. William Jacocks felt about The Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill. Not only did he live there for almost 20 years before he died in 1965, but his mischievous ghost has stuck around as well. A bit of a prankster, the doctor’s ghost sometimes locks guests out of his old room (256), moves furniture or flickers the lights. The Dunhill Hotel’s central location in Charlotte makes it a prime spot for tourists; it just happens to have a resident ghost too. As one of the tallest buildings in the city, it became a popular spot for suicidal businessmen during the Great Depression. One such man’s spirit can be seen roaming the hallways and rooms, sometimes accompanied by the sound of footsteps. Room 906 is the most haunted.

Coast Roanoke Island is already steeped in lore thanks to the unsolved mystery of the lost colony in the 1500s. Even a ghostly white doe that can be seen today is considered to be that of the first English child born in that colony. So embrace this destination with a stay at Roanoke Island Inn, haunted by its former owner. A fired Postmaster, he can be seen moving about in his uniform, while guests report window blinds moving and radios turning on and off.

Mountains The Boojum is a half-man, half-beast rumored to love two things: gems and pretty girls bathing in secluded mountain streams. As the local lore goes in Haywood County, the Boojum and a woman named Annie fell in love and whenever he would leave for extended periods of time to look for gems, Annie would go hollering for him in the woods; hence the origin of the term "hootenanny." Boojum's home is somewhere in the Balsam Mountains, so if you think you're not alone while hiking the trails, you might be right.

Piedmont It’s something you would never see in a weather forecast, but Feb. 25, 1884 is known as the day it rained blood in eastern Chatham County. Mrs. Kit Lassiter heard a rainstorm, but it was a sunny day. When she looked down, there was a pool of freshly fallen blood spread out about 60 feet in every direction. Intriguingly, this wasn’t the first time an incident like this occurred. About 30 years prior, a resident in Clinton reported a shower of flesh and blood falling near his home. In western Chatham County, you’ll find the Devil’s Tramping Ground, a perfect circle 40 feet in diameter that is bare of normal vegetation. This is where Satan paces on his nightly walks, locals say, and only wiry grass grows inside the circle. A soil study found that it has extremely high salt content, but the legend persists.

Coast A mythical creature in Lowcountry Gullah culture, the boo hag is a witch who can shed her skin at night in order to fly around and feed on more victims. One of the best ways to keep a boo hag from entering your house is to lay a broom across your front door. Should you need further assistance dealing with a boo hag, there are folks trained in the art of hoodoo (not voodoo), an African-American magical and spiritual tradition. On the night of the new moon each September, the flaming ship of Ocracoke Island appears floating in the water. Back in the 1600s, when the ship was approaching the New World, passengers were so excited to see land that they started bringing their gold up on deck with them. The captain, a former pirate, went back to his old ways and he and his crew slaughtered the people. They set the ship on fire and went into a longboat, only to be killed as the ship sailed straight into them.

'First in Fright': why

The Carolina Inn, Chapel Hill

Dunhill Hotel, Charlotte

Estimated to be about 5,000 years old, Paint Rock is considered North Carolina’s best Native American pictograph. Its red and yellow lines painted against a vertical cliff face have miraculously survived the elements. Located about six miles from the town of Hot Springs, it’s possible this rock site was a place for prayer and meditation en route to the healing water. There have been reports of a ghostly Cherokee man walking in the woods near the springs. Cherokee legend says Judaculla Rock, a soapstone boulder etched with numerous Native American symbols in Nantahala National Forest, was the handiwork of a giant. Judaculla is the gatekeeper to the spirit world and the carvings are believed to tell how one can enter this dimension.

Judaculla Rock

Mountains The former private residence of George and Edith Vanderbilt, Asheville’s Biltmore Estate is known for its 8,000 acres of gardens and grounds, which offer stunning backdrops as the leaves turn in fall. It's also considered one of the most haunted places in North Carolina. Head to the library for a possible glimpse of George’s shadowy figure or Edith whispering his name. There have also been reports of a headless orange cat roaming the gardens plus voices and splashes in the empty pool.

