Texas Governor's Mansion

The oldest executive residence west of the Mississippi, this Greek Revival home has housed every Texas governor since 1856. It survived a brutal arson attack in 2008 and has over 160 years of political history soaked into its walls.

In the mid-1980s, Governor Mark White's wife and daughter encountered something in Sam Houston's bedroom. Elizabeth White said whatever she felt in that room frightened her so badly she refused to go near it again.

Sam Houston is the mansion's most persistent ghost. As governor in 1861, he paced these floors deciding whether Texas should leave the Union. His full-bodied figure has been seen in the bedroom he occupied, near his mahogany four-poster bed. Speak to him and he disappears.

The Texas Governor's Mansion, built under architect Abner Cook in 1856, is the oldest governor's residence west of the Mississippi. Its Greek Revival columns have witnessed every Texas governor since — and some of those governors, by all accounts, never left.

On June 8, 2008, the mansion nearly burned to the ground when an unknown arsonist threw a Molotov cocktail onto the front porch. Officials estimate ten more minutes would have destroyed it. Governor Rick Perry had moved out in 2007 for planned renovations, and workers had already stripped the furnishings — including Houston's famous bed. The Legislature appropriated $21.5 million for restoration. No one has ever been arrested.

Houston is not the only ghost. During the Civil War, Governor Pendleton Murrah's nephew shot himself in an upstairs room on the north side of the building after a woman rejected his marriage proposal. His sobbing is the most commonly reported sound — along with muddled echoes and footsteps. People who sense residual energy say he is most active on Sundays, the day he killed himself. One former governor found the noise so maddening he had the room sealed off. It did not stop anything.

A maid's ghost cries at the front door — a staff member who was dismissed for becoming pregnant while unmarried. The temperature drops without warning in different parts of the house. Doorknobs rattle on their own. Many visitors describe a feeling of dread they cannot explain.