I Made A Map Of Over 1,000 Haunted Places In America. Here’s What I Found

This is a guest contribution from Amica Graber. 

Have you ever wondered which state is the most haunted? I did, so I decided to find out by creating an interactive map featuring over 1,000 haunted places in all 50 states.

I was also interested in places aside from the traditional haunted house. How many haunted hotels were there? How many ghost ships? How many haunted mines?

As my research progressed, I found a wide range of haunted attractions in every corner of the country.

Some of the most interesting places I discovered included Bara-Hack, a creepy ruin in Connecticut, and the Igloo Hotel in Alaska — a giant abandoned hotel under the aurora borealis.

But perhaps the most fascinating discovery I made was just how many abandoned asylums I found. There’s something uniquely spooky about an abandoned asylum. Psychiatric hospitals were notoriously violent and horrible places for the poor souls once confined to them. So many of these hospitals, like the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia, or the Seaside Sanatorium in Connecticut still contain remnants from the past, such as medical devices and wheelchairs. It’s almost as if the former patients and staff walked out one day, and never returned.

Danvers State Hospital, in Massachusetts, has such an incredible backstory that it’s hard to believe it’s not a ghost story.

Danvers State Hospital, once known as The Danvers Lunatic Asylum, was built upon Hathorne Hill. This hill was once home to Judge John Hathorne, who presided over the Salem Witch Trials in 1692. Danvers was once called Salem Village — the location of the infamous witch trials.

Danvers State Hospital was built to house 500 patients, but by the 1930s, the population soared wildly out-of-control. Over 2,000 patients were cramped inside, and reports of inhumane conditions flourished. Patients were subjected to lobotomies, electric shock therapy, and restrained in straitjackets.

After years of budget cuts, the building slowly fell into disrepair, and finally closed down in the 1980s. Reports of hauntings persisted, and eventually, most of the main structure was torn down in 2007. The main structure has since been turned into apartment buildings.

Although Southern states accounted for 47% of all haunted places in America, California was the most haunted state overall based on the volume of haunted places.

It might be famous for sunshine and palm trees, but Los Angeles has also served as the backdrop to some of the most newsworthy murders in history. The Black Dahlia, LaBianca-Tate murders, the Wonderland murders, the Zodiac killer, the murders of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown-Simpson — not to mention the occultists and cults that have thrived over the decades in the golden state.

Aside from ghosts, California is also home to three monsters — if the legends are to be believed. Riverside County alone has the Idyll-beast, a yeti-type creature that prowls the hillside surround Idyllwild, and the legendary Chupacabra has been sighted by residents in the surrounding area.

Although I found over 1,000 places filled with folklore and mystery, there are so many unknown haunted places that I haven’t yet charted.

If you have your own ghost story or haunted place to share, visit the “Haunted House Near Me” map and leave your story in the comments!

In the meantime, check out this infographic on my findings below!

To see more Haunted Houses Near Me finds, click on over to TruthFinder.

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