Overholser Mansion

The story

Henry Overholser reached the spot that would become Oklahoma City on April 22, 1889, the opening day of the land run, with ten carloads of lumber, some working capital and great confidence in the new territory. Born in Ohio in 1846 and self-supporting from the age of 16, he had already built a modest fortune as a merchant in several Midwestern states. The National Register nomination of 1970, quoting the National Cyclopedia of American Biography, describes a man who was putting up two-story houses while his neighbors were still driving tent stakes. He went on to build an opera house, the Overholser Theatre and the Grand Avenue hotel, and did more than anyone else to build the First Presbyterian Church. He organized the territory's first waterworks, helped win rail service for the town, campaigned successfully to move the state capital from Guthrie, helped revive the state fair and became the first president of the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce. He is widely remembered as the "father of Oklahoma City."

In 1901 he bought a homesite about a mile north of the business district. The London-trained architect W. S. Matthews drew up a sixteen-room house in the Châteauesque style for Overholser and his wife, the socialite Anna Ione Murphy Overholser. Finished in 1903 at a cost of $38,000, it is regarded as the city's first mansion. When the couple formally opened it with a reception in the spring of 1904, the house stood "out in the country" among cornfields, in the words of the nomination; the city soon grew around it, and the area is now the Heritage Hills neighborhood. An interior decorator helped Anna furnish the rooms in a blend of French antiques, Oriental pieces and the best contemporary furnishings.

Henry died in 1915; his son Ed, active in civic life, once served as mayor. The couple's daughter, Henry Ione, born in 1905, married in 1926 and went on living in the mansion with her mother. Anna transferred the house to her in 1937 and died in 1940. After Henry Ione's death in 1959 her husband sold the house and its contents to two preservation-minded buyers, the state chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the group Historical Preservation Inc. No one has lived there since the 1960s. Listed on the National Register in 1970, the mansion was acquired by the Oklahoma Historical Society in 1972, according to the National Register amendment (Wikipedia says it was donated to the state), and opened as a museum. The society, which owns it, managed it from 1982 to 2003, according to Wikipedia; since then Preservation Oklahoma has run it. A restoration was completed in 2015.

The legend

For decades the official word on the haunting was a single line: according to The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City ghost stories say Anna Overholser never left. Local television and the people who work in the house have since filled in a much richer picture, though nearly all of it comes from staff anecdotes rather than independent investigation.

KFOR reports that sightings began soon after Henry Ione's death in the late 1950s, a claim found in that single source. The best-known figure is a lady dressed in a floor-length white gown, hair piled up in the Gibson Girl fashion, seen gliding from room to room or looking out from the tower windows on the second and third floors. The popular explanation is that she is Anna, still watching for Henry to come home. Staff say the third-floor tower curtain is repeatedly found drawn back after they have straightened it. Preservation Oklahoma's executive director, Shelley Bierschank, told FOX 25: "We think it might be Anna, his wife, because she is dressed in the territorial outfit."

Other reports attach to other members of the family. A faint scent of fresh roses with no visible source is linked to Anna, whose favorite flower was the rose. A whiff of tobacco and the sound of whistling are credited to Henry. Small, girlish pranks and a tiny footprint in the dust are blamed on Henry Ione, even though, as staff point out, roughly a hundred years have passed since a small child called the house home. One idea offered by staff is that the family stayed because around 95 percent of what furnished the house in 1903 remains there.

Staff stories are specific. Lisa Escalon, who has worked at the house since 1993, reports hearing someone call her by name many times, and credits Mrs. Overholser. Director Shelley Bierschank and one other person say they heard a man's voice ask, "How can I help you?" In one bedroom, staff set out a desk bell and invited whoever was there to use it; it reportedly rang over and over. When former director Chantry Banks wished out loud that someone would switch off the lights, a lamp went dark at once. Staff working alone describe floorboards creaking, doors squeaking and other noises, the third floor being called the most active, and visitors have produced orbs and puzzling images in their photographs.

