photo by: Maddy Mikinski

Pioneer Cemetery, located on the University of Kansas' West Campus, is a stop on Ghosts of Kansas' Lawrence ghost tour.

On the night in 2005 that would change her life, Amanda Banker was flipping through channels when a title screen caught her attention. It read “Lawrence, Kansas, 22 years ago.”

Banker, a Muncie, Ind., native, had moved to Lawrence with her husband the previous year but was still trying to get her bearings in her new home. The title screen pulled Banker in, and she soon discovered she was watching the pilot episode of a new show on WB called “Supernatural.”

“Supernatural” follows two Lawrence natives, brothers Sam and Dean Winchester, who travel the country in a 1967 Chevy Impala fighting ghosts, vampires and other paranormal creatures.

“I’d never heard of the actors before. I’d never really seen anything about the show,” Banker said. “But from the get-go it intrigued me because it was an escape.”

During its 14-year run — which is slated to end on Nov. 19 — the show has accumulated a loyal following, with fans packing conventions and loading the internet with tribute art, ranging from drawings to music to fan fiction.

And it’s also helped bring visitors to Lawrence — both for a convention about the show and for more macabre types of attractions known as dark tourism.

Dark tourism — the practice of traveling to places known for ghosts, paranormal phenomena or bloody historical events — is only getting more popular, said Colin Dickey, author of “Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places.”

But this interest comes at a time when many Americans are reevaluating what have long been cornerstones of American history and culture — such as recent efforts to rename Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day or the movement to remove Confederate statues. And sometimes when dark tourism intersects with sensitive places or topics — for example, with the history of Haskell Indian Nations University or with a cemetery on private property in rural Douglas County that’s still used for burials today — it can prove problematic.

“For better or worse, American history is dark. It’s a country with a long history of genocide and slavery and sexual violence of all manner and kind,” Dickey said. “And these are the things you see on dark history tours.”

‘Supernatural’ fans, ghost hunters and more

Because of “Supernatural,” Banker has a network of friends scattered around the globe. She connected with other fans of the series largely through writing fan fiction under the name GaelicSpirit.

“(‘Supernatural’) got me writing,” Banker said. “It got me connected with people in a brand new place. It got me realizing that you can put a piece of yourself out there and people will actually respond to it. Not always positively, but they’ll definitely respond.”

She met plenty of new friends in the fandom. And in 2007, one of those friends, Tonya Howell, asked Banker to participate in something entirely new: a “Supernatural” convention located in Lawrence.

Conventions, often called “cons,” are important aspects of a fan’s social calendar, though they’re usually held in major cities like Vancouver and Chicago. But the decision to have the event at what the time was Lawrence’s Holiday Inn convention center — now the DoubleTree — seemed like a natural one, despite the city’s much smaller market.

“We are Lawrence. This is where the Winchesters are from,” Banker said. “This is where everything originated.”

Thus, KazCon was born. The three-day event, named after the Winchesters’ license plate number (KAZ 2Y5), was held Aug. 2-5, 2007, and again Aug. 6-9, 2009.

Online archives of KazCon show panels on a variety of topics, from psychological analyses of characters to fan fiction workshops to weapons demonstrations. The event program also included excursions around Lawrence to allegedly haunted locations such as The Eldridge Hotel and Stull Cemetery.

Howell, who was involved in organizing the event, estimated that 50 to 60 people attended the convention.

“It wasn’t a big con, especially since ‘Supernatural’ was still fairly new at the time,” Howell said in an email. “The fandom got much bigger in the years after we stopped hosting KazCon.”

Though the final KazCon took place 11 years ago, “Supernatural” still provides a modest bump in tourism, according to Andrea Johnson of Explore Lawrence.

Johnson was unaware of the series until tourists began arriving at the city’s visitors center asking to see locations from the show — like the Winchesters’ childhood home on Barker Street — that simply don’t exist. (While some of “Supernatural” is set in Lawrence, it’s filmed in British Columbia and Los Angeles.)

“They take it quite literally. They want to see the places that they see in the show while they’re here,” Johnson said.

Johnson said her department has leaned into Lawrence’s “Supernatural” connection and that Explore Lawrence has added the word to its website in an effort to increase web traffic. She also said the “Supernatural” ties are only one part of a more extensive cottage industry