Geospirits offers interactive map of paranormal sites

            Louisiana Spirits has a new interactive map that lets viewers search for paranormal sites throughout the United States, including all over the Deep South!

            You’ll find everything from haunted hotels and bed and breakfasts to cemeteries, battlefields and historic buildings. Some are suspected to be haunted, some have research to back them up and some contain “some sort of unknown phenomena,” claim organizers.            

            Want to add your site? Submit your location by email to Louisiana Spirits.
            Note: The icon at right gives the URL as GeoSpirits.com but when we clicked on the link it came to http://www.laspirits.com/geospirits, for what it’s worth.


Haunted Deep South is written by travel writer Cheré Coen, author of Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana by The History Press. She writes the Viola Valentine paranormal mystery series under the pen name of Cherie Claire.

Who haunts the Opelousas Museum?

Opelousas Museum and Interpretive Center

            Living history roams the Opelousas Museum and Interpretive Center, walking among the Clifton Chenier zydeco records, Civil War relics and around the barbershop chair where Clyde Barrow of Bonnie and Clyde fame got his last haircut. There are specters who refuse to leave the 1935 building, whose incarnations included the Sibille’s Funeral Home, a church and the Opelousas Library.

            Director Delores Guillory had no idea of the building’s history when she first started working at the Opelousas Museum. Her first clue came when she was alone in the building, sitting at her desk inside the office.

            “The front door opened and it closed,” Guillory said. “I looked over and nobody came. I looked at the door and there was no one.”

            Guillory even went so far as to check the outside porch and sidewalk and both were empty. When her supervisor returned, she recalled the story. To her surprise, the supervisor laughed.

            “That’s when she told me about it once being a funeral home,” Guillory said.

            Other events followed, including hearing startling noises like something falling from the wall. Once a loud noise emanated from the Civil War room and Guillory smelled cigarettes after investigating.

            Another time she was sitting in the hallway when the back door opened and closed. At first she chalked it up to the security guard who liked to tease her about the ghosts, but when she called him up on the phone, he was the park.

            “I said okay, that was our ghost again.”

The Civil War Room

            Others have experienced sightings as well. One employee spotted something white and whispy moving across her line of sight by the Civil War Room.

            “All of sudden something went across cold cold and she smelled perfume,” Guillory explained. “We told her about the ghosts. The next day she quit.”

            A worker performing community service at the museum halted at the mannequin in the Mardi Gras display, a man bedecked in a long mink and velvet robe. The elaborate robe was created for Nolan Simmons, who reigned as King Orme XLVIII in the 1994 Carnival season in Opelousas. Today, it adorns the mannequin inside a glass case, with a mirror behind so visitors can view all sides.

            “She said I have to get out of here,” Guillory related of the woman’s experience at the mannequin. “She said there’s a bad vibe in here.”

            Some people halt at the front door, feeling the paranormal vibe and refusing to set foot inside, Guillory said.

            Louisiana Spirits paranormal investigators spent an evening in the museum and heard unusual sounds they couldn’t account for, but they did debunk the mystery of the moving dolls in the display cases. The dolls were not laying flat within the cases so footsteps in the hall caused the cabinets to shake and move, said Jennifer Broussard of Louisiana Spirits. Investigator Charles Gardner managed to get one doll to turn completely as he walked in the hallway, he said.

This story was an excerpt from "Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana" by Cheré Coen, published by The History Press.

Ghost in the Grevemberg parlor

    The Grevemberg House in Franklin, Louisiana, was built in 1851 by town lawyer Henry Wilson. He later sold the home to Mrs. Frances Wyckoff Grevemberg, who had lost her husband, Gabriel Grevemberg, in the 1856 hurricane that devastated Last Island or Isle Derniere off the coast of Louisiana. Mrs. Grevemberg and her children lived in the house for many years, then different owners purchased the home until the City of Franklin took over the property in 1948.

            Today, the Greek Revival house is a museum operated by the St. Mary Landmarks Society. Most of the furnishings are not original to the house, but are appropriate period antiques. However, the cypress floors and the downstairs black marble mantles are original.

            The Grevemberg House Museum offers Civil War memorabilia, an iron casket, an extensive toy and doll collection and a large statue of Justice saved from the demolition of the old Franklin courthouse.

            Ghosts have not been reported here, but a psychic visited the museum and claimed an older woman was standing near the center table in the front room, the one housing the Steinway Grand Square piano beneath the portrait of handsome Charles Alexander Grevemberg, who built Albania Plantation in nearby Jeanerette, Louisiana. The psychic claimed the woman found the room nicely furnished, but the pieces were not where they were supposed to be. She hovered by the table and then walked toward the fireplace.

Haunted Deep South is written by travel writer Cheré Coen, author of Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana by The History Press. She writes the Viola Valentine paranormal mystery series under the pen name of Cherie Claire.