The Armstrong Hotel

The Armstrong Hotel, which once stood at the corner of 6th and Main in Shelbyville, must have been an interesting place in the good old days. The historical marker notes that it was "known for its good food and lodgings" since 1859, but also for two newsworthy murders.


Henry Denhardt, former Lt. Governor of Kentucky from Bowling Green, was charged with the murder of his girlfriend, Verna Garr Taylor, and tried in LaGrange in November, 1936.

That trial ended in a hung jury, and while free on bail and awaiting his second trial, he was shot to death by Verna's brothers in front of the Armstrong Hotel on September 20, 1937. Denhardt, who had a reputation as a heavy drinker, had just come from a tavern down the street and was about to go back up to his room at the Armstrong.

Verna's brothers got off scot free, incidentally, and to this day no one can say for sure whether Denhardt was guilty or innocent of Verna's murder.

And back during the Civil War, Union guerilla leader Edwin Terrell stopped here on May 26, 1866 while on the run from the law. A posse caught up with him at the Armstrong, and though he tried to escape, he was shot to death nearby after fleeing the Hotel. Terrell sounds like an interesting rogue; according to an article by Stewart Cruickshank:

"Prior to the Civil War it is thought that Edwin Terrell performed in a circus. He reportedly killed a bartender in Baltimore but was acquitted of the charges. Oral tradition has it that Terrell served in the 1st Kentucky Infantry, C.S.A., in 1861. Terrell himself claimed that he'd served under General John Hunt Morgan and had escaped a court martial sentence of death for killing an officer. There is a record of an Edward Terrell enlisting in August 1862 in Morgan's 7th Kentucky Cavalry. This soldier deserted in September."

The Hot Brown

It's funny - it's happened more than once that when friends from faraway places come to visit, they're puzzled that the "Hot Brown" isn't on the menu everywhere we go. "I thought everyone in Kentucky eats Hot Browns", they say. Nope, sorry. We don't all eat Derby Pie, Squambo, or squirrel brains either. (One of my houseguests was from Australia, and she demonstrated the inverse to me by pointing out that the menu at Outback Steakhouse is, as a representation of Aussie cuisine, virtually a total fiction.)

I'm actually not a fan of the Hot Brown sandwich myself; I don't care for sandwiches covered in gooey runny sauces, and I'm such a tomato snob that the tomatoes that most restaurants use simply aren't good enough for me.

Having said that, Wikipedia's photo of the Hot Brown (pictured above) shows an example from the Kurtz Restaurant in Bardstown, and I have to say it looks pretty darned good. I'd probably still pick the tomaters off, but I like how it's coated in a thick melted American cheese instead of the traditional alfredo-ish Mornay sauce. Next time I'm in Bardstown, I may stop in and check it out.

But as a cultural relic with mythic resonance, I fully appreciate the Hot Brown as part of the Brown Hotel experience - the sandwich was created there by Fred K. Schmidt in 1926. The Brown Hotel is one of Louisville' greatest treasures, and is, as you might expect, very haunted. I'm working on a project to assess the supernatural activity at the Brown Hotel, but we'll talk more about that in the near future.

Hallucinating Kentuckian Ruins Ohio Hotel Room

A Kentucky man has been arrested for destroying a Cincinnati hotel room by flooding it with hundreds of gallons of water. From FOX News:

Charles R. Weaver, 46, from Hindman, Kentucky, was arrested at the downtown Cincinnati Courtyard by Marriott.

A police report stated that water was coming out from under the door to Weaver's room and was leaking into rooms next door and into the lobby.

According the report Weaver was found laying in the water naked and he was screaming that someone was trying to set him on fire.

Weaver also allegedly set off a fire alarm while trying to run away from the police, according to the report. He also allegedly broke a window because according to him, he was trying to get his sister's attention outside.

Police also report that they found 24 grams of cocaine wrapped in money, several bottles of alcohol and 1.8 ounces of marijuana in Weaver's room. Weaver apparently admitted that he had been doing drugs over the past couple days.

