Author Archives: Samuel Keeney

The Haunted Epperson House in UMKC

Main piece:

“So this house used to be owned by a rich family that, I think, made their money in organs like the instrument and it was the Epperson family. They had a bit of tragic life, there’s a million tales of their trials and tribulations and I honestly don’t remember all of them but I know there are a couple of legends that- one that there did actually use to be a swimming pool in the basement of this big mansion and at some point it got cemented over unexpectedly around the time someone went missing and there was a theory that one of the Epperson lovers is buried in concrete in the pool. There also was a daughter of the family who, I don’t remember if it was from a broken love affair or what it was, they had a big beautiful ballroom with an organ loft and she hanged herself from the organ loft which is a bit of a statement because since they made their money in organs. So anyway, this house has a long, long history in Kansas City of being associated with hauntings and ghost stories, people see lights and movements inside the house even though its been locked up and not used for years and years and years”

Background:

My informant is a 49 year old woman living in Kansas City, Missouri. While originally from Joplin, Missouri, she moved to Kansas City about 18 years ago. The Epperson House is located on the campus grounds of the University of Kansas City, Missouri which is near her home. The house has a series of legends tied to it, with one of the most common practices involving teens interacting with the house for seances and the sort. The informant has friends who grew up in Kansas City and have participated in this tradition. While the house is generally closed to the public, a security guard offered her a tour which led to her fascination with the house and it’s legends. 

Context:

This piece was brought to my attention through research into legends from Missouri which I used to approach my informant. She has told me about this phenomenon several times but this specific conversation occurred in the living room of her house in Kansas City when I asked her about using the story for the archives.

Thoughts:

The Epperson House is a classic haunted house legend. Much like previous iterations, the house represents several different things for the surrounding community. First, the house serves the function of uniting the community with a common legend. Kansas City is a relatively big city, so while the whole city might not have nearly as much folklore about this structure, knowledge of the legend places one within the know of a community. This is also present for the teen culture of Kansas City, who use the structure as a right of passage in order to be considered part of the group. Another interesting aspect of the legend is the indirect tie between wealth and tragedy. Despite having near endless wealth, the Epperson family could not avoid their tragic fate, almost making the legend a cautionary tale of sorts against the massive accumulation of wealth. This is especially interesting because the house is adjacent to a relatively wealthy neighborhood, making the moral of the story also a reminder for the nearby families. Another way of interpreting this legend is that the Epperson House represents old money. The house is ancient, and by making it seem scary and tragic, the overall perspective of the community is placed on the future. In this interpretation, money is not bad per say, but one should not worry about the past but look to the future, because all that remains of the past are ghosts and abandoned structures. 

The Romantic Exchange of Notes at Spoofer Stone

Main piece:

“Spoofer Stone is a rock located on the campus of University of Arkansas outside the building known as Old Main and it was used back when the campus was divided by gender for lovers to exchange notes by putting the papers in the cracks of the rock. SInce then, it has become a spot for romance and the campus has special events there and even been proposals there for people who have gone to University of Arkansas”

Background:

The informant for this piece is a woman in her late 40s who lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She was born in Joplin, Missouri but moved south to Fayetteville and has lived there for almost 18 years by now. Fayetteville is a college town as it is adjacent to the University of Arkansas. Due to the proximity of the town to the Ozark mountains, the Ozark culture influences the town alongside the culture of those going there for college.

Context:

The piece was shared with me via a phone call with the informant. This exact topic was brought up in response to my general question looking for local folklore of the Fayetteville area. 

Thoughts:

I think the Spoofer stone is interesting in how it has become accepted by the University. The stone used to serve as a meeting spot for couples, as the school was originally divided by gender and disallowed the men to mingle with the women. This was gradually changed over time, but originally, the stone allowed people to interact behind the official authority of the school system. I feel like this is often the intent of folklore, to go around typical restrictions of the system. In this regard, the stone is a rebellious use of the student’s abilities to circumvent the system. Now, the stone has been accepted as a historic part of the campus of University of Arkansas. As such, it still remains folklore, but the people involved have changed from the students to the students and the administration. This is not to say that this shift devalues the stone, but instead it is interesting as it shows how folklore can change meaning over time.

Slenderman

“The idea is that there is a man that lives in the woods, he is very tall and lanky, he wears a suit and has tentacles on his back but the biggest thing is that he doesn’t have a face, when you look at him it’s just a white head, a flat nothing. I honestly don’t remember how I first heard about- it was probably just through talking to other kids because it became such a big deal because Slenderman started as a creepy pasta where someone wrote a story and it just spread through the Internet. There’s a whole bunch of scary photos with a child next to him and the whole idea is that he would lure kids into the woods and kill them. One of the things that was scary about him was that the more you research the Slenderman, the more likely he is to get you. So like as you look stuff up, he’s like gonna put you on his list like this person looking too much into it. I don’t fully know how that started and it made it scarier because we can’t find anything about him.”

Background:

My informant is a 16-year old from Kansas City, Missouri. She is active on the Internet and has been on YouTube since early 2010. In the early days of the Internet, people invented short stories that would be spread throughout the Internet via copy and pasting, earning the name copy pastas. Eventually, this act of sharing stories transformed to fit the horror genre and this subculture was known as creepy pastas. These stories are shared in Internet circles as short and creepy stories and are subject to reinterpretation with each telling. My informant, being invested with the Internet, learned of several of these throughout the years and remembered this one in particular. 

Context:

My informant brought up this story during a walk around her neighborhood when I asked her about scary stories from her childhood. 

