Asheville is the most haunted city in North Carolina, & these 3 places prove it
Asheville has a uniquely haunted history. Here are three sites that prove it’s the spookiest city in NC.
Oftentimes, when you think of something being haunted, you think about it within the context of a traditionally spooky time of year, like Halloween. The thing about hauntings, though? They’re not seasonal. Ghosts, if you believe in them, are just as likely to appear in October as they are in July. They most often linger in places they have some type of emotional attachment to. Many of these spectral areas exist in Asheville, and I’m going to tell you about three in particular that make the city spookier than others.
As someone who frequently writes about these topics, I find that the most important thing is to discuss the facts behind the hauntings with as much respect as possible. I know most people don’t believe in supernatural entities like I do, but I’m equally aware that ghost stories are often born from real-life tragedies. Perhaps that’s what prompts people to experience these specters to begin with—that existing knowledge of a tragedy having taken place in a specific location. Who’s to say for certain? The human brain is an interesting, often unknowable place full of as many mysteries as the stories I’m about to tell.
TRIGGER WARNING – This articles contains mentions of suicide, which may be upsetting to some people.
1. Helen’s Bridge
If you perform a basic Google search for “haunted Asheville,” many of the top results—and several Reddit boards—say that Helen’s Bridge is one of the most haunted locations in the city. According to Atlas Obscura, author Thomas Wolfe (who we’ll get to in the next section) discussed Helen’s Bridge in one of his novels, “Look Homeward, Angel.” Wolfe grew up in Asheville and was familiar with the story of this spooky spot.
In 1909, the arched bridge was built using quarried stone. It was originally meant to serve as an access point for the nearby Zealandia Mansion. According to local lore, a woman and her daughter lived close to the bridge. Some reports indicate they lived in the Zealandia Mansion itself, though I was unable to confirm the claim because each source stated something different. The one thing that every article seemed to agree on, though, is that Helen’s daughter reportedly died in a fire. The enormity of her tragic loss and its accompanying grief allegedly drove Helen to die by suicide on the stone bridge.
Since then, numerous people have reported seeing her ghost where she spent her final mortal moments. Some claim that she’ll come to you if you call her name, and others have said that they had trouble starting their car after encountering her apparition. The mansion itself, though historic, is off-limits to the public. However, if you want to try to see Helen for yourself, the bridge is accessible through Windswept Drive’s second bend. Please note that it’s a narrow, residential road, so you’ll need to proceed with caution.
2. Riverside Cemetery
Much like Helen’s Bridge, Asheville’s Riverside Cemetery repeatedly popped up while I was researching this piece. Thomas Wolfe is buried there along with fellow writer William Sydney Porter, who was more commonly known as O. Henry. By all accounts, neither Wolfe nor Porter haunt the hallowed ground, but around 10,000 people—including several WWI prisoners of war—have been buried at Riverside since it was built in 1885. That means there are a number of restless spirits traipsing between the graves on any given day.
Even though Riverside Cemetery was established along the banks of the French Broad River nearly 20 years after the Civil War ended, a particularly brutal battle of that war was waged less than a mile away. Over the years, visitors have reported seeing the ghosts of soldiers wandering through the cemetery. Many have claimed to hear troops shouting, bursts of gunfire, or phantom explosions ringing out across the fields.
Civil War soldiers aren’t the only ones causing unsettling disturbances at this cemetery in Northern Asheville, though. Some have said they can hear disembodied voices or even growling noises during their visits. Have you been to Riverside Cemetery and heard or seen anything unusual? We would love to know.
3. The Jackson Building
The Jackson Building is reportedly haunted by dozens of ghosts, but how much of its heartbreaking history is fact and how much of it is fiction? According to 828 News Now, some elements are based on historical happenings, but much of the building’s reputation seems to have been shaped through decades of word-of-mouth retellings.
The 1929 Stock Market Crash occurred about 10 years after the Jackson Building was built. It was an extremely grim time as countless people across the United States faced economic uncertainty. This is where the story of the Jackson Building hauntings began, as many residents believed that over a dozen men died by suicide there following the financial downfall of the Stock Market Crash.
In 2014, The Blue Banner reported that 17 suicides took place, though there is no known source to verify that information. Through 828 News’ own investigation, they were only able to uncover one record of a death taking place at the Jackson Building. The Asheville Times reported on April 4, 1930, that a 66-year-old man named Frederick M. “F.M.” Messler died by suicide in one of the building’s unoccupied offices. Messler indicated in two separate notes that he was distraught over the financial issues he’d been experiencing since the Stock Market Crash, as well as his poor health.
This one suicide has, apparently, transformed into several similar stories over the years. A strange coincidence has also prompted all of these tragic retellings: On the ground outside the Jackson Building is a bullseye pattern inlaid in brick. The Asheville Citizen-Times notes that, “Local historian Kevan Frazier says he has heard, but not confirmed, that a landscape architect put it there to mark the spot where a man who jumped hit the ground.” Whether or not that’s true is another difficult detail to confirm, as there aren’t clear records indicating when the bullseye was first constructed.
One thing that remains a throughline in these stories is that a ghost, perhaps that of F.M. Messler, can sometimes be seen in a window on the upper floor of the building looking out over the city.
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