Famous Ghost Stories of Kansas City, 1895

1895

KANSAS CITY GHOSTS

FAMOUS SPOOKS OF THE TOWN ON THE BIG MUDDY

The Original Ghost Is From a Case of Fratricide — How the Santa Fe Spook Was Laid — How a Man With the "Jimjams" Stirred Up a Jail Full of Criminals

It may be true that conscience makes cowards of us all, but with the ignorant and superstitious conscience is not a circumstance when compared to a vivid imagination. The greatest coward on earth is the person who sees in every dark shadow, in each deserted house and around every dismal building the restless spirit of some departed sinner whose crimes will not allow him to enter heaven, who is doomed to wander around this earth until Gabriel's trumpet is sounded, who must hover near the scene of his former misdeeds until the last day.

The place by popular consent most adapted to ghost wanderings and the place most fruitful in the production of the bona fide article is naturally the graveyard. The drearier, gloomier and more mournful the aspect of the graveyard the more ghosts. But the real believer in spooks and spirits does not deem it necessary to go among the tombs and graves of the dead to find a spirit.

Ghosts are numerous. They can be found in all sections of the country. There is not a village nor a deserted country house nor a railroad bridge but has its ghost. But the ghosts are not all confined to the country by any means. There have been several in Kansas City that have gained extensive notoriety on account of their many visitations, and the parts of the city in which they are wont to disport themselves are still eyed with suspicion and looked upon askance by the inhabitants of Belvidere Hollow, Hick's Hollow and other portions of the city thickly settled by the descendants of Ham.

The oldest, the original ghost that is most vividly in the memory of the superstitious and is most often the topic of grewsome whispers among the people mentioned, walked the levee between Main street and Broadway 12 years ago. One winter's night, the story goes, a man was lying in wait for an enemy on the levee. In his hand he clutched a ponderous double barreled shotgun loaded with nails and slugs. He saw a man walking down the levee. In the dim, flickering light he thought he recognized his enemy. He raised his gun, fired and hurried away. The next day he read in the papers that his brother's body had been found on the levee, horribly mangled and torn. The murderer winced, but kept his secret. Then the dead brother's ghost began to walk. Every night, at the same hour of the shooting, it could be seen on the levee. Each time it would walk straight to the spot where the body had fallen. Then the ghost would fall, go through a death struggle and disappear. It kept this up for years, and there are those who say it does it still.

The second healthy, well developed ghost disported itself in the ruins of the old Santa Fe Stage Coach company's office at Second and Main streets in 1886. So generally known did it become that often large crowds would congregate and await the appearance of the nocturnal visitor. Early one evening a young man who wished to investigate a little went into the ruins. When he emerged from them an hour later, he found a large crowd standing on the opposite side of the street, near the jail, watching for ghosts. Someone in the crowd, thinking that the young man had been playing ghost, threw a brick at the investigator, striking him on the head. He fell senseless with a gaping wound in his head. The Santa Fe ghost has not been seen since.

In 1887 there was a story afloat that at 12 o'clock each night a ghostly cable train glided down the incline between Walnut and Main streets and disappeared into space. In the grip car, guiding the tram, was the ghost of a gripman who had died a short time before, after having been insane for some time, the result of grief over the fact that his train had run down and killed a pedestrian. Crowds congregated at the junction nightly to see the strange sight. For the most part they went away disappointed, although there was plenty who declared they had seen "it."

Another story, in which a ghost was never seen, but which smacked strongly of spooks, was the Conway murder on East Eighteenth street, between Oak and Locust, in 1885. Mrs. Conway, a young woman, and her little girl were beaten to death with a coupling pin. The murderer or murderers were never caught. Suspicion pointed toward two men, but there was no evidence. Both of them afterward died horrible deaths — one of the glanders and the other of cancer. The ghost of the victims never walked openly, but that section of the city was given a wide berth by the true believers for many months afterward.

Last, but not least, were the ghosts of Clark and Jones, the men hung for murdering Mme. Wright in 1893. These ghosts materialized in the jails, one at Independence and one in Kansas City. The scare lasted for some weeks, and the negro prisoners were thrown into a state of terror by any strange sounds. One night, when the jail was in a state of comparative quiet, a drunken prisoner, who had just been brought in, had an attack of "jimjams." By some strange coincidence he was placed in the cell once occupied by Clark, and the prisoners soon located the groaning of the unfortunate man. The negroes, not knowing that the cell was occupied, supposed that the noise was made by a departed spirit, and all started to howling with the "ghost." The effect was something that can be imagined better than it can be described. Since the Clark ghost left the jail Kansas City has been bereft of spirits, and Belvidere Hollow is breathing more easily than it has for years. — Kansas City Times.

—Warren Ledger, Warren, Pennsylvania, May 3, 1895, page 6.