Paul Oliva on Facebook asks what the best spooky stories and urban legends are around Lexington. You know, with Halloween season behind us, I'm kind of curious myself. What are some of the creepier tales folks tell about our city?

Oh, Paul picked a fascinating topic! Lexington has quite a haunted history, and one of the most talked-about places is the Sire Hotel downtown, which used to be called the Lexington Clinic back in nineteen sixteen. It saw patients suffering in agony daily, including gunshot wounds and poisoned stomachs during Prohibition. People say there's a lady in white who greets guests, along with a specter prone to mood swings and a curious little girl who steals personal items and cries in the dark.

That's genuinely unsettling. What about around campus?

The Old Morrison Building at Transylvania University has students terrified to hang around at night. Apparently they moved a professor's bones to the building, and now many hear him speaking in foreign tongues in the darkness. One unlucky student even met him running through the hallways after class. There's also this pattern where awful accidents seem to occur at Transylvania every seven years — fires, deaths, disasters — like clockwork since he was fired.

Seven years exactly? That's oddly specific.

Right? And then there's the old haunted house on Tahoma Road, which is right behind the U-K Arboretum. Plus the Mary Todd Lincoln House downtown is part of the ghost tour circuit, with people reporting paranormal encounters, especially in Mary's former bedroom. Visitors often see her spirit, and there are stories about children experiencing unexplained movements like rocking chairs and apparitions.

It sounds like downtown Lexington is basically one big ghost tour waiting to happen.

Pretty much! The way one tour guide puts it, decades of brutal practices, whiskey drinking, and heartbreaking tragedies have a stranglehold on Lexington. Makes you wonder what stories your own neighborhood might hold, Paul.

Listen live: The Lexington Times runs a 24/7 local news livestream — watch on YouTube or on Facebook. This transcript is from a recent on-air segment.