Haunted honky-tonks and Civil War battlefields. Walk Nashville's 16 most haunted stops. 3 free, self-guided.
Nashville's most haunted places are soaked in Civil War blood and honky-tonk ghosts. On November 30, 1864, the Battle of Franklin produced 9,000 casualties in five hours — at Carnton Plantation, surgeons amputated limbs by candlelight while four dead Confederate generals lay on the back porch, their blood permanently staining the floorboards. The Bell Witch terrorized a family forty minutes north starting in 1817, promised to kill John Bell, and delivered — he died in 1820 with a vial of poison beside his body while the entity laughed. At Tootsie's Orchid Lounge on Broadway, bartenders catch the scent of Hank Williams' Old Spice mixed with whiskey, and the jukebox plays songs that aren't in its catalog. Fort Negley was built by 3,000 enslaved laborers who died in the open. This self-guided tour covers 13 free stops from Printer's Alley's Prohibition tunnels to the Ryman Auditorium, where Patsy Cline's voice still drifts from the darkened stage.
This grand structure has been the heart of our state’s government for generations. Yet, some say that within this architectural marvel, the past linge...
Printer's Alley earned its name from the printing presses that operated here in the nineteenth century, but it earned its reputation from everything e...
You stand in the marble lobby of Nashville's most opulent hotel, where power brokers and celebrities have stayed for over a century. But not all guest...
Built in 1898 to replace an overcrowded facility, Tennessee State Prison rose from the Cumberland River bottomlands like a fortress of misery. For nea...
You stand on the back porch of Carnton, where blood ran so thick on November 30, 1864, that it stained the floorboards permanently. The Battle of Fran...
When Nashville's Union Station opened in 1900, it was a cathedral of travel—soaring barrel-vaulted ceilings, stained glass, and the constant rhythm of...
The Hermitage Hotel opened in 1910 as Nashville's finest, its Beaux-Arts lobby glittering with marble and stained glass. Presidents, senators, and cou...
David McGavock completed Two Rivers Mansion in 1859, building his Italianate showpiece on a bluff where the Stones River meets the Cumberland. The lan...
The Gaylord Opryland Resort sprawls across the site where the Grand Ole Opry once broadcast to millions. Beneath its glass atriums and indoor gardens,...
In the autumn of 1862, Union forces occupying Nashville conscripted thousands of enslaved people, freedmen, and contraband laborers to build a massive...
You stand at the cave entrance, forty minutes north of Nashville, where America's most documented haunting took place. In 1817, the Bell family began ...
Nashville City Cemetery opened in 1822, and for decades it served as the city's only public burial ground. Within its iron fence lie the remains of Ci...
You stand inside the purple-painted honky-tonk where country music legends drank between sets at the Ryman Auditorium across the alley. Tootsie Bess r...
Judge John Overton built Travellers Rest in 1799 as a modest clapboard home that grew with his ambitions. A close friend and advisor to Andrew Jackson...
Andrew Jackson was not a man who yielded ground easily in life, and death has apparently done nothing to change that. The seventh president built The ...
You stand in Nashville's oldest indoor shopping arcade, a two-story Victorian corridor connecting Fourth and Fifth Avenues. For over a century, it's b...
The Nashville ghost tour includes 16 documented haunted locations covering 161 years of documented history.
The first 3 stops are completely free — no account required. To unlock all 16 stops, a History Nearby premium subscription is $4.99/month or $49.99/year.
No. This is a self-guided walking tour. Each stop includes the address, a map pin, and the full haunting story. Walk at your own pace, start anytime, and take any route you like.
Plan for approximately 3 hours. This accounts for walking between stops and reading each haunting story. You can also split it across multiple evenings.
The most visited stop on our Nashville tour is Tennessee State Capitol at Motlow Tunnel, Nashville, Tennessee, 37219.
3 stops free in Nashville. No guide, no schedule — walk at your own pace after dark.
Last updated February 22, 2026. Researched by the History Nearby editorial team.