Shepherdstown Opera House

The Shepherdstown Opera House, built in 1910 at 131 West German Street, sits at the center of what may be the most haunted small town in America. Shepherdstown absorbed 8,000 wounded soldiers after the Battle of Antietam in 1862, and the volume of modern paranormal calls led the police chief to bring in investigators for a Destination America TV series.

Shepherdstown's five-person police department was getting so many calls about things that weren't crimes that the chief, Mike King, did something unusual. He called a paranormal investigator. The calls were coming from all over town: residents hearing voices in empty rooms, seeing figures that vanished when approached, feeling physical contact from nobody. Chief King reached out to Bill Hartley of the Greater Maryland Paranormal Society, and the resulting investigation became Ghosts of Shepherdstown, which aired on Destination America in 2016 and became the highest-rated series the network had ever broadcast. The cast held a public discussion about the series at the Shepherdstown Opera House, joined by local historian Dana Mitchell.

The Opera House sits at 131 West German Street, in the center of what some call the most haunted small town in America. Upton S. Martin Sr., a six-term mayor, built it in 1910. The Shepherdstown Register noted the first performance in August of that year: silent films projected by hand-cranked equipment, plus traveling singers, dancers, and variety acts. Clifford Musser, editor of The Independent newspaper, moved his printing operation to the third floor in 1914 and took over theater management the same year. By 1915, Musser, his wife Ada, and their two sons had moved into a second-floor apartment. The family purchased the building in 1926, upgraded to talking films, and ran it until 1957, when competition from modern theaters forced the doors shut.

The Musser family continued living in the building into the early 1980s. Rusty and Pam Berry reopened it in 1992 after restoration work that began in 1987. Current owners Harriet and Steve Pearson bought it in 2018, just before a catastrophic flood from a second-floor water hose break caused major damage. The restoration cost was significant, and the renewed 100-seat theater opened for its first full year of operation in 2024. A decades-old movie projector is still visible inside.

Shepherdstown was founded in 1762 (some sources claim it's the oldest town in West Virginia). Its ghost problem has a clear historical source. On September 17, 1862, the Battle of Antietam was fought roughly two miles away in Sharpsburg, Maryland. It was the single bloodiest day in American military history: roughly 23,000 casualties in twelve hours. Shepherdstown took in approximately 8,000 wounded soldiers afterward. The town became one enormous field hospital. Local accounts say the streets ran with blood.

McMurran Hall, built in 1859 on the corner of German and King Streets, served as one of those hospitals. Witnesses report a man's figure peering from the clock tower window at night. Many believe it's Thomas Shepherd, the town's founder. The Entler Hotel (now Rumsey Hall) at 129 East German Street holds two separate ghost stories: a wealthy businessman shot himself in the backyard, and a young man named Peyton Smith was brought to the hotel after being wounded in a duel in 1809 and died there. Visitors say they can hear Peyton's cries.

At the Yellow Brick Bank Restaurant on 201 East German Street, Table 25 is reportedly the most active spot. Glasses fall from racks on their own. Down at the bakery on German Street (which also served as a Civil War field hospital), employees describe feeling someone brush past them in the kitchen and hearing conversations in hushed tones when nobody else is in the building. They call the presence "the Colonel," and they believe he's checking on his soldiers.

George Yontz, a cobbler who died in 1910, is associated with the Yellow House on East High Street (the Entler-Weltzheimer House on Shepherd University's campus). His cobbler's tapping has been heard in and around the house. A 1928 Shepherd College yearbook and a 1954 student newspaper both reference the haunting. At Printz Apartments, Room 111, a student named Michaela Barnes reported unexplained knocking in patterns of three against the walls during her sophomore year.

Shepherd University, which opened in 1871, has accumulated over 200 reports of ghost sightings and activity across campus. The paranormal tourism the TV show generated increased local business by 311 percent by November 2016.

The Opera House is the cultural center of a town where virtually every building on German Street has a ghost attached to it. Ghost tours end at its doors. It has hosted the investigators who tried to explain what's happening in this town. In a place where the bakery has a resident ghost, the restaurant has an active table, the hotel has two separate spirits, and the police chief had to call in outside help, the Opera House is less a single haunted building and more the front door to the entire collection. Shepherdstown Mystery Walks, led by Janet Hughes in full period costume, was voted the eighth-best ghost tour in the country by USA Today's 10Best in 2025.