Alexander Majors House

An 1856 residence built by Alexander Majors, co-founder of the Pony Express and one of Kansas City's most prominent early businessmen. The house presided over a 300-acre farm overlooking the Kansas Territory. Now a museum operated by the Wornall/Majors House Museums.

The Alexander Majors House at 8201 State Line Road in Kansas City, Missouri, was built in 1856 by one of the most important figures in the story of American westward expansion. Alexander Majors was the co-founder of the Pony Express and a partner in the freighting firm of Russell, Majors and Waddell, which at its peak operated 6,250 wagons, 75,000 oxen, and employed thousands of men to haul supplies across the Great Plains. The house he built on the Kansas-Missouri border witnessed the tumultuous years before and during the Civil War, when the border region was torn apart by the violent conflict between pro-slavery and free-state forces known as Bleeding Kansas.

The house survived the war, but not without scars. The property was ransacked by soldiers and guerrillas from both sides, and the violence of the era left an imprint that seems to have never fully faded. After falling into disrepair, the house was rescued and restored through the decades-long efforts of Louisa Johnston, a dedicated preservationist who devoted most of her adult life to saving the Majors house from demolition. Johnston lived in the caretaker's cottage on the property until her death at the age of eighty-nine, and her devotion to the house appears to have transcended mortality.

Almost from the moment the restored house opened as a museum, staff members and visitors began reporting unexplained phenomena. Disembodied footsteps echo through empty rooms, particularly in the upstairs chambers where the Majors family once slept. Strange noises that cannot be attributed to settling or plumbing reverberate through the building at odd hours. Visitors have felt unseen hands touch their shoulders or brush against their arms, and cold spots appear and vanish throughout the house without any correlation to drafts or temperature changes.

Many paranormal investigators believe the most active spirit is Louisa Johnston herself, continuing her protective watch over the property she spent a lifetime saving. Her presence is most strongly felt in the caretaker's cottage and in the main house's parlor, where she reportedly spent countless hours overseeing restoration work. Equipment malfunctions are unusually common during paranormal investigations, with fully charged cameras and recording devices draining their batteries within minutes of entering certain rooms.

The Wornall/Majors House Museums now operates the property, offering historical tours, educational programs, and paranormal events including ghost hunts and paranormal summer camps. The combination of frontier history, Civil War trauma, and a devoted caretaker who seems unwilling to leave her post has made the Alexander Majors House one of Kansas City's most reliably haunted locations.