Fort Phantom Hill

An abandoned frontier fort built in 1851 to protect settlers, named for a "phantom hill" that early scouts somehow couldn't find twice. Featured on Unsolved Mysteries. All that's left now are stone chimneys and foundations scattered across the Texas plains.

Fort Phantom Hill, located in Jones County 11 miles north of Abilene, is one of the most pristine and haunted historic sites in Texas. Built in 1851 to protect westward-moving pioneers from hostile Native Americans, the fort was originally called "The Post of the Clear Fork of the Brazos." It earned its spectral name when guards began witnessing ghostly figures of Native American warriors wandering the nearby plains.

Abandoned in 1854, the fort was recommissioned in 1858 as a waystation for mail carriers before serving as a Confederate outpost during the Civil War. A devastating fire in 1854 destroyed most wooden structures after the military's departure. Today, the 22-acre site preserves a dozen or so chimneys sprouting above the plains, along with three intact stone buildings: the powder magazine, guardhouse, and commissary.

The site's most famous supernatural tale centers on the "Lady of the Lake"--Mona Bell. In the 1940s, Mona was meeting a man at Lake Fort Phantom Hill when tragedy struck. When she signaled by flashing car lights three times and entered his vehicle, she was strangled to death. Rumors suggested he had heard she was having an affair while he was away at war. Today, visitors to the lake at night claim to see the spirit of a young woman, along with car lights flickering and issues with electronic devices that nobody can explain.

The stone ruins are equally haunted. Numerous accounts describe footsteps with no source and sightings of soldiers within the powder magazine, guardhouse, and commissary. One Abilene psychic visiting the fort suddenly saw the officers' quarters transform into their complete original structure. Inside the parlor stood two men in officers' uniforms--one tall and thin, the other short and red-haired with piercing eyes--glaring at him unhappily before both the figures and the restored building faded.

In 1959, the Pritchett family photographed a young couple in their pictures who they had no memory of seeing that day. Legends speak of restless Indians still stalking their ancient grounds at night, and an innocent man wrongly hanged near the fort whose accusers all died in mysterious ways.