According to WLEX 18, Weaver originally admitted to using the drugs, but then changed his story and accused the police of planting them in his hotel room.

The damage done to Weaver's room, adjoining rooms, the hallway and the lobby will cost many thousands to repair. Hope this clown still has some money left after buying all those drugs, because he's going to need it.

Maple Hill Manor

Maple Hill Manor wears many hats - it's a historic home, a Bed & Breakfast, a craft store, an orchard, a nature preserve, and an alpaca/llama farm. But it's also a haunted house. William Lynwood Montell, in his book Haunted Houses and Family Ghosts of Kentucky, includes a chapter devoted to Maple Hill's ghosts.

The house was built in 1851 by slaves, who took three years to painstakingly cut all wood by hand and make the bricks on-site from scratch. The original owners were Thomas McElroy and his wife young enough to be his daughter, Sarah Maxwell. Of their seven children, four of them died in the house at a very young age. Thomas and Sarah both eventually passed away in the home as well.

All of these family members have been cited as possible sources for the spirits, but there's more: the Battle of Perryville was fought in 1862, and left wounded and dead laying all over the area for miles. Many of the troops were brought to nearby Springfield homes, including Maple Hill, to recover and regroup. Some died on the premises.


Aspects of the hauntings that have occurred here have taken on a number of forms: knocks on doors with nobody there, sounds of footsteps coming from empty rooms, associated cold spots, inexplicable perfume odors, odd lights showing up in photographs, and prophetic lucid dreams experienced by some guests who have slept here.

Maple Hill Manor is located at 2941 Perryville Road in Springfield. Even without the fascinating ghost rumors and history, it's a delightful place to stay - check it out!

Wayside's Hotel Louisville

Louisville's Wayside Christian Mission has continually met with resistance from the city over their attempts to maintain a large-scale homeless shelter. No one wanted a homeless shelter in their own backyard, and neighborhoods said no everywhere that the idea was proposed.

Regardless of what one may think about Wayside Christian Mission - I don't know much about them and I'm not even sure what I think about them myself - I gotta say, their solution was a stroke of genius:

They bought a high-rise hotel on Broadway and are charging a penny a room, thus bypassing all zoning regulations that would apply to a homeless shelter.

And the powers-that-be are having a conniption fit! State Senator Tim Shaughnessy has announced: "the state wants that property for the college", meaning Jefferson Community and Technical College. "At the end of the day, the state will take that property."

There have been rumblings about seizing the property under eminent domain laws, but Wayside seems unruffled. So certain are they that they're here to stay, they installed a giant white aluminum cross on the building's north wall last week.

Squirrelly's Magic Tea Room

Part of Bearno's On The Bridge, 131 W. Main Street in Louisville, is devoted to something called Squirrelly's Magic Tea Room. I'm not really sure what that is.

Every Saturday night, Squirrelly's Tea Room hosts something called Stormin' Norman and the Galt House Ghost. I'm not really sure what those are.


Someone called Madame Zelda does palm readings in a special spooky enclave on the premises. I'm not really sure who she is, nor why she's depicted scrying into a crystal ball on the poster outside if she's a palm reader.


They were closed when I was there, but I'll return to check the place out soon. A couple of people I talked to nearby said vague things about the whole building being haunted because it used to be the original Galt House, circa 1837. Signs in the place allude to these hauntings but give precious little data.

Surprisingly, Google searches for the relevant keywords weren't much help.

Three Ring Circus

Easily the most commonly encountered symbol of the International Order Of Oddfellows is the three connected loops forming a chain. This is usually known as the "Chain With Three Links" or the "Triple Links". Occasionally they are also seen accompanied by the letters FLT, which stand for Friendship, Love and Truth. Both examples seen here are taken from graves in Cave Hill.

