A whistle of wind, the cracklings of leaves, the snap of a twig: these are the sounds that make us jump at night, look over our shoulders in dark alleys, or avoid a shadowy hallway when we’re alone.
Though there are many legends Iowa City residents know, like the statue of the Black Angel, there are plenty of sites that get missed on the daily. There are places in Iowa City that go beyond their functional purpose or well-known story, places where people say they have seen or heard the unexplainable.
The wind, like the voice of a young girl, or the creak of the floor, echoes like footsteps. These places are passed by every day.
Within the Brown Street Historic District on Iowa City’s north side, brick roads and tall oak trees paint the neighborhood as a cultural epicenter. The neighborhood was classified as a nationally recognized historic district in 1994 and encompasses 15 acres of houses in northern Iowa City.
Brown Street was one of the early neighborhoods of Johnson County as the city was beginning to develop as the territory’s capital.
At the end of the street, only seven blocks away from the Iowa River, is the Oakland Cemetery.
Back when the bricks were first laid in 1907, this street was the preferred route for the funeral processions as deceased members of the community were paraded down the street, guided to their final resting place.
Matthew O’Brien, the head of the Iowa City Ghost Hunters, has heard multiple stories regarding the area near Brown Street. Its long-standing residency has caused it to have many run-ins with violent events.
“There was a murder there and just a lot of deaths connected to that area,” O’Brien said.
The origins of Brown Street’s haunted history stem from stories among the residents who have experienced unexplainable events. One of those residents is Candice Wuehle, a University of Iowa professor.
While Wuehle was attending the Iowa Writers Workshop in 2014, she and some of her peers lived on Brown Street and had brushes with the paranormal. One of those friends was living in what was considered to be a historically haunted home where a spirit lived within the walls. The ghost was said to pull people’s hair. Though Wuehle never experienced this, she said a few of her friends did.
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There is also the case of the white dog. One of the friends who also lived in this house was on Skype with her long-distance boyfriend late at night when he noticed something lurking in the background.
He had asked her when they got a dog, and she said, ‘We don’t have a dog. We’re not allowed to.’ Then he said, ‘There’s been a white dog walking around behind you on the camera,’” Wuehle said.
Another interesting aspect of Brown Street is the GasLight Village, a group of four buildings housing apartments and studios available for lease.
What really sets this area apart is an interesting architectural feature: a wall of gravestones. This feature has garnered so much attention the residents are used to various ghost tours or investigators showing up at their home.
“It’s happened several times at the Brown Street house, where the people living there will walk out to their car and go, ‘Haunted tour?’ and they’ll go, ‘Look at the gravestones!’ because they are from the 1820s and 1840s. You might have to push some branches back, but you’ll see them,” Wuehle said.
Plum Grove Mansion is also the subject of reported paranormal activity. Located on the south side of Iowa City, the home originally belonged to Robert Lucas, who was the first governor of the Territory of Iowa from 1838 to 1841.
After serving as governor, Lucas returned to his home state of Ohio. But after losing the Congressional election in 1843, Lucas and his wife sold their farm and moved their family back to Iowa. The property, which originally sat on 360 acres of land, was home to orchards of plum trees, from which his family took the name.
Today, the home sits as a historic landmark on four acres of land off Kirkwood Avenue and is open to the public.Alexandra McKendree is the executive director of the Johnson County Historic Society, and while she has personally never experienced a paranormal event in any of the locations she’s managed in the last 13 years, she has heard a story concerning the old Lucas home.
The story started with a volunteer when McKendree first began working for the society around 13 years ago. He was leading a tour when he took the group to the second floor to see the bedrooms.
“When they got to the three rooms upstairs — the master bedroom, boys’ bedroom, and a girl’s bedroom — they found a doll belonging to the granddaughter of Lucas and some examples of toys and furniture from that time period. He said once they got close to the room and looked in, a woman became flustered and said they didn’t get good vibes and refused to go inside,” McKendree said.
As a member of the historical society, McKendree is used to reporters and paranormal investigators asking to investigate certain sites.
“The first question I get asked at most of our sites is, ‘Is it haunted?’ and I will say I have not experienced anything after 13 years of being in the house day and night,” McKendree said. “But hey, if there is anything here they are happy with me because I am taking care of the house and continuing to share the history.”
Another addition to Iowa City’s spooky scene is the E.C. Mabie Theatre. Located on the west side of the UI’s campus, the building is rumored to host the spirit of Edward Charles Mabie trapped inside.
Though he is known for being a spirit in the building, Mabie is even more known for starting the theatre department at the UI. Mary Beth Easley, the chair of the Department of Theatre Arts at the UI, said some stories have arisen from Mabie’s supposed presence.
“A joke once was E.C. Mabie, who founded this department and is [who] the theater’s named after, hated musicals,” Easley said. “So whenever there was a musical, things would happen, and he was causing them to happen.”
Despite the thought a ghost being in a building is negative, Mabie’s is more on the positive side. Art Borreca, the co-head of the UI’s Playwright’s Workshop, had also heard haunted rumors about the theatre.
Early in Borreca’s career at the UI, he had a coworker who was given a gift by the late department secretary, Diane Topinka. Borreca explained how Topinka claimed the gift was evidently left for her by Mabie’s spirit.
“I asked the department secretary about it, and she said, ‘Oh yeah, didn’t you hear? The ghost of E.C. Mabie, he’s around and sometimes he leaves things for people,’” he said.
Though neither had a true ghost story of their own, each did bring up the topic of “ghost lights” when it comes to the end-of-night process in a theater. It is the practice of leaving a single light on the theater’s stage when everyone has left for the night.
“Myth has it they do that to keep the ghosts either away or to give light to the ghosts, where they have light to be able to perform or do whatever they want to,” Easley said.
Despite ghost lights having a practical purpose, Easley found it fun to think of them more supernaturally. She has been part of the theatre world across the country and has seen some odd things happen.
“If I want to have fun and say there’s a ghost in there, I think it’s kind of fun people’s spirits can hang around and be part of it,” Easley said.