Bristol, Tennessee, became incorporated in 1852, more than 100 years after the area was settled. Located on the northeast border with Kentucky, Bristol's colorful history includes frontier life, brothels and the Civil War. It also bills itself as The Birthplace of Country Music. You can book walking tours of Bristol's haunted spaces, most of which are public spaces rather than individual houses.
Little is known about the Arnett Home, including a specific location. Nevertheless, it is said to be inhabited by an angry spirit that spends its time stomping about the house day and night, shooting guns in the backyard and having "a very unnatural influence on many people. Some also report hearing faint whispers when alone in the house.
In the mid-1800s, Joseph Chalmers King, son of James King, for whom Bristol's King College was named, fell in love with a girl too young to marry. When her family moved to California, the heartbroken Joseph met each southwestern train with the hope of her return. Joseph died in 1880, but his ghost continued to appear at the train station, even through its renovation, until the last reported siting, in 1969.
Bristol Train Station
101 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Bristol, TN 37621
(276) 644-1573
www.thebristoltrainstation.org
Tennessee High School boasts two ghost stories. Initially built in 1916 on Alabama Street, the school moved to the first part of its new building in 1939. The school traditionally hands authority from outgoing seniors to the juniors at a Class Night ceremony. In 1939, a girl named Agnes was murdered during the same time. Her body was found floating in the swimming pool the next morning, and people have reported hearing her wet footsteps in the old building, even after carpet was put in place.
Tennessee High's second spirit is that of one of its athletes, who was killed by a car on the way home from a game. His love of sports brings his ghost back to the Field House to watch the games.
Tennessee High School
1112 Edgemont Ave.
Bristol, TN 37620
(423) 652-9494
www2.btcs.org/ths
Weaver Union Church, a community of Presbyterians and United Methodists, oversee the small Weaver Cemetery. According to Haunt Masters Club, the churchyard is haunted, but is also home to a "Black Aggie: the spirit of a witch that eats human flesh" (See References 4).
Weaver Union Church
132 Peoples Rd.
Bristol, TN 37620
(423) 878-2117
weaverchurch.webs.com
Other reputedly haunted places in Bristol include Defriece Park, where a skater who drowned in 1876 can still be heard screaming on icy winter nights; High Ridge, where you can hear the eldest of three children mourning the deaths of her younger siblings; and King College, where the ghost of James King Anderson, who suffered from panic attacks, can still be seen in the woods behind the college.
Defriece Park
Fifth St. and Stine St.
Bristol, TN 37620
www.bristoltn.org/defriecepark.cfm
High Ridge
Windsor Ave.
Bristol, TN 37620
King College
1350 King College Rd.,
Bristol, TN 37620
www.king.edu
