Curran Hall

Constructed in 1842 during Little Rock's first building boom, Curran Hall is managed by the Quapaw Quarter Association and serves as a visitors center for the historic neighborhood.

Curran Hall stands at 615 East Capitol Avenue in Little Rock, one of the oldest surviving structures in the city. The Greek Revival house was commissioned in 1842 by Colonel Ebenezer Walters during Little Rock's first building boom. The architect was Gideon Shryock, who had also designed the Kentucky State Capitol and Arkansas's Old State House. The structure features walls three bricks thick, cypress interior and exterior woodwork, a low hipped roof supported by four Doric columns and two Doric pilasters, and a five-bay facade with four six-over-six sash windows. Colonel Walters built the house for his young bride, Mary Starbuck Walters, who was pregnant at the time of construction. Mary died during childbirth before the home was completed in 1843. Devastated by his loss, Walters sold the property and left Arkansas.

The house passed through a series of owners, each adding their own chapter to its history. David J. Baldin purchased it in 1843 and held it until 1849, when lawyer James Moore Curran bought the home for his wife Sophia Fulton, daughter of Arkansas's last territorial governor and first U.S. senator. James Curran died suddenly in October 1854, and the house took his name. After the Civil War, Jacob Frolich purchased the property — a printer, Confederate veteran, and member of the Ku Klux Klan who served three consecutive terms as Arkansas Secretary of State from 1879 to 1885. Frolich allegedly set traps throughout the house and fled to Canada after being indicted for the murder of Reconstruction agent Albert Parker, though he was later acquitted. The house remained in private hands through the Tate family until 1993. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, underwent a $1.4 million restoration, and reopened on May 18, 2002 as Little Rock's official visitor information center, managed by the Quapaw Quarter Association.

The spirit most strongly associated with Curran Hall is Mary Starbuck Walters herself — the young bride who never lived in the house her husband built for her. Visitors and staff have reported seeing a woman in a long dress walking back and forth through the rooms, appearing as a full-bodied apparition that moves with purpose through the hallways before vanishing. Shelle Stormoe, membership coordinator for the Quapaw Quarter Association, documented numerous accounts of unexplained phenomena in the building. A coffee maker in the visitor center activated by itself while unplugged. The security alarm triggered repeatedly with no record of activation in the monitoring system — as though something inside the house was setting it off through means the electronics could not register.

Paranormal investigators from the Arkansas Ghost Catchers, led by Rhonda Burton and Linda Howell, conducted an extensive investigation of Curran Hall and concluded that there is an abundance of spiritual activity at the location. During their investigation, Curran Hall employees witnessed a rocking chair on the back porch move on its own, a framed picture in the hallway fall from the wall, and a coffee pot turn on by itself. Burton herself was physically touched on the shoulder while conducting an EVP session in one of the upstairs rooms, with no one standing near her at the time. The team captured EVP recordings that they attributed to the voice of Mary Starbuck Walters.

A figure in Civil War-era military uniform has been reported sitting at tables inside the house — a quiet apparition that appears briefly before fading. Given the house's connection to the postwar period through Jacob Frolich and his violent entanglements, the military figure may represent any number of soldiers or officials who passed through Little Rock during the turbulent Reconstruction years. Curran Hall operates as a visitor center and is open to the public, its elegant Greek Revival architecture belying the grief that was mixed into its foundation from the very beginning.