State file · IA
Haunted places in Iowa
What are the most haunted places in Iowa? The best-known are Villisca Axe Murder House, Squirrel Cage Jail and Mason House Inn.
Iowa’s most famous ghost story is also one of America’s most notorious unsolved crimes: the 1912 axe murders of eight people in a small farmhouse in Villisca. The house has become a pilgrimage site for ghost hunters, and its fame overshadows a quieter state tradition of haunted county jails, poor farms, river-town hotels and prairie cemeteries.
- 3 hauntings
- 12 recorded sightings
Haunted places in Iowa
Villisca Axe Murder House
Eight people, six of them children, were killed in this Iowa farmhouse in June 1912. The murders were never solved, and the house now hosts ghost hunters. Widely reported
Squirrel Cage Jail
Council Bluffs’ 1885 rotary jail turned its pie-shaped cells by hand crank for decades. Museum staff and ghost hunters report footsteps and shadow figures. Local legendMason House Inn
An 1846 steamboat hotel in the river village of Bentonsport, built by Mormon craftsmen, where guests and owners describe a boy who tugs at bedclothes. Local legendThe ghost lore of Iowa
Much of that lore grows out of the nineteenth century, when steamboats worked the Mississippi and Des Moines rivers, Mormon emigrants crossed the state on their way west, and railroads stitched together hundreds of new towns. Buildings from that era – the rotary jail in Council Bluffs, the 1846 Mason House Inn in Bentonsport – survive as museums and inns, and their custodians have found that ghost tours help keep the lights on.
Ghost hunters head to Villisca and Council Bluffs in the west and the Villages of Van Buren County in the southeast. Many of Iowa’s best-known haunted sites, such as old county homes and asylums, are privately owned or closed; visit only on organised tours, and never trespass in rural cemeteries or abandoned buildings.
Ghost-hunting hotspots
- Villisca
A small railroad town whose 1912 tragedy draws visitors from around the world – and whose residents would like it remembered for more.
- Council Bluffs
A Missouri River city with the Squirrel Cage Jail, the Historic General Dodge House and a long frontier history.
- Villages of Van Buren County
Bentonsport, Keosauqua and neighbouring river villages preserve 1840s buildings, inns and a seasonal ghost crawl.
- Dubuque
Iowa’s oldest city, on the Mississippi bluffs, with Victorian mansions, river history and popular ghost walks.
Timeline
- 12 July 1881Rotary jail patented Squirrel Cage Jail
William H. Brown and Benjamin F. Haugh receive a patent for a revolving jail, the design later built in Council Bluffs.
- 11 September 1885The jail opens Squirrel Cage Jail
Pottawattamie County’s rotary jail, designed by St. Joseph architects Eckel and Mann, goes into service, built for about $30,000.
- 10 June 1912Eight people found dead Villisca Axe Murder House
Josiah and Sarah Moore, their four children and two young guests are found killed in the house. The crime scene is trampled by curious townspeople before it can be properly examined.
- November 1917Rev. George Kelly acquitted Villisca Axe Murder House
After a recanted confession and a first trial that ended in a hung jury, Kelly is acquitted at a second trial. The case remains officially unsolved.
- 1960The cage stops turning Squirrel Cage Jail
After a malfunction prevents staff from reaching the body of a prisoner who died of natural causes for two days, the rotation mechanism is disabled. The jail stays in use, stationary, until 1969.
- 1969Jail closes after 84 years Squirrel Cage Jail
The county stops using the building, which had been condemned around 22 times. The cell block is left largely as it was.
- 1977Historical society saves the building Squirrel Cage Jail
The Historical Society of Pottawattamie County leads an effort to preserve the jail, which it now operates as a museum – and, in time, as a destination for ghost tours.
- 1994The Linns buy and restore the house Villisca Axe Murder House
Darwin and Martha Linn purchase the house and restore it to its 1912 condition, opening it for historical tours. Overnight stays, and ghost stories, soon follow.
- 2001The Hansons and the ghost stories Mason House Inn
Chuck and Joy Hanson buy the inn and run it as a bed and breakfast, cataloguing guests’ experiences and the family of spirits they believe share the house.
- June 2007Ghost tourism reaches national news Villisca Axe Murder House
An Associated Press story reports that the house hosts overnight guests nearly every weekend, including psychics, paranormal investigators and students – and that some townspeople are uneasy about it.
- 2017The Man from the Train published Villisca Axe Murder House
Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James propose that the Villisca murders were one of a series of axe killings by a single travelling murderer, reviving interest in the case.
- February 2025Restoration appeal Mason House Inn
The inn’s new owners launch a fundraising drive to restore the historic building, while continuing its ghost hunts and sleepovers.
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