Who doesn’t love a good ghost story? When thinking about America’s most haunted cities, what comes to mind – New Orleans, Savannah, Salem, Massachusetts, Lawrenceburg? The first three seem obvious, but Lawrenceburg?
A walk down the town’s Main Street seems a peaceful enough activity, with the charming shops and cozy restaurants. But one structure is anything but charming and cozy. The Anderson Hotel has developed quite a creepy reputation status. So, how did this seemingly ordinary looking two-story building become a hotbed of haints?
That’s a question that numerous paranormal investigators have attempted to answer. The ghoulish goings-on at the Anderson Hotel have been featured on television (Season 1 of TLC’s Paranormal Lockdown).
In 2016, the show’s investigators Nick Groff and Katrina Weidman, spent 72 hours at the hotel, concluding that when it came to the supernatural, the Anderson had negative energy to spare. That conclusion was reinforced in an episode of the podcast, The Grave Talks, on the You Tube channel. The podcast documented reports from paranormal investigators claiming to have seen bloodstains in the bath tubs; experiencing bite marks from invisible teeth and witnessing numerous apparitions gliding through the Anderson’s rooms.
For the paranormal tourist, the Anderson Hotel is a nightmare come true. The annual Anderson Haunted Hotel is so scary that multiples of people couldn’t even bring themselves to leave the lobby. The haunted attraction gets raves from those who like a good scare.
Visitors also may accompany local amateur historian and ghost hunter Jeff Waldridge on tours throughout the year and of course, during the Halloween season. In additional, Jeff runs the Ghost Walks which are as rich in the history of Lawrenceburg as they are in spooky stories.
Plan your creepy adventures on our calendar.
Kentucky After Dark Passport Program
Are you a creepy tourist? Stop at the Lawrenceburg Anderson County Visitors Center or The Burg Coffee House or Best Western to pick up your passport into the unknown. Well, we do actually KNOW where the most haunted, sought- after paranormal experiences are cause we put them in a passport and made stickers for the Kentucky After Dark travel program. But you get the point.
Passport Stickers
To get a Passport Sticker, you must first Upload a Photo of yourself AFTER you have gone through The Anderson Haunted Hotel to our page on Facebook OR Insta – TAGGING #VisitTheBurgKY and #KentuckyAfterDark. Then, visit one of these three locations:
Lawrenceburg Anderson County Visitor Center, at 113 South Main Street in downtown Lawrenceburg right across from the Anderson Hotel
Call ahead for hours 502-598-3127
OR
The Burg Coffee House, at 701 West Broadway, Lawrenceburg, KY
Call ahead for hours 502-604-6015
OR
Best Western Lawrenceburg Inn, at 200 Plaza Drive, Lawrenceburg, KY
Open 24/7
Family Frights & Fun
Buckmeadow Farms is a family-friendly farm with a pumpkin patch and lots of kid’s activities like hayrides, games and more during it’s open season (late September – end of October annually). For those that like a little more fright in their fun, they also do a Haunted Corn Maze one night of the year that will make you downright shiver.
Bigfoot
Bigfoot is, well, big around here. Since the early 1700’s, the nomadic and mysterious creature has been sighted in Anderson County. To this day, we rank top of the list of the most sightings in the region. The Frazier family were the first to identify the beast on their farm out on Wildcat Road and the lore goes that they even sold part of their property to avoid the “manimal”. Throughout the year, you can join Bigfoot hunters for late night expeditions to seek the beast yourself. Find those happenings on our event calendar.
Seems a bit peculiar that most of the sightings have been around the distilleries which makes us wonder if our favorite Wildman doesn’t have a bit of a taste for the brown spirits, or maybe it’s the spotter who does. Either way, we celebrate the folklore — and our native spirits– at the annual Wildman Days Festival annually in June.
Wildman Triathlon — Where Legends are Made
If training to out-run/bike/swim the Bigfoot is your thing, sign-up for the Wildman Triathlon which will feature a Half and International Distance Triathlon with open water swim, beautiful Bluegrass backroads and a country run –that’s way longer than a country mile, if you’re wonderin’. The Wildman Triathlon is sure to be a beast of a race but one that offers incredible reward with a finish in historic downtown Lawrenceburg.
