Haunted place · Missouri, United States

Epperson House

Updated November 202610 sources How to visit

3 archive documents

A 54-room 1923 Tudor-Gothic mansion on the UMKC campus in Kansas City, said to be haunted by an organist who died before its organ was finished.

The story

Epperson House is a vast Tudor-Gothic mansion on Cherry Street in Kansas City, Missouri, now owned by the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC). It was built for Uriah Spray Epperson, born in Indiana in 1861, who arrived in Kansas City as a six-year-old and grew rich as a banker and industrialist in insurance and meatpacking. He was also known as a philanthropist.

Epperson commissioned an eccentric French architect, Horace LaPierre, to design something monumental. Work started around 1919 (a 2023 UMKC article says 1920) and finished in 1923. The reported cost differs by source, $450,000 according to Wikipedia and $500,000 according to the university. The house rose four stories and held 54 rooms (one UMKC magazine says 56), among them six bathrooms, elevators, a swimming pool, a billiard room, a barbershop and a tunnel joining the east and west wings. Its centerpiece was a custom pipe organ, made by the Reuter Organ Company in Lawrence, Kansas, and installed in the loft of the living room.

That organ is tied to the house's saddest chapter. Uriah and his wife, Mary Elizabeth, brought with them Harriet Evelyn Barse, who studied organ at the Kansas City Conservatory of Music; they spoke of her as an adopted daughter, though they never formally adopted her. Barse designed the instrument, but she died on December 20, 1922, shortly after the move, of a perforated gall bladder at 47. The organ was not dedicated until November 29, 1925, after a period of mourning, with a recital organized by local organist Powell Weaver.

Uriah Epperson died of a stroke in 1927, only four years after moving in. His widow lived on until 1939, dying of cancer, and in 1942 the house was donated to the university. During the Second World War it housed Navy air cadets, then served as a men's dormitory until 1956. Later it held the school of education, and in the 1970s the UMKC Conservatory used its rooms for practice. It has reportedly stood empty since 2010, waiting for a restoration.

The legend

Epperson House is often called Kansas City's most legendary haunt; local hauntings expert Darren Hinesley, host of the podcast Creepy in KC, used exactly that description in a 2019 Flatland feature. Unusually, the property owner joins in: UMKC has repeatedly published the folklore around Halloween, told by campus historian and tour guide Chris Wolff.

The central figure is Harriet Barse. A woman in a white or evening gown, as if dressed for a recital, has been reported walking the halls. The first sightings are credited to the wartime cadets housed there after 1942 (Kansas City Magazine speaks more broadly of army and navy troops), and Conservatory students described her again in the 1970s. Organ music drifting up from the basement at night is the other classic story, poignant because the organ was never played during her lifetime.

Some say Uriah Epperson stays on as well. The most famous account comes from 1978: two campus police officers making a 2 a.m. patrol switched lights off as they went, but one stayed on, and a patrolman said an arm clad in a blue suit sleeve reached out of the dark, clawed at the switch and vanished as the light went out. The same year, weekend guards began hearing footsteps in the empty building. In May 1979 an officer sitting in his patrol car next to the house felt a jolt, as if struck from behind, and heard glass shatter; when he got out there was no other vehicle, no damage and no glass, though skid marks showed his car had moved about eight inches. Wikipedia flags both police stories as doubtful, and among its references is a piece titled "Epperson House shrouded in haunted history."

Other reports pile up: a light switching on in the sealed tower, a living-room chandelier that came loose and nearly hit a custodian, splashing heard beneath the floor after the pool was boarded over (a single source), recorder batteries draining and odd noises beneath a manhole cover. Employee Boyd Breedlove told the alumni magazine in 2011 that he had seen a dark figure in the basement, though he said he was withholding judgment.

Some claims should be set aside. The often-told tale that a grief-stricken Uriah murdered his wife and then killed himself, trapping the family's souls in the house, is false: he died of a stroke and she outlived him by twelve years. Stories of an Epperson daughter are equally baseless, since the couple had no children, and a tour website's "Harriet Epperson" haunting the staircase mixes up Barse with Mrs. Epperson. Claims that the house featured on Unsolved Mysteries remain unconfirmed, and no paranormal TV investigation has been confirmed. Tom Ogden covers the house in Haunted Colleges and Universities (2014).

What remains today

The mansion still stands on the UMKC campus. Inside it is vacant and in need of repair, and the university has opened it occasionally for photo features, such as its 2023 "rare look inside." Late in 2023 the university began looking, through a formal call for proposals, for a public-private partner to restore it.

Visiting

Epperson House is closed, and the university says entry is strictly forbidden; the building is in poor repair, and campus police have long kept an eye on it. Do not try to get inside or into the basement or tunnel. You can see the exterior from public campus walkways. UMKC has offered Halloween campus walking tours with Chris Wolff in some years, and its Halloween articles and videos give a look inside without trespassing. Commercial Kansas City ghost tours also tell the story from outside. Watch for news on the restoration, which may eventually reopen the house.

The ghosts

Shadow figure

Dark figure in the basement

UMKC employee Boyd Breedlove reported seeing a dark figure in the basement but said he was withholding judgment.

Apparitions

First reported: 2011. Reported by: Perspectives, UMKC magazine (2011)

Ghostly lady

Harriet Barse, the lady in the gown

Said to be Harriet Evelyn Barse (1875-1922), organ student treated as the Eppersons' adopted daughter

A woman in a white or evening gown, as if ready for a recital, is said to walk the halls. Barse designed the house organ but died in 1922 before it was finished, and phantom organ music from the basement is linked to her. Students reported her again in the 1970s.

Apparitions
Phantom music

First reported: 1940s (WWII Navy air cadets). Reported by: UMKC (Chris Wolff, 2020, 2023); Kansas City Magazine; UMKC student newspaper (2004)

Spirit

Uriah Epperson, the arm in the blue suit

Said to be Uriah Spray Epperson (1861-1927), builder of the house

In 1978 a campus police officer on a 2 a.m. patrol said an arm in a blue suit sleeve reached out and turned off a light. Some attribute it to Epperson, who is said to walk the halls. Wikipedia flags the story as doubtful.