Lady of White Rock Lake

White Rock Lake is a reservoir and popular recreational area in East Dallas, but since the 1940s, it has been home to one of Texas's most enduring ghost legends. The Lady of the Lake appears on the roads surrounding the lake, forever searching for a way home.

The Lady of White Rock Lake is Dallas's most enduring ghost legend—a spectral hitchhiker who has haunted the lake's shores since the 1930s. Author Nate Riddle calls her "the crown jewel" of Texas ghosts.

The earliest accounts emerged from local high school students in the 1930s, with the first published account appearing in 1943 when Anne Clark documented the legend for the Texas Folk Lore Society. Author Frank X. Tolbert wrote about it in The Dallas Morning News in 1953.

The classic story unfolds on Lawther Drive, where a couple encounters a drenched young woman in a 1930s-era Neiman Marcus gown. "She's very friendly, she's a blonde woman who has a very southern, gentle voice." She claims she's had an accident and asks for a ride to a house on Gaston Avenue, less than a mile and a half away. By the time the couple arrives at the address, the girl has vanished, leaving only a puddle of water in the backseat. An old man who answers the door reportedly says his daughter drowned in the lake years before.

Variations of the tale abound. In some versions, she wears a wedding dress; in others, a nightgown. Some say she died in a boating accident, others that she killed herself after her lover's rejection, or that an ex-boyfriend drove into the lake when she announced her engagement to another man.

Researchers have identified a possible identity: 19-year-old Halee Gaston, who drowned at White Rock Lake in the early 1930s. Her last name is Gaston, her cousins lived on Gaston Avenue, and the timing aligns perfectly with when the legend began.

Folklorists recognize the Lady of White Rock as a vanishing hitchhiker legend—a story type dating to medieval Europe, with variations found across the world. Local historian Sally Rodriguez has found no documented events matching the tale exactly, yet sightings continue. For Dallas natives, the Lady of the Lake remains a beloved mystery that refuses to be solved.