The Washington County News sits in Abingdon at 143 West Main Street. The house the business occupies was built right across the street from the Martha Washington Inn in 1902 by David A. Preston for he and his wife, Louise Fowler Preston, daughter of the former mayor of Bristol, Virginia and the editor of the Bristol News. A year later, Louise died, but it seems her spirit never left. When David died, his son sold the house to the Bristol Herald Courier, and Washington County News moved in.
It seems anyone who works there for any length of time has a ghostly story to tell, from full-bodied apparitions of Louise, to feelings of being watched and smelling strange scents. One popular story is that a man was once working there and heard all manner of commotion, as if the building were being broken into. When he went to check, nothing was out of place. Another tale is that there have been boot prints leading from the basement to the kitchen, where they stop. In the cellar, they find the same boot prints, but a child’s accompanies them. 1
