Even before her passing in 2022, Loretta Lynn’s ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee was a popular tourist destination. The grounds housed Lynn’s family’s plantation home as well as a sprawling museum featuring artifacts from the Coal Miner’s Daughter’s long and storied career. Some visitors, though, came in search of something a little more intangible. The country icon’s home is reportedly haunted by several spirits.
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Lynn, her family, and several visitors witnessed unexplained events in and around the home over the years. Stories range from a weeping woman in white to a Civil War-era campsite along the creek to angry and sometimes violent spirits within the home. The property was the site of a Civil War battle and more than a dozen Confederate soldiers are buried on the grounds.
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Anthony Brutto, Lynn’s grandson and the manager of her ranch spoke to the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development about the hauntings.
Loretta Lynn’s Haunted Home
According to Brutto, Loretta Lynn came home from tour and, as they were pulling the bus into the driveway, she saw something she couldn’t explain. There was a woman in white standing on the balcony crying. Lynn went inside and asked her live-in nanny about the woman and the nanny told her no one else was in the home.
“Whether you’re a believer or not, when the words come from Loretta Lynn, it’s hard not to believe them,” Brutto said.
The stories of spirits don’t stop there, though. Brutto recalled a time when paranormal activity frightened an entire tour group in the main house.
“We do the tours and usually the tour guide steps up onto the grand staircase that’s in the foyer area to be above all the tourists,” he explained. The wall along the staircase features many framed photos and albums. “You do your best to keep [the picture frames] straight but they get crooked. Loretta always told everybody, ‘Don’t touch the picture frames, the spirits don’t like that.’ The tour guide says ‘I don’t really believe in that stuff,’ and reached up and adjusted the picture frame,” he recalled.
“Then she started seeing the looks on people’s faces and there was a dark figure of some form—just a shadowy kind of thing—that appeared behind her. She said she was pushed off the second step onto the floor. Of course, all the tourists, they ran out of the house because they had just seen a ghost.”
The Brown Room
The Brown Room, an upstairs bedroom in the house is considered the most haunted room in the house. Lynn’s son Jack was taking a nap in the room with his boots on. He awoke to someone tugging on his feet. He looked and saw Confederate soldiers attempting to steal his boots. “A common thing in the Civil War was they would strip the dead of their uniforms, weapons, or boots because there was such a shortage of these materials,” Brutto explained.
Loretta Lynn Shares Ghost Stories
In the Travel Channel documentary Loretta Lynn’s Haunted Mansion, the country legend, her family, and employees discussed the hauntings. Watch the full documentary below.
Featured Image by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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