Bumps in the Night

We asked around about some local legends lingering in 417-land. Is there any truth to these horrifying tales? That’s for you to decide.

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Photo Kevin O'Riley The Landers Theatre is one 417-land landmark that is purported to be haunted.

There are many stories about places deemed haunted in 417-land. These tales have been floating around the Ozarks for years, each one gaining a little more character with every changing narrator. If you’ve lived here a while, there’s a good chance you’ve heard a tale or two about unexplained phenomena at the Landers Theatre, as well as some accounts that happened at the nearby Walnut Street Inn. And we bet you’ve heard the legend of the Joplin Spooklight several times, too, with some of you even witnessing it yourself. We decided to take a deeper look at these stories by going straight to the first-hand sources.

Landers Theatre

Built in 1909, Landers Theatre is the oldest and largest civic theater in Missouri. A fire destroyed a majority of the building in December of 1920, but the damaged portion was rebuilt, and the theater reopened in 1922. The fire is only a small part of the theater’s rich history. Several haunted stories have circulated over the years. Many people have reported sightings of the ghost of a janitor who was killed in the fire. Another popular story says a mother accidentally dropped her baby off the balcony and the child fell to its death. Many people report seeing a person looking out from a high window while they’re passing by. They all describe the person as being dressed in Elizabethan clothing with long blonde hair. This apparition has never been sighted inside the walls of the theater itself.

A Closer Look

Chuck Rogers, the theater’s scenic designer and co-technical director, started his career at the theater in 1983. He has been told the previous haunted theater tales and many more since the day he started at Landers, but he wasn’t completely convinced there was any truth to them throughout his first few years. “I didn’t really believe it at first, but I thought it was interesting information and I used to incorporate it into my tours,” Rogers says, as he often gives tours to elementary school kids and other guests. But Rogers was often at the building alone at night, and it wasn’t too long before he had a couple personal experiences himself.

Roger’s most memorable instance happened in 1998 inside the theater building itself. “It was about 11 at night, and I was the only one here,” Rogers says. He had just come upstairs from working in the building’s lower-level laundry room. As he came through a doorway into the lobby he saw a man standing there. “He was standing about 10 feet away from me,” Rogers says. “He was between 5’10’’ and 6’ tall, a little stocky, and a little older,” he says.

At first Rogers didn’t think anything of the man—people had gotten into the locked building before. Rogers kindly asked the man to leave. “I said ‘Excuse me, sir, the building is closed,’ and he just stood and looked at me for a second, then turned and started to walk away,” Rogers says. The man then stopped, turned back towards Rogers and stared at him again. “Then I said to him again, ‘Excuse me, sir, but the building is closed. I’m going to have to escort you out,’” Rogers says. “Then he turned and walked around the corner into the auditorium. I followed him, and when I turned the corner [to the auditorium], there was nothing there,” Rogers says.