Discover these allegedly haunted sites in Columbus — just in time for Halloween
From a helpful haunt in the Springer Opera House to a Civil War journalist, the Columbus area is ripe with tales of the supernatural.
While Columbus doesn’t boast the ghostly reputation of cities like New Orleans or Savannah, there are still quite a few paranormal residents who are allegedly seen, heard or experienced throughout the Fountain City.
“When I was researching for my ‘Haunted Columbus’ book, I found so much that my editor actually cut out a bunch of it,” author and paranormal investigator Faith Serafin told the Ledger-Enquirer. “ ... There’s a number of places in Columbus.”
With spooky season in full force and Halloween on the horizon, the Ledger-Enquirer has compiled a few reportedly haunted spots in the area — and the tales behind them.
The Springer Opera House: A helpful haunt
The Springer Opera House is the “forefront of haunted houses” in the area, Serafin said.
The theater has seen various famous actors over the years, including Oscar Wilde, Ethel Barrymore and Edwin Booth, the older brother of Abraham Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth.
Spirit activity has been witnessed over the years by different people, Serafin said, including certain places inside the theater known as “cold air vortexes”: cold spots that could be the sign of a ghost or spirit.
One ghost allegedly resides in the costume room, Serafin said, and is apparently “very intelligent.”
“From what I have gathered, if you’re missing an item of some sort, there’s been times where people have gone into the theater room and just thrown their hands up because they can’t find what they’re looking for,” Serafin said. “They could say, ‘I really just need a size 14 brown jacket.’ And they’ll leave and come back, and the jacket will be there. It just seems to pop up.
“I don’t think anybody really knows the origin of that spirit, but it seems to be pretty common.”
A 2019 story on Chattvoice.com says the ghost of Booth is believed to haunt the Springer to this day, with witnesses reporting a “tall man in a top hat walking around the building.”
Ghostly activity at the Ma Rainey House
The Ma Rainey House & Museum of the Blues, 805 Fifth Ave., in downtown Columbus, is a few blocks from the Springer Opera House, where Rainey made her performing debut at age 14.
Serafin conducted an audio interview at the museum. Back at home, while listening to the recording, she heard what sounded like a small child making a humming sound. She replayed the sound just to make sure her ears weren’t playing tricks on her, she said.
Rainey’s ghost, according to Serafin’s book “Haunted Columbus, Georgia: Phantoms of the Fountain City,” has been reported to have been seen and heard at the home.
Other sightings, Serafin wrote in the 2012 book, include a woman dressed in a “funny dancing hat on the upper level balcony,” a woman’s voice from the top of the stairs saying “Hello?” and a gurgling sound coming from an upstairs bathroom, where a faucet had been turned on.
On one occasion, Serafin wrote, an employee witnessed a downstairs window raise itself without being touched.
A ghost host from the Civil War
Serafin and her paranormal investigative team have collected electronic voice phenomenons (EVP), which ghost hunters have long said are messages from the spirits, at the National Civil War Naval Museum, where she gives ghost tours.
While inside the replica of the USS Hartford, a U.S. Navy steamer from the Civil War, the group collected an EVP of a man’s voice saying the word “coffin.”
Years later, while cleaning out a desk in the museum, a book was found authored by Charles Coffin, an American journalist and war correspondent during the Civil War who wrote from the decks of Union ships.
They then took the book during investigations and used it as a “trigger object,” an object usually left unattended with hopes that something paranormal might interact with it.
“We have since collected EVPs that say things like, ‘We want Charlie’s book back,’” Serafin said. “And ‘bring the book.’ Things like that. That sort of intelligent nature seems to exist.”
This story was originally published October 25, 2021 at 11:47 AM.
