As autumn settles into Oak Cliff, the chill in the air and the crunch of fallen leaves signal a perfect time to delve into the area’s rich tapestry of ghost stories and haunted locations.
Whether it’s the spectral woman at the Suddarth Mansion, the apparitions at The Texas Theatre, or the eerie tales of Coombs Creek’s ghostly cyclist, Oak Cliff is teeming with tales that chill the spine and entice history buffs.
Local legend has it that the Suddarth Mansion, located at the intersection of South Hampton and Camp Wisdom Roads, is haunted.
Mike Rhyner, a native of Oak Cliff and host of the podcast Your Dark Companion, recalls the mansion’s haunting reputation from his childhood.
He shared, “It was said to be haunted, and there were people who said that they can see the silhouette of a woman in the window, who was sitting there with a shotgun or rifle or something like that, a weapon of some kind.
And there were said to be strange noises coming from there.
And the general consensus that everybody came to was, ‘Yes, that house is haunted.’ As far as I know, it still stands today.”
However, some Oak Cliff ghost stories have drifted beyond the area’s borders.
One such tale revolves around the Millermore Mansion, formerly located on the Miller Plantation near the Trinity River.
Constructed before the Civil War as a stately Greek revival home, the mansion belonged to William Brown Miller, a slave owner and ferry businessman.
Tall white columns frame its entrance, and the once-grand balcony overlooked what is now South Oak Cliff along Bonnie View Road.
Today, the Millermore Mansion can be found at the Dallas Heritage Village in Old City Park, where it remains a preserved piece of Oak Cliff’s history.
In 1966, a restraining order preserved the mansion, preventing its demolition and prompting the relocation of over 30 historic buildings.
Within its walls, some visitors have claimed to encounter the ghost of Minerva Barnes Miller, William Brown Miller’s second wife.
Others have reported unusual phenomena, such as rapid temperature changes and objects moving independently when no one is around.
Though Rhyner admits he has not heard of the Millermore Mansion, he recalls a different haunted house near Stephen’s Park, which has since been destroyed.
This home, known colloquially as “Granny’s House,” was inhabited by an elderly woman who reportedly sat alone in her front window.
Rhyner recalled, “There was a reputation that one year, some trick-or-treaters went up there, and this old woman, who was almost skeletal-like, came to the door and scared everybody off.
So it got the reputation as being haunted.
But that’s really it.
I mean, there wasn’t a whole lot to that, although I do remember what the house looked like.
If someone was going to set a movie or a TV show in a haunted house, this would have done the trick.
It had the look and it had the vibe.”
In addition, another eerie tale linked to Stephen’s Park involves the location where a former osteopathic hospital once stood at the intersection of Colorado Boulevard and Hampton Road.
While Rhyner has not personally heard of this story, a fortuitous article published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in October 1989 detailed the experience of a former medic at the hospital, who claimed to have encountered “the Ghost Doctor of Dallas.”
In the summer of 1983, while working at the hospital, the medic learned from nurses that the second floor was haunted by a ghost of a doctor who had taken his own life.
One fateful night, after receiving a patient who had attempted suicide, he and a nurse witnessed a ghostly apparition: a doctor in a stethoscope, interacting with the patient they had just brought in.
The medic observed the deceased doctor and patient pass through a doorway that was too narrow for them before ascending the stairwell, not realizing the gravity of what he had witnessed until later.
He explained how both the patient and the doctor shared similar tragic backgrounds—struggles with family and financial issues that led them to their despondent fates.
With the passage of time, however, the stories of these haunted locations are often reduced to mere hearsay.
Rhyner reflects, “I mean, it was nothing more than just, kids’ hearsay more than anything else you know.
We were teenagers, and we were just all wanting to make something out of nothing if we possibly could.”
Despite the fading evidence of Oak Cliff’s haunted past, the echoes of these ghostly legends continue to cast a spooky aura over the neighborhood, leaving just enough intrigue to excite anyone looking to feel the spirit of autumn.
image source from：oakcliff