In 2022 Preservation Oklahoma's director said visiting investigators had logged "dozens and dozens" of different kinds of activity, attributed to everyone from children to adults and perhaps to past guests, but the groups were not named. The house has a place in the 2016 History Press book Haunted Oklahoma City, written by the historian Jeff Provine with Tanya McCoy, a co-founder of the Oklahoma Paranormal Association, and in regional TV segments by KFOR, News 9 (2022) and FOX 25 (2025). No national paranormal series is known to have filmed here. Staff consistently call the spirits friendly; as Escalon put it, they "love visitors."

What remains today

The mansion is remarkably intact. The 1970 nomination found it unchanged outside and, apart from converting the gas fixtures to electricity, almost as it was in 1904. The three-story house covers about 11,700 square feet, faced in buff brick and red sandstone, with a porte-cochère on the south front and a three-story octagonal tower with an eight-sided pyramidal roof at the southeast corner.

Inside are walls and ceilings hung with canvases hand-painted by an artist who lived in the house while doing the work, Italian light fixtures, French stained glass, original English carpets and woodwork of Antwerp oak and mahogany. There are nine fireplaces, including a corner fireplace in Anna's "red room" with its Sèvres clock set; she called the drawing room the "gold room." The main staircase rises without visible supports past two leaded-glass windows, each showing a life-size Greek woman musician, one with a violin and one with a tambourine. Much of the third floor is a ballroom. To the west stands the matching buff-brick carriage house of about 4,000 square feet, built at the same time and once big enough for ten vehicles, with dormers on all four sides and a bell-roofed cupola.

Visiting

The Overholser Mansion is a public house museum run by Preservation Oklahoma, so visiting is legal and encouraged when it is open. Regular guided tours have run Wednesday to Saturday at 10 a.m., noon and 2 p.m., booked ahead, but at the time of writing the official website lists the house as closed to tours and events, so check before you plan a trip.

In October, Preservation Oklahoma has run evening "History & Haunts" tours that mix the house's history with the reasons some people believe its residents remain; in 2023 they cost $25 and ran on several October evenings. The museum has also handed out candy on Halloween night. Inside, follow the guides: almost everything you see is original.

Sources

1. National Register nomination #70000536 (texte intégral) — U.S. National Park Service · Public record
2. National Register of Historic Places file (NRHP #70000536) — U.S. National Park Service · Public domain (U.S. government)
3. Wikimedia Commons category : Overholser Mansion — Wikimedia Commons
4. USGS 1:250000-scale Quadrangle for Oklahoma City, OK 1957 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1957 · Public domain (USGS)
5. USGS 1:62500-scale Quadrangle for Oklahoma City, OK 1893 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1893 · Public domain (USGS)
6. "Ghostly tales haunt Overholser Mansion in Halloween edition of Red Dirt Riches" — Wayne Stafford, FOX 25 (KOKH), 29 Oct 2025. — Wayne Stafford, FOX 25 (KOKH), 29 Oct 2025.
7. "Haunted Oklahoma City book takes readers on a tour through paranormal history" — George Lang, Oklahoma Gazette, 11 Nov 2016. — George Lang, Oklahoma Gazette, 11 Nov 2016.
8. *Haunted Oklahoma City*, Jeff Provine & Tanya McCoy (History Press / Haunted America, 2016) — Bookshop.org listing. — Bookshop.org listing.
9. "Haunted Oklahoma: The Scariest Spots In Our State" — News 9 (KWTV), 20 Oct 2022. — News 9 (KWTV), 20 Oct 2022.
10. "History and Haunts returns to Overholser Mansion in October" — Visit Oklahoma City (official tourism board), 22 Aug 2023. — Visit Oklahoma City (official tourism board), 22 Aug 2023.
11. Official website
12. "'They love visitors,' says tour coordinator about the ghosts at Oklahoma City's Overholser Mansion" — KFOR-TV (NBC Oklahoma City), c. 2021. — TV (NBC Oklahoma City), c. 2021.
13. Wikipedia article — Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Text written by AI from the sources above and checked by a separate AI fact-check (how we work). Images: credits and licenses under each picture.