Thoughts:

This story is interesting as it represents several fears for a generation that is heavily present on the Internet. Firstly, the Slenderman takes from similar urban legends of the past featuring a man in the woods who seeks to hurt others. It should be noted though, that this specific story states he only seeks to hurt children, which is done to emphasize his cruelty and evil nature. Furthermore, it is tailored to fit those who would stumble upon the story, most of which would be younger children using the Internet. Being entirely on the Internet also changes how people could discuss the story, which features prominently in this telling of the story. The informant told me that she heard you could not look anything up about the creature, as it would make you his target. This is fascinating, as it plays into the fears of a generation with seemingly unlimited access to technology, which is a restriction of said content. If nothing else, the Slenderman also represents an entire shift in the methods by which stories are told. Whereas other classic horror stories are primarily told orally, the Slenderman’s origins are entirely on the Internet. This pushed the content of the piece to better fit this audience, and it adapted to address fears of this generation of kids on the Internet.

For an in-depth look at the history of this legend, see: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/movies/slender-man-timeline.html

The Spook Lights in Joplin, Missouri

Main piece:

“The spook light which is sometimes known as the Joplin spook light because that’s the biggest town closest to it but it’s actually in the town of Hornet, Missouri which is, as far as I know, has no population. So it’s just a little ways outside of Joplin Missouri and for decades- probably going back to the turn of the century, this legend has been around this area that on certain nights if go out on this specific roads that’s very dark and abandoned and park your car and are quiet, that you will see a light floating at the end of the road. There’s all sorts of legends about what it is, the most famous one is that it is tied to American Indians somehow, that either during the Trail of Tears or something terrible upheaval, a Native American couple was separated and this is one of the lovers out with a lantern in the nighttime looking for their lost love, but there’s other legends too. In reality there have been scientific studies of it, and some people say it’s some sort of swamp gas, some have said it’s the way this road is positioned relative to a highway a few miles away creates some optical illusion with headlights from the road but it has not been definitely said what this thing is.”

Background:

My informant is originally from Joplin, Missouri and currently resides in Kansas City, Missouri. She’s lived all across the United States but lives here currently with her husband and three kids. Her mother lived in the Ozarks in southern Missouri for most of her life and so the entire family has ties to that specific area. Historically, Joplin is not a big town and is known for very little outside of Missouri.

Context:

This piece was brought to my attention through research into legends from Missouri which I used to approach my informant. She has told me about this phenomenon several times but this specific conversation occurred in the living room of her house in Kansas City when I asked her about using the spook light for the folklore archive.

Thoughts:

At face value, the spook lights are seemingly very similar to similar pieces of folklore like the will o’ wisps or other light-based phenomenon. What I feel differentiates the spook lights from other similar folklore though is their use in unifying the town of Joplin and the influence of Native American superstition. The town of Joplin is in the south of Missouri, near the start of the Ozark Mountain range. This area is rife with folklore that comes out of isolated communities who are restricted through natural landscapes like lakes or mountains. Joplin is on the fringe of this culture, which makes it so it mixes Ozark culture with the broader culture of Missouri. By having a local legend, the town is unified in a collective legend. Furthermore, the spook lights are restricted to a single specific road and at certain times, making seeing them even more of a marker of your place in the community. This can also be seen in how the spook light is popular amongst teens who, according to my informant, visit the spook light as a right of passage. The other component to the spook light is how it reflects concerns about the treatment of Native Americans. The legend is that the light is the ghost of a Native couple who have been separated by not only death but also circumstances. By making their local legend a reflection of the poor treatment of Natives, the town recognizes the injustice and seeks to remember it.

For an in-depth look into the history of the legend, see: https://www.joplinmo.org/575/The-Spook-Light

The Moodus Noises of Moodus, Connecticut

Main Piece:

“So this is a story about- nearby where I grew up in Connecticut there’s a little teeny town in the southern part of Connecticut called Moodus and its where my first cousins lived and we used to go visit around the holidays, Christmas in particular I remember visiting for Christmas Eve because we would trade on and off every year, one year we’d come visit them, one year they’d come visit us and they’d host a big dinner. And they had this big farmhouse and it backed up on this lake and this farmhouse had a hill, a grassy hill, sloping down to the lake and it was extremely old it had extremely dark wooden floors that were rough because it was a farmhouse. Anyways, so I remember the Moodus noises, I don’t really know if its true or a myth, but it’s basically in this town you can hear these noises coming out of the ground and, doesn’t always happen but it can happen and scientists have looked into this and the most likely explanation is that there are micro-earthquakes that are shallow in the ground and that’s the cause of the noise. That’s something everyone talks about in the town, the mascot for the high-school sports team is the Moodus noises and so I remember being with my cousins in this creepy farmhouse and them telling us the story about the noises and then trying to startle us with noises the entire night.”

Background:

My informant is a man in his early 50s originally from Hartford, Connecticut. He lived there through his teens and had extended family in the nearby areas. The cousins described here were present for a lot his childhood and they often shared scary stories. The Moodus Noises are well documented phenomena that remain ambiguous and have little physical ties but it serves to unite the town with a common legend. While my informant did not live there, his interaction with his cousins put him in conversation with this legend.

Context:

My informant told me about this story when I was asking a group of family and friends about scary stories or legends from their childhood. He told the story in front of the group and I recorded it during that telling. 

Thoughts:

What I find fascinating about the Moodus noises is the complete lack of any form of the topic from the folkloric perspective. This natural phenomenon serves the primary function of folklore, it unites the town with a common experience. However, there is no supernatural explanation of the noises. They are not tied to spirits or cryptids, they are just ambiguously there. This is fascinating to me, as more often than not, folklore takes some physical form but the Moodus noises are just noises. In my opinion, this is the result of the fact that the noises have a very clear explanation. Compared to other strange phenomena such as Will o’ Wisps, the Moodus noises have a clear explanation of why they occur. As such, they occupy a liminal space between science and folklore, wherein they have an explanation but they still count as community legend.