The ghosts of gold miners, mourning mothers, and more are said to moor about some of the most haunted cemeteries in Utah. Learn about them here!
Utah is full of mysteries, from treasures buried in the mountains to infamous UFO sightings. But it’s also a state full of history. History says humans first inhabited Utah around 11,000 BC, and indigenous people, like the Paiute, Shoshone, and Navajo, continued to live there throughout the 1700s, when European settlers arrived.
A long and rich human history also means Utah has seen many people pass away and, as such, is home to many cemeteries and ancient burial grounds. Some say cemeteries are peaceful places where people can take time to reflect and honor those who have gone before them. Others feel that the spirits of those who have passed may like to stick around in the cemeteries that became their final resting place.
We’re not here to judge the right way to view cemeteries, but we can tell you about some of the most haunted cemeteries in Utah—and where to find them.
1. Mercur Cemetery
Location: Mercur, Tooele County, near Highway 73, about 25 minutes west of Tooele
Mercur Cemetery sits on a hill above the remains of a gold and silver mining town that peaked at about 5,000 residents. Mercur was one of Utah’s original and largest mining towns established in 1893, but sadly, it did not last long. A 1902 fire destroyed nearly the entire town, and the last mine shut down for good in 1913.
The cemetery remains, however, a lasting legacy to the lives that once inhabited the town. While the graveyard itself holds the sadness of a town lost to tragedy, the wooden slat fences around many graves add to the cemetery’s eerie feel. Peer through the fences and you may spot pennies scattered among the graves, said to be “tolls” the spirits pay to travel to the afterlife.
Today, Mercur Cemetery is considered one of the most haunted locations in all of Utah. Paranormal investigators report unexplained phenomena such as echoless yells and the grave of a little girl that supposedly talks back when presented with a stuffed animal (the investigators reported she said, “I can’t make a noise,” when they gave her their offering).
They also heard inexplicable, human-like screams for help that stoked sinister fear inside them—”I’m going to say the inside on the outside for a second,” said one investigator visiting the cemetery. “Okay, there is obviously a lot of this is Native land, and there’s talk about Skinwalkers often in Utah.”
2. Salt Lake City Cemetery
Location: 200 N. Street, Salt Lake City
One of Utah’s largest cemeteries, Salt Lake City Cemetery covers about 120 acres and was established as part of the rural cemetery movement, which expanded burial sites from primarily church-based to public park-like settings. The cemetery has a heartbreaking history: the first burial in 1848 was for the young daughter of George Wallace, the man who would become the ground’s sexton.
Wallace would become the first of 31 subsequent sextons who oversaw the cemetery, which holds the secrets and, allegedly, spirits of many interesting people, such as the man who invented the traffic light; Hiram Bebee, who proclaimed himself “The Sundance Kid,” and infamous grave robber Jean Baptiste (one could say that is the ultimate irony?).
As far as ghost stories go, one of the most well-known legends belongs to brewer and businessman Jacob “Emo” Moritz, buried in 1910. According to the story, if you circle his crypt three times with a lit candle and chant his name, a pair of red eyes appears at the mausoleum window.
Another famous grave is that of Lily E. Gray, whose tombstone is menacingly marked, “Victim of the Beast 666.” No one is truly sure why Lily’s husband ordered her tombstone to be inscribed that way, but rumors are that it relates to his belief that she was kidnapped and kept away from him by the government and her family.
3. Ogden City Cemetery
Location: 1875 Monroe Boulevard, Ogden
Ogden City Cemetery is a beautiful, serene graveyard in Utah that encourages visitors to remember those who came before them in peace and tranquility. Established in 1851, the cemetery encompasses 60 acres. There is a dedicated pioneer section, as well as a military section to honor those who settled and served.
Although it offers beauty and peace, Ogden Cemetery is not without its ghost stories. This includes “Flo,” the ghost of a teenage girl named Florence Louise Grange who met a tragic end at age 15, either dying of the flu or through an accident while waiting for her beloved. Legend says to summon Flo’s spirit, park near her grave and flash your headlights three times at the tombstone. Flo will then float from her earthly resting spot towards your car, before vanishing.
4. Pleasant Green Cemetery
Location: About 9200 West 3500 South, in the Oquirrh Mountains above Magna, Salt Lake County
Pleasant Green Cemetery, also called the Magna Cemetery, is known for tombstones that are said to glow green when a train passes. Visitors have also reported apparitions, strange lights, and unexplained sounds. The cemetery is the oldest active cemetery in Utah and was established by a Bishop in the Church of Latter-day Saints. The LDS Church maintained the cemetery for over a century, and during that time, many founders of Salt Lake City were laid to rest there.
Because the town was also a large mining town, the cemetery is also the resting place of many miners and miner family members, many of whom led harsh lives and some who suffered untimely deaths. The Pleasant Green Cemetery has tombstones that glow green on several days throughout the year, which for many years was attributed to the spirits in the graveyard making their presence known.
