CityView Magazine

FEATURE The Poe House in Fayetteville was built in 1896. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. It is named after Edgar Allan Poe the successful businessman, politician, and civic leader; not the well-known American author. Fayetteville's phantasms prowl the streets at night Spooky City DIANE SILCOX-JARRETT T HE YOUNG GIRLS who once lived at the Poe House in Fayetteville still like to play pranks, harm- less pranks but attention-getting, nonetheless. The sort of good-natured mischief that keeps some em- ployees on their toes. "It has been going on for years and the greater percentage of them takes place near what once was the girls' room," says Heidi Bleazey, education coordinator for the Poe House. One of her latest encounters involved the locking of the door to what was once the girls' room. "Recently I was upstairs with a photographer and there was a lot of glare, so we decided the best thing to do was to close all the doors to the rooms. When I went back to open the door to the girls' room it was locked. To lock it you have to actually turn a latch on the inside of the room." Bleazey is not the only person who has experienced such incidents. "Once we had a young visitor who kept staring at the 42 | Anniversary Issue • 2011 wall in the girls' room. When asked why he was staring, he an- swered, "I am talking to the little kid." Bleazey said that over time she has become comfortable with these encounters. "I have about two a year, at first it scared me but now I feel I am sharing a space with a presence." The Poe House, built in 1897, was the home of Edgar Allan and Josephine Monteque Poe and their family. Poe, despite the spooky stories some tell of the home, was not the famous writer. He was a brick maker and prominent businessman. Fayetteville is known for its restless spirits, not just the ones at the Poe House. With curiosity about the supernatural at a peak due to television shows such as "Ghost Hunters", paranor- mal groups have been conducting their own searches throughout Fayetteville looking for evidence of these spirits. Tom Kuntz, co- founder and an investigator for PROOF, a paranormal investi- gation group located in Fayetteville, has been to several known PHOTO BY AWAKENING PHOTOGRAPHY

• Cover