In his 1992 book Haints, Witches, and Boogers: Tales from Upper East Tennessee, Charles Edwin Price writes that “to hear veterans tell it, Mountain Home is filled with ghosts. Nearly every building on the hospital grounds has its resident spirit.” (Price, p. 61)The first ghost mentioned in his book is that of a Spanish-American War solider that “walks along the maze of roads” (Price, p. 62). This is perplexing because, according to a website by the U.S. National Park Service, construction did not even begin until 1901.Price goes on to say that a former patient who drown in the fishpond appears on the shoreline on the anniversary of his death. This, however, may have evolved from the story of discarnate screams coming from behind James H. Quillen College of Medicine, where a pond once stood, which Price writes “is said to come from the ghost of a little boy – the son of a former hospital director – who drowned many years ago.” (Price, p. 62)The first building Price writes is haunted is Memorial Hall, built in 1904, where ghostly footsteps can be heard onstage. He continues with accounts of percipients hearing the footsteps:One story about Memorial Hall’s ghosts sprang up within the ranks of local thespians, who until recently used the auditorium to stage plays. They found that if a person seats [themselves] in the little half-basement under the stage and remains quiet, unseen phantoms can be heard treading the boards overhead. A variation of the same story was told to me by an old-timer who claimed that he had heard a single pair of footsteps walk from one end of the stage to the other and back again. He had been alone in the theatre late one night, working on some props in the half-basement. When he climbed up to the stage to see who was there, he found the stage – as well as the entire building – empty. The old-timer immediately walked out of the theatre and swore that he would never work there again at night alone. (Price, p. 63)Some of the long-term members of the domiciliary say that, sometimes at night, the figure of a World War I doughboy in full dress uniform can be seen walking down the street in front of Building Five. The figure, I'm told, looks very misty and trods about six inches above the pavement. The gallery of the library building, next to Building Five, is said to be haunted by a ghostly browser. In life the man, an avid reader, was supposed to have suffered a fatal heart attack and died on the gallery. Another version of this story relates that the ghost is of a man who committed suicide by jumping over the railing the encircles the gallery of the library.. . .Building Three of the domiciliary is said to be haunted by the ghost of a man who committed suicide in Ward A about ten It is not enough to say that veterans simply have overactive imaginations or that only mentally disturbed patient’s experience paranormal activity at the VA. Numerous healthcare professionals, staff and even guests have had brushes with the supernatural making Mountain Home one of the most densely haunted cities in the United States. 