However, the green glow is now said to be leftover mineral luminescence in the soil from the mines. While the spirits cannot be confirmed, the cemetery’s eerie feelings—especially as a natural cemetery that isn’t kept up—remain for many who still visit.
5. Logan City Cemetery
Location: 1000 North 1200 East, Logan
Logan City Cemetery is the home of another “Weeping Woman” statue, but this one is in honor of a Logan City mother who allegedly lost five of her eight children, including two in the very same night. The statue represents Julia Cronquist’s grief and was erected by her husband, Olif. When Julia was still alive, it is said she visited the cemetery daily to weep over her children’s graves, and following her death (purportedly of a broken heart) at age 55, legend has it that she still weeps. The 10-foot-tall statue is said to weep audibly on the anniversary of each child’s death and is a well-known ghost legend in the area.
The cemetery also has a sad past: when it was moved to accommodate growth, 42 bodies of historical pioneers were never claimed, and their eternal resting spot remains unclaimed in the “Pioneer Plot” of the cemetery’s new location.
6. Alpine City Cemetery
Location: 300 North Grove Drive, Alpine
Alpine City Cemetery has a unique stone chair perched near a hill of old tombstones, inscribed with the name “Doxey.” According to Merriam-Webster, “doxey” was a historical term for a mistress or a woman who made a living from her body, but the chair is actually the grave of William Hayes Doxey, who died in 1994.
The stone chair is one of the cemetery’s most famous ghost stories. Paranormal investigators wrote about visiting the chair to sit on it at midnight (especially during a full moon!) to invoke the suffering of those laid to rest or, even more frightening, the devil himself. Others who have visited the cemetery claim to have captured pictures of a ghostly woman and her dead child peering out from the darkness of the graves.
7. Spanish Fork City Cemetery
Location: South 300 East and East 400 South, Spanish Fork
The Spanish Fork City Cemetery was established by Mormon pioneers around 1853, who chose the ground overlooking the Spanish Fork River as the final resting place for their dead. The first pioneers’ lives were a struggle, as they faced hunger, failing crops, and disease. Many succumbed, making the burial ground a necessary, if tragic, part of their community.
Today, the cemetery holds 26,000 burial spots and spans 32 acres. One of the most famous legends of the cemetery is the “Weeping Lady” statue, a stone sculpture erected by Horace Feredy for his wife, Laura, who died in 1929. Laura died at the age of 32 from a tumor that became infected, and her husband greatly mourned her death.
The statue, which represents his grief, is hauntingly beautiful, depicting a woman hiding her face in her hands as she weeps, curls cascading down around her shoulders. Legend says anyone who walks around the cemetery with their eyes closed can hear the statue weeping.
Horace was laid to rest beside his wife following his own death in 1972. The statue now overlooks both of them forever, with a poem inscribed on it that reads: “Warm summer sun shine kindly here, Gentle breeze blow softly here, Mother earth above lie light, lie light, Goodnight sweetheart, goodnight.”
8. Grafton Cemetery
Location: Rockville, near Zion National Park
Grafton Cemetery is located in Grafton, a ghost town built along the banks of the Virgin River (hey, it’s not just a Netflix show!). Mormon settlers started the town as an experiment in 1859, but they eventually abandoned it because of extreme flooding and damage from the unpredictable Virgin River.
Still, during the settlers’ time in Grafton, they buried their dead in what is now known as the Grafton cemetery. The cemetery was also the resting place for Southern Paiute Native Americans, who are believed to have lived alongside the Mormon settlers, but were not buried in marked graves.
Today, ghost tours operate in Grafton Cemetery, and visitors have reported drumming sounds, shadows, and chills on the grounds. There are many tragic stories of those who lost their lives in Grafton, including a family who lost three children in one month and two teenage girls and best friends, who both died in a swinging accident and were buried together.
9. Washakie Cemetery
Location: Box Elder County
The Washakie Cemetery is a sacred indigenous burial ground thought to hold the remains of hundreds of Native Americans. Some of those buried were victims of the Bear River Massacre in the 1860s, when the United States Army killed between 250 and 400 Shoshone people, men, women, and children among them.
Many Native American people believe the spirits of those buried there remain near the burial ground. One Shoshone descendant recalled encountering his grandmother while visiting the burial ground—even though she had passed away many years earlier.
10. Palladio Apartments Site
Location: Salt Lake City
The last inclusion on your list is not an established cemetery that you can visit today, but it is a site where both indigenous Americans and Utah’s first Mormon settlers both lived and died. Today, the site is an apartment complex, but early construction of the apartments led to the discovery of a pioneer burial ground, complete with coffins.
Construction was halted, and 32 bodies were exhumed and laid to final rest in the Pioneer Cemetery. However, the pioneer bodies were buried there because the site had first been an indigenous burial ground 1,000 years prior to any Mormon settlers entering the area.
Unfortunately, there are beliefs that due to a rushed timeline, the indigenous people’s bodies and burial artifacts were never properly managed or may have even been left in the ground while the apartment construction was finished. A plaque marks the site today, and many say that if any place in Utah should be haunted, it should be the sacred burial ground beneath Palladio Apartments.
