Story Inn

A general store turned country inn in the tiny village of Story (population 6), established in 1851. The two-story brick building sits in the scenic Brown County hills and now operates as a bed and breakfast with a restaurant.

The Story Inn sits in the tiny village of Story, Indiana, nestled in the hills of Brown County near Nashville. Dr. George Story founded the community in 1851, and during its heyday, Story was the largest settlement in the area, boasting two general stores, a schoolhouse, a slaughterhouse, a sawmill, a post office, a blacksmith forge, and a nondenominational church. But as railroads and highways bypassed the village, Story declined, and by the Great Depression it was nearly a ghost town. The general store survived, eventually becoming the Story Inn -- Indiana's oldest country inn and one of its most famously haunted destinations.

The inn's resident spirit is the Blue Lady, believed to be the ghost of Jane Story, wife of the village founder. Her identity was established through a distinctive calling card: the smell of cherry tobacco pervades the air after she makes an appearance, and Mrs. Story was known in life to prefer cherry tobacco. Guests who stay in the room above the old general store -- the Blue Lady Room -- have recorded hundreds of encounters with her over the decades.

The Blue Lady appears in a flowing white gown with hypnotic, icy blue eyes. She materializes most often when the blue nightstand light in the room is turned on, appearing by the bed, in the mirror, or as a reflection in the window. Sometimes she wanders the room as if no one else is there, moving with a quiet purposefulness. Other times she acknowledges the guest's presence, making eye contact before fading away. Blue-colored ribbons have been found in her wake, left behind like tokens from a visitor who cannot carry physical objects but somehow manages to leave a trace.

When attorney Rick Hofstetter purchased the Story Inn in 2003, he made a discovery that lent unusual credibility to the Blue Lady legend. Combing through old guest books kept at the property, Hofstetter found identical accounts of ghostly happenings that were decades apart -- guests who could not possibly have read each other's entries describing the same phenomena in the same language. The consistency across years of independent testimony creates a body of evidence that is difficult to dismiss as suggestion or imagination.

On December 27, 2005, the Hoosier Paranormal investigation group set up camp at the Story Inn with electronic monitoring equipment. The investigation documented orbs and other unexplained phenomena, including doors that opened and closed on their own and objects that rocketed off shelves. The team attributed the activity to both the Blue Lady and a second, male spirit whose identity has never been determined. Fox 59 featured the Story Inn as one of Indianapolis's most haunted locations, and a 2024 documentary titled Paranormal Adventures 3: The Haunted Story Inn dedicated an entire film to the property's supernatural activity.

The village of Story itself adds to the atmosphere. With a year-round population of fewer than ten people, the tiny community surrounded by Brown County's forested hills feels suspended in time. The inn serves dinner and offers overnight stays, and the Blue Lady Room remains the most requested accommodation -- guests come specifically hoping for an encounter with Jane Story, the frontier doctor's wife who apparently never left the village her husband built, even after death claimed them both over 150 years ago.