Ghost Stories of the Allen House

Even the smallest of towns seem to have at least one old dwelling that people perceive as creepy and about which lurid tales of murder, suicide, or horrific accidents get passed from generation to generation. Kids on Halloween dare each other to enter the yard, maybe even go up onto the porch. However, relatively few haunted houses get written up in books or on websites or featured on the evening news or listed as tourist attractions. The Allen House in Monticello, Arkansas, is one of those few.

This Victorian mansion was built in 1906 by the prominent businessman Joe Lee Allen as a gift to himself, his wife, and their three daughters, Lonnie, Lewie, and Ladell. Joe Lee died in 1917 at the age of 54. His wife stayed in the house until her death in 1954. His daughter Ladell, along with her son Allen Bonner, returned to the house following her divorce in 1927. Allen Bonner died at the age of 28 on January 23, 1944. At the age of 54, Ladell died on January 2, 1949, as the result of deliberately consuming mercury cyanide.

For over 50 years, occupants of the house have told of paranormal experiences.

One of the most provocative ghost stories associated with the house is that of residents seeing one to three young girls playing in the front hallway. A person's initial thought would probably be that such a sighting represents a residual haunting, an event from the past that re-plays repeatedly, maybe at a certain time and under certain conditions--an occasion in the lives of the Allen daughters somehow imprinted on the house. An alternative explanation might be grounded in the theory that whatever happens to us in the afterlife is what we expect or desire. If childhood was the happiest time in the lives of the Allen daughters, then perhaps that is the period of life they have chosen to occupy for eternity. Such a theory may also explain sightings of a boy. Could Allen Bonner's preference be for eternal childhood?

When the house served as apartments in the 1960s, on at least two occasions, tenants called the police after hearing unmistakable footsteps and voices in the attic. When the police arrived, they found nothing.

Again in the 1960s, a couple living in one of the apartments believed they captured a ghost in a closet. Thinking a friend of theirs was playing a trick on them, they were holding the closet door shut against a force pushing from inside when the friend they assumed was in the closet walked into their apartment and asked what they were doing. They immediately opened the closet door to find . . . nothing.

In the late 1960s, a tenant took a photograph of his life in a downstairs parlor. When the picture was developed, he was startled to see the figure of a hazy woman hovering next to his wife.

A female guest at a party claimed to be trapped in the downstairs bathroom by a ghost. After struggling with the door for several minutes, she suddenly was able to swing it open without effort. When the current residents moved into the house, the wife noted a very "creepy" feeling to the downstairs bathroom, and the couple's five-year-old son asked one day whether his father would accompany him to the bathroom. When the father asked why, the boy replied that "something" in there scared him.

In accordance with the theory that the spirits object to the commercial use of the property, tenants in the carriage house were difficult to retain because of paranormal harassment--objects moving around, the unmistakable sound of human moaning. When a gift shop occupied part of the first floor, objects moved and got mysteriously broken.

Townspeople frequently claim to see figures in windows, especially the turret windows.

A man has been seen standing in the upstairs hallway, simply observing new residents.

The results of the first paranormal investigation have recently added significantly to the house's reputation. See the article "Paranormal Investigations at the Allen House."