HAUNTED LAWRENCE

In the very heart of Rhode Island Street’s 700 block sits the historic
McAllaster House. On the outside, the structure is modest and unassuming,
but on the inside, it is said that ghosts lurk in the shadows.
As with other structures found in the heart of Lawrence, the McAllaster
House has a long and rich history. The building was initially constructed in
1858 by Octavius McAllaster, a private in the Lawrence militia. In order to
earn extra income, McAllaster rented the building to others, and by August
1863, he was sharing his house with E.W. Wood, as well as with city marshal
William Soule and his family.
On the morning of Quantrill’s Raid, McAllaster was fortuitously up at
five o’clock in the morning and thus spotted the raiders in the distance. To
evade this mob, McAllaster first took shelter in a well before hiding with
Soule and Wood in the building’s basement. Unfortunately for the unseen
trio, when Quantrill and his men arrived on the property and evicted Soule’s
family from the house, they decided to set fire to the structure; still hidden
in the basement of the house, McAllaster, Soule and Wood resolved to dart
into an adjacent field. However, during their flight, they were jumped by
some of Quantrill’s men, who—for reasons unknown—spared their lives.
After the inferno subsided, only the brick skeleton of the McAllaster
House was left. But as with the Eldridge Hotel and the Albach House, this
structure would not remain a ruin for long. McAllaster borrowed money
from the Masonic Lodge and had the interior completely rebuilt. It remained
a boarding home until 1912, and from then on out, it housed one family at
a time.
H AUNTED LAWRENCE
34
In 1993, Tony Peterson, a Lawrence artist, purchased and moved into
the house. At first, everything seemed normal, but within a few months, he
started to take notice of strange happenings. First, he heard what sounded
like footsteps pacing around in the front bedroom. When he went to
investigate, no one was there. Then, he began to notice objects mysteriously
disappearing and reappearing. Soon, shadows began moving to and fro, orbs
of light would dart through the darkened house and loud crashing noises
would emanate from the upstairs.
But perhaps most startlingly, Peterson claims to have twice seen the
apparition of an old woman. The first time this occurred, Peterson was
standing in the kitchen, preparing dinner. Suddenly, he felt as if someone
was staring at him. Then, out of the corner of his eyes, he saw an older,
The front of the McAllaster House. Author’s collection.
H AUNTED L AWRENCE
35
white-haired woman, who was wearing a blue and white dress and a red
corsage. Surprised, Peterson turned his head to get a better look, but she
quickly vanished. The second time that Peterson saw the spirit was when
he was walking up the stairs late one night. This time, the spirit’s form
was less distinct than it had been before, and she quickly dissolved into
nothingness before Peterson managed to get a good look at her.
In order to get to the bottom of things, Peterson began exploring his
home’s troubled past. He soon learned that sometime in the 1970s a second
fire had scorched the structure, and the inhabitant of the building, an older
woman by the name of Annabelle Wheeler, died from asphyxiation.
Shortly thereafter, Peterson ran into his neighbor Aileen Else. Because
she had lived on the block for most of her life, he decided to ask her if
she had any recollection of the fire that had claimed Wheeler’s life. When
Else answered in the affirmative, Peterson then carefully (so as to not ask
any leading questions) inquired as to what Wheeler had looked like. Much
to Peterson’s surprise, the description that Else provided of her former
neighbor matched exactly with what he had seen in his kitchen.
But the spirit of Annabelle Wheeler is not the only one that is believed to
inhabit the house. Several individuals, in addition to Peterson, have heard
the sound of children talking just out of the range of comprehension.
Others have felt the presence of a man in the building’s basement. In
regards to the latter, a paranormal investigation group that surveyed the
house claimed to have captured audio of this ghostly man’s voice, and on a
separate occasion, a young boy who was touring the house with his family
asked Peterson, “Who are those people in the basement?”
Another notable incident occurred following a microburst. Peterson had
hired a contractor to make a few repairs, and while nailing up sheetrock on the
second floor, the contractor stopped to turn his attention to some other task.
However, the hammering continued from the attic. The contractor—much like
Peterson before him—then felt as if he were being watched. The uneasiness
of the situation soon gave way to a feeling of dread, and so the contractor
decided to call it a day. Before he departed the building, the contractor left
Peterson a note explaining the bizarre occurrence.
In the early 2000s, Peterson invited Gil Bavel, an independent researcher,
to the McAllaster House. At the time, Bavel was researching purported
Kansas hauntings for a book, and Peterson was hoping that Bavel might be
able to uncover evidence of the paranormal. Bavel did not find anything too
out of the ordinary, although he did note that there was a strange smoky
smell throughout the building.
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As it stands, the stories recounted in this chapter are only a few of the
incidents that have occurred in the structure, and Mike Rundle, a former
mayor of Lawrence and a friend of Peterson’s, said it best when he told the
Kansas City Star: “If you’re in the house long enough, something will happen.”
Regardless, Peterson is not worried about whatever might be hiding in the
old building that he calls home. “I’ve had the ‘being watched’ sensation a
few times—and that is a bit unnerving,” he said in an interview, “but after
twenty-three years here, I’m used to it.”
The McAllaster House is located at 724 Rhode Island Street.