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Biltmore Estate

Teach's Hole, Ocracoke Island

Coast With a coastline known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, thanks to strong currents causing shipwrecks, lost souls are a given. The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in the Outer Banks is no stranger to this phenomenon. Whenever a severe storm is approaching, locals report a dead man wandering around the lighthouse; the “Grey Man” disappears just as quickly as he appears. Many visitors have also experienced a chunky black and white ghost cat rubbing up against their legs, but feel only air when attempting to pet it. The Battleship North Carolina participated in all the major Pacific battles during World War II and is now a (supposedly haunted) floating museum in Wilmington. Visitors are invited to spend most of the night there (8 p.m.–2 a.m.) on a ghost hunt with paranormal investigators.

In North Carolina’s High Country, you’ll hear talk of the Demon Dog of Valle Crucis. This story first emerged in the late 1800s when a few residents were killed in the woods by an animal and the blame was placed on a demon dog. A more modern version of the story recalls two male college students driving past a cemetery and then chased at high speeds for miles by a massive dog the size of a grown man, covered in black fur, with yellow teeth and red eyes. Within Pisgah National Forest, there’s a low-lying ridge called Brown Mountain. For decades, people have reported seeing lights of different colors (white, red, orange, yellow and blue) on the mountain. Theories range from Cherokee maidens looking for their dead men to aliens visiting, but no one has ever solved the mystery.

Black Balsam Trail

Providing water to Charlotte, Lake Norman is North Carolina’s largest man-made lake. Created in the early 1960s, its surface area covers 32,500 acres. People report seeing “Normie,” a monster that looks like an overgrown alligator. Some say it’s a gigantic catfish, or perhaps large salamanders known as hellbenders. No one knows for sure.

The Devil's Tramping Ground

For more than 200 years, just three miles west of Bath, there have been five hoof prints in the soil that cannot be filled. In 1813, a man named Jesse Elliot and his friends were racing horses along Main Street when the Devil (dressed as a stranger) appeared and challenged Jesse to a race. Some say Jesse’s horse got spooked and threw him or that the horse itself was the devil. Either way, Jesse died and a remnant of that lost bet remains. (The fifth saucer-shaped depression is said to be where the devil stopped to claim Jesse’s soul.)

Wild horses, Corolla

For more than 100 years, people have made Balsam Mountain Inn their home base for hiking, biking and fly fishing in the Great Smoky Mountains. It just so happens, so have some resident ghosts. There have been reports of a murdered man’s spirit in the halls, a female apparition dressed in period clothing and even playful ghost children. Be warned that Rooms 205 and 207 are the most active, with guests hearing phantom footsteps, twisting doorknobs and banging sounds in the hallway. Should you be rattled during your stay, have no fear; the bar is open daily and aptly titled Spirits of the Inn.

Balsam Mountain Inn

If you like the sound of a ghost patting the foot of your bed as you try to sleep or a voice whispering within the brick walls of your room, head to The Brookstown Inn in Winston-Salem. The site was both a mill and a moving-and-storage company prior to it being a hotel; in both of its former lives, murders occurred. Those ghosts, Sally and Eddie, respectively, can still be felt in the building.

Winston-Salem

Whether you stay overnight or just come for a meal, you may experience a ghost at The Country Squire Restaurant, Inn & Winery in Warsaw. While you’re dining on broiled flounder or Korean beef, a playful spirit may move utensils and glasses. There have been reports of a young girl sitting on steps that lead to the wine tasting room and an older man wearing a hat at the bar. The faint scent of lavender and unexplained cold spots follow a woman’s apparition in the inn. Originally constructed as a home and commercial space for ship merchant John Harvey in the late 1790s, The Harvey in New Bern became a boutique hotel in 2024. Preserving many of the historical details in the building, the inn also kept its ghosts, like the woman in Victorian attire, the one who moves the silverware and the one whose footsteps can be heard in the halls.

The Carolina Theatre, Greensboro

eerie attractions | haunted hotels | local folklore

The Harvey, New Bern

The Country Squire Restaurant, Inn & Winery, Warsaw