By Janet Kilgore
The Texas Hill Country is one of the most haunted parts of the state. The next time you want to commune with the Great Beyond, visit Austin.
History
Haunted Hill Country: Austin
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The Driskill Hotel in downtown Austin
Photo: Wikipedia
The Driskill Hotel in downtown Austin is one of the best-known hotels in Texas. It was built in 1886 by Colonel Jesse Driskill, a wealthy cattleman determined to build one of the finest hotels in the country.
There are at least two ghosts in the lobby: a little girl who follows a bouncing ball, an orb on the staircase near the front desk. Across the lobby from the staircase, a small room is haunted by the upbeat ghost of a Depression-era hotel manager. The room once held the hotel’s vault. During one bank panic, the manager handed out money from the vault to patrons, trusting them to return the money when they could. Every single one did. His ghost haunts the hotel, occasionally greeting guests. Upstairs, in addition to famous guests like President Lyndon Johnson, you might see a security guard’s ghost who seems determined to keep order.
The Spaghetti Warehouse
Photo: Wikipedia
The Spaghetti Warehouse, also once located in downtown Austin, was a great place to eat…and to see ghosts. Before it closed down, most of the staff had shared personal experiences with ghosts. Tale has it that a ghost who appears as a man—or maybe just legs—stays near the restaurant’s vaults.
The Texas Capitol Building
Photo: Wikipedia
You can’t miss the Texas Capitol Building. Its iconic dome can be seen from miles around. Visit it day or night and you’re likely to spot ghosts. The most famous is Governor Edmund Jackson Davis (1827-1883) who can be seen gazing from a first-floor window. You can also spot him around dusk on foggy or misty days and in mid-winter, walking the paved paths around the building. Look for a tall man with a mustache and a chilling stare. He often stops to stare at passersby and won’t stir until they move along.
Oakwood Cemetery and the Oakwood Annex Cemetery
Photo: Wikipedia
Oakwood Cemetery and the Oakwood Annex Cemetery is one of Austin’s most beautiful and most haunted cemeteries. You can visit the graves of Susannah Wilkerson Dickinson, one of the few survivors of the Alamo, and Ben Thompson, an Austin city marshal in the late 1880s. The gates are locked at dusk, but you can try to capture ghosts on camera by shooting through the bars of the fences. Visit the cemetery in the daytime to know just where to look later on.
