Haunted Places in Austin

Austin had an unsolved series of murders three years before Whitechapel, and the hotel every tour attaches them to had not been built yet. The dates, the names, and what each place costs.

The murders came first

Between December 1884 and December 1885, eight people were murdered in Austin, most of them Black servant women, taken from the houses where they worked and killed outdoors. The record names them: Mollie Smith, Eliza Shelley, Irene Cross, Mary Ramey, Orange Washington, Gracie Vance, Susan Hancock and Eula Phillips. The case was never solved. It ran three years before the Whitechapel murders in London, which is why it is sometimes described as an early American serial murder series - and it is far less well known, for reasons that are not hard to work out from the list of victims.

The name came from a writer

The label the case is filed under came from William Sydney Porter - O. Henry - who was living in Austin at the time and used it in a letter. It has stuck for a hundred and forty years, and it describes the victims by their employment rather than by their names, which is part of why the names above are worth setting out. The other name the case carries, the Midnight Assassin, at least describes the killer instead.

The Driskill did not exist yet

Colonel Jesse Driskill opened his hotel on 20 December 1886 - a full year after the last of the murders, and it was still under construction while they were happening. So a tour that ties the Driskill's ghosts to the servant girl murders is tying a building to crimes that ended before it had guests. The hotel's own stories stand up better on their own: Driskill himself, the brides, and a child said to have died on the staircase, though accounts differ on the year. It is a working hotel and the lobby and bar are open to anyone.

Sixth Street, and what is above the bars

The stretch people call Dirty Sixth is the bar strip - loud, crowded at weekends, free to walk and not really the point. Look up. Much of that row is 1880s masonry, built in the years either side of the murders, and the upper floors are the surviving fabric of the town where all of this happened. It is the cheapest thing on this page and one of the more rewarding, if you know what you are looking at.

Free, paid, and what a tour is for

Sixth Street, the Capitol grounds and the streets where the 1885 houses stood are free. The Driskill's public rooms are open to walk into. There is no ticketed haunted building in Austin in the way there is in Tombstone or Key West. So an Austin ghost tour is entirely narration - which makes the quality of the guide the whole product, and makes the date question above a fair way to test one before you book.

The entry price is cheaper than three quarters of US ghost tours, which start around $25, so this is genuinely cheap for a ghost tour rather than just cheap.

Austin ghost tours

3 of the 3 Austin tours we track . Ordered by review depth.

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Questions people actually ask

What is the most haunted place in Austin?
The Driskill Hotel is the usual answer and the one every tour includes. The more substantial answer is the streets themselves: between December 1884 and December 1885 eight people were murdered in Austin, most of them Black servant women, and the case was never solved. The Driskill opened in December 1886, a year after the last of those killings, which is worth knowing when a guide connects the two.
What is the most haunted hotel in Austin?
The Driskill, opened on 20 December 1886 by the cattleman Jesse Driskill. Its stories are the colonel himself, the so-called suicide brides, and a child said to have fallen on the staircase - accounts differ on which year. It is a working hotel, so the lobby, bar and public rooms are open to anyone who walks in, and no ghost tour has access to the guest floors.
What is Dirty 6th Street in Austin?
The eastern stretch of Sixth Street between Congress and I-35 - the dense bar strip, as opposed to quieter West Sixth. It is free, public and busiest at weekends. For this subject its interest is architectural: much of the row is 1880s masonry, so the upper floors are the surviving fabric of the Austin in which the 1884-85 murders happened, above bars that opened a century later.
Who were the Servant Girl Annihilator's victims?
Eight people killed between December 1884 and December 1885: Mollie Smith, Eliza Shelley, Irene Cross, Mary Ramey, Orange Washington, Gracie Vance, Susan Hancock and Eula Phillips. Most were Black women working as servants, taken from the homes where they were employed. The case remains unsolved. The nickname came from the writer O. Henry, then living in Austin, and it names the victims by their work rather than by themselves.
Is an Austin ghost tour worth it?
It depends entirely on the guide, more than in most cities, because there is no ticketed haunted building here - everything on the route is a public street or a hotel lobby you could walk into yourself. You are paying for the telling. A fair test before booking: ask whether the servant girl murders predate the Driskill. They do, by a year, and a guide who knows that is worth the money.