There used to be a great old enormous triple mirror at Richmond's Glyndon Hotel designed like the Oddfellows rings, but I'm not sure if it's still there now that the place has been remodeled.


The Independent Order of Odd Fellows have three levels of Lodge: the Subordinate Lodge, the Encampment, and the Patriarchs Militant. In addition, there is a private club named the Ancient Mystic Order of Samaritans.

According to Wikipedia, fellowship in the IOOF entails, among other things:

An organization that favors no person for their wealth and frowns on none for their poverty.

An ideal that exists in the heart and mind of every genuine Odd Fellow or Rebekah.

Fulfilling a mission in the world which no other institution has successfully attempted.

A vitalizing, sympathetic, and actuating influence in the lives of all its real members.

A ministering spirit succoring the needy, cheering the despondent and protecting the helpless.

The handmaid of virtue and religion.

Founded on the inspired word of God as revealed to man in the Holy Bible.

Jailer's Inn

The Jailer's Inn, located at 111 W. Stephen Foster Avenue in Bardstown, is a bed and breakfast occupying the former Nelson County Jail building. Originally built in 1819, the building is still pretty much unchanged today, except that most of its rooms have been renovated into luxurious suites.

However, some cells have been left intact for historical display purposes, and one of the rooms available for rent still has a decidedly spartan cell-like quality to it (albeit done up with an Elvis/50s motif!)


The Jailer's Inn, like the Talbott Tavern next door (see page 194 in your copy of Weird Kentucky), is often reported as being haunted. The Travel Channel even named the Jailer's Inn on a list of the ten most haunted places in America, although I wouldn't go that far.

I haven't experienced anything creepy at Jailer's Inn myself, but certainly, it would make sense that it would be a potentially haunted place; after all, old jails would be a place of accumulated human misery and even death, just like old hospitals and asylums.

Of course, this isn't necessarily the kind of PR that every bed and breakfast wants, and so there's no mention of any hauntings on their promotional brochure. But they do take part in so-called "ghost hunter" events such as Patti Starr's "Ghost Hunting Get-a-way Weekend", which charges 500 bucks for a double-occupancy room, dinner and breakfast, a ghost-hunting seminar with Patti, and tours of Jailer's Inn and Talbott Tavern. If this sort of thing is your cup of tea, you can find more info here.

Natasha Cornett's Satanic Cult

What is it about Kentucky that seems to foster crew after crew of dangerous teenage Goth-loser-wannabe occultists? In 1998 the activities of yet another gang of self-styled spawns of Satan made national headlines, as 19-year-old Natasha Cornett and her Pikeville posse pleaded guilty to a triple homicide.

In April 1997, Vidar and Delfina Lillelid, along with their 6-year-old daughter Tabitha, were driving home from a Jehovah's Witnesses event when they stopped at a highway rest area. It was here that they were accosted by Cornett and her Korn-listening kooks. The entire family was later found, shot to death, in a ditch along a dark rural gravel road a few miles away.

The gang - Natasha Cornett, 19, Crystal Sturgill, 18, Karen Howell, 18, Jason Blake Bryant, 15, Dean Mullins, 20, and Joe Risner, 21 - were caught and arrested near the Arizona-Mexican border a few days later, driving the stolen Lillilid family van.

In police custody, Cornett declared herself to be "the daughter of Satan", and confessed to a blood-letting satanic ritual at the Colley Motel in Pikeville. Self-mutilation was a key part of the sect's activities, and when arrested, Cornett had around 20 cuts on her right arm and around 50 on her left. The group believed that communication with Satan was only possible during these self-cutting rituals.

Cornett also confessed that it had been the group's intent to carry out a cross-country murder spree, and specifically named the film "Natural Born Killers" as an influence.

A documentary about the kids, entitled Six, is available on DVD. The film raises a number of disturbing points, such as the fact that Cornett had previously been committed to the Charter Ridge mental hospital in Lexington and diagnosed as bipolar and dangerous, yet was released because she had no insurance.