Old State Capitol Building

At the Old State Capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky, a security guard once watched a portrait of William Goebel fall off the wall. The way the story is told, it happened on the anniversary of the day Goebel was shot, in the building where his death still hangs over everything.

Goebel was shot on January 30, 1900, on the lawn approaching this Greek Revival statehouse, the bullet fired from the executive building nearby. It struck his right side and pierced a lung. He was sworn in as governor the next day, from his sickbed. He served four days and died on February 3. He remains the only sitting U.S. state governor ever assassinated in office, and the picture that came down off the wall is his.

The man charged as the mastermind, Secretary of State Caleb Powers, was tried four times between 1901 and 1908 and pardoned after eight years in prison. Who actually fired the shot was never established. So the building keeps a murdered governor whose killer was never named, and the dead man's likeness, by the guard's account, refused to stay hung on the one date that mattered.

The statehouse itself was the work of Gideon Shryock, who designed it in the Greek Revival style at twenty-five. Its signature is a self-supporting stone stairway that climbs under a domed lantern built to pull in sunlight. The General Assembly met here from 1830 to 1910; the Kentucky Historical Society runs the place as a museum now.

Goebel isn't the only dark thing under that roof. The historical society keeps a piece of furniture called the Conjured Chest. It was carved around 1830 by an enslaved man named Remus, who was beaten by his owner, Jeremiah Graham, over the work. After Remus died, other enslaved people are said to have cursed the chest, sprinkling dried owl blood in the drawers so that anyone who stored clothing in it would die. Roughly 18 deaths have been tied to it over the years. A maid named Sallie is the one credited with finally lifting the curse.

The hauntings reported here are thinner than the history. A creative engagement specialist with the historical society, Greg Hardison, says he heard voices while alone in the building. "I walked around the building and kept hearing the voices change and move," he said. Phantom gunshots are reported from the brick arsenal out back, where the war artifacts were stored. The record on Goebel runs deep and the chest's story is written down. The ghosts, mostly, are people who say they heard something they couldn't find.