Learn about the ghosts that haunt Louisiana’s capital city in this collection of spooky stories and photos . . . With yellow fever, Civil War battles, murders, and tragic accidents staining its history, it is no wonder that Baton Rouge is rife with tales of ghostly visitors. Highland Road has had so many reports of Civil War soldier sightings that the local police department sent out an officer to track one down. Spirits crowd about in the stately grounds of the Magnolia Mound and Old Cottage Plantations, the Old State Capitol building and the new, and even the USS Kidd. Unlikely spots like the Guaranty Income Life and Broadcast Building have plenty of hair-raising stories of their own; the cafeteria used to be a morgue. Now you can explore the Red Stick’s eerie past with paranormal investigator Bud Steed—as he uncovers the city’s most chilling tales.

Discover this Cajun and Creole city where ghost stories abound . . . photos included! The Hub City boasts a multitude of spirits and specters, from those lost in Civil War skirmishes and fever outbreaks to those souls that simply can’t say goodbye. Today, they wander the halls of bed-and-breakfasts and restaurants and linger along back roads and cemeteries. Pirates are rumored to guard buried treasure, and ancient French legends hide in the swamps, bayous, and woods. Join journalist and ghost seeker Cheré Dastugue Coen as she visits Lafayette’s haunted sites and travels the countryside in search of ghostly legends found only in South Louisiana.

Series statement from publisher's website.

Contains over seventy tales of ghostly hauntings from each of the fifty United States and Canada.

Describes over 2,000 sites of supernatural occurances in the United States, including places visited by ghosts, UFOs, and unusual creatures.

Tiger Ann Parker wants nothing more than to get out of the rural town of Saitter, Louisiana--far away from her mentally disabled mother, her "slow" father who can't read an electric bill, and her classmates who taunt her. So when Aunt Dorie Kay asks Tiger to sp the summer with her in Baton Rouge, Tiger can't wait to go. But before she leaves, the sudden revelation of a dark family secret prompts Tiger to make a decision that will ultimately change her life. Set in the South in the late 1950s, this coming-of-age novel explores a twelve-year-old girl's struggle to accept her grandmother's death, her mentally deficient parents, and the changing world around her. It is a novel filled with beautiful language and unforgettable characters, and the importance of family and home. My Louisiana Sky is a 1998 Boston Globe - Horn Book Award Honor Book for Fiction.

“He struck a match to look at his watch. In the flare of the light they saw a young woman just at Pitot’s elbow—a young woman dressed all in black, with pale gold hair, and a baby sleeping on her shoulder. She glided to the edge of the bridge and stepped noiselessly off into the black waters.”—from Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans Ghosts are said to wander along the rooftops above New Orleans’ Royal Street, the dead allegedly sing sacred songs in St. Louis Cathedral, and the graveyard tomb of a wealthy madam reportedly glows bright red at night. Local lore about such supernatural sightings, as curated by Jeanne deLavigne in her classic Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans, finds the phantoms of bitter lovers, vengeful slaves, and menacing gypsies haunting nearly every corner of the city, from the streets of the French Quarter to Garden District mansions. Originally printed in 1944, all forty ghost stories and the macabre etchings of New Orleans artist Charles Richards appear in this new edition. Drawing largely on popular legend dating back to the 1800s, deLavigne provides vivid details of old New Orleans with a cast of spirits that represent the ethnic mélange of the city set amid period homes, historic neighborhoods, and forgotten taverns. Combining folklore, newspaper accounts, and deLavigne’s own voice, these phantasmal tales range from the tragic—brothers, lost at sea as children, haunt a chapel on Thomas Street in search of their mother—to graphic depictions of torture, mutilation, and death. Folklorist and foreword contributor Frank A. de Caro places the writer and her work in context for modern readers. He uncovers new information about deLavigne’s life and describes her book’s pervasive lingering influence on the Crescent City’s culture today.

For many immigrants to Baton Rouge, being buried in the highlands of their European homes was a dream. Recognizing that this desire was unlikely to come to fruition, they christened the bluff above the Mississippi River south of the town as "Highland" and established Highland Cemetery in 1819. The military fort had a burial ground; churches established cemeteries; owners, family members, and slaves were buried on the plantations; towns offered municipal cemeteries and paupers' plots; and families distant from towns created family cemeteries. Magnolia Cemetery was established for white citizens in 1852. Sweet Olive and the Lutheran Cemeteries were for free people of color and slaves. St. Joseph's Catholic Cemetery, established in 1826, did not discriminate on race but on religious affiliation, as did the Jewish cemetery. Civil War Union soldiers were separated from Confederates buried in Magnolia Cemetery and interred in the Baton Rouge National Cemetery. In 1921, Roselawn Park Cemetery represented the beginning of cemeteries as business. Beautiful statuary, elaborate tombstones and memorials, unique monuments to the departed, and lush gardens accentuate Baton Rouge's cities of the dead.

In this book Tiya Miles explores the popular yet troubling phenomenon of "ghost tours," frequently promoted and experienced at plantations, urban manor homes, and cemeteries throughout the South. As a staple of the tours, guides entertain paying customers by routinely relying on stories of enslaved black specters. But who are these ghosts? Examining popular sites and stories from these tours, Miles shows that haunted tales routinely appropriate and skew African American history to produce representations of slavery for commercial gain. "Dark tourism" often highlights the most sensationalist and macabre aspects of slavery, from salacious sexual ties between white masters and black women slaves to the physical abuse and torture of black bodies to the supposedly exotic nature of African spiritual practices. Because the realities of slavery are largely absent from these tours, Miles reveals how they continue to feed problematic "Old South" narratives and erase the hard truths of the Civil War era. In an incisive and engaging work, Miles uses these troubling cases to shine light on how we feel about the Civil War and race, and how the ghosts of the past are still with us.

A coast-to-coast tour of places that eyewitnesses claim have been, and may still be, haunted, from the former Peoria State Hospital in Illinois to San Diego's historic Whaley House Museum.