Mountain Village 1890

This open-air park of relocated 1800s Ozark buildings in Bull Shoals has at least six named ghosts, including eight-year-old Amanda who plays with toys in the 1836 Martin House, the Lady in Red who appears solid before vanishing near the bank, and Stompy, who follows visitors between buildings pulling their hair. Paranormal investigator Bill Fleming has documented infrared camera disruptions in the church and runs regular ghost tours.

Amanda is eight years old and she has been dead for over a century. She likes to play with the toys visitors leave for her in the Martin House, tossing a ball across the room when she thinks nobody is watching. Except people do watch. They have photographed her. They have felt her small cold hand brush against their skin.

The Martin House was built in 1836 by a family from Tennessee, and Herbert Hoover slept in it for three weeks in 1893 while working in Newton County. It is the oldest building at Mountain Village 1890 in Bull Shoals, an open-air historical park created in the 1960s when local attorney and businessman Roy Danuser began relocating authentic Ozark buildings from Jasper, Ash Flat, Dawt, and Blue Eye to a hillside above Bull Shoals Caverns. About a dozen structures made the trip: a schoolhouse, a general store, a blacksmith shop, a church, a bank built in Ash Flat in 1881, the Flippin family's 1874 home, and a train depot from 1903.

Paranormal investigator William "Bill" Fleming runs the ghost tours and has spent years cataloging the residents. He has been interacting with ghosts since age three, he says, and he specializes in violent entities. His equipment list includes EMF meters, sound recorders, video cameras, and flashlights that drain faster here than anywhere else he has worked.

Amanda in the Martin House is the friendliest. Her laughter drifts through the cabin at unpredictable hours. The general store has George Nelson, the original owner, who watches over the property. Visitors feel observed. The bank building has the Lady in Red, a fully corporeal figure in a red dress, gloves, and matching hat who glides past the building looking as solid as a living person before vanishing. A wooden doorstop inside the bank moves on its own while the building is locked.

Then there is Stompy. He follows visitors between the buildings, creating heavy footsteps behind them. He pulls hair. Fleming has documented a Night Watchman who patrols outside Colonel Jordan's house carrying a dimmed lantern. In the doctor's office, medical tools appeared covered in blood in one photograph taken during an investigation.

The church is the most volatile building. Fleming recorded pacing footsteps of a figure he believes is a former pastor. As the steps grew closer to his camera, the focus adjusted on its own, because something was standing in front of the lens, interrupting the infrared sensor. Visitors have heard sobbing, banjo tuning, and a hand grasping from the sinner's pew. During storms, a woman in white has been seen near the church entrance, looking directly at the observers.

Phantom smells move through the village without any physical source: horse manure near the blacksmith shop, pipe tobacco between the cabins, vanilla near the residential buildings. Conversations have been overheard from the blacksmith shop when no one is inside. Men in old uniforms have been spotted walking the grounds.

The village sits directly on top of Bull Shoals Caverns. Some investigators believe that geological features like underground water and limestone amplify whatever people experience as hauntings. The combination of 19th-century buildings above a cave system on an Ozark hillside makes the location unusual even by haunted-site standards.

The State of Arkansas named both the village and caverns as historical landmarks, and a request was submitted to the national registry. During the day, Mountain Village 1890 is a pleasant walk through rural history with interpretive signs and period artifacts. At night, Fleming's tours move through the dark buildings while Amanda plays, George watches, the Lady in Red glides past, Stompy follows, and the Night Watchman makes his rounds with a lantern nobody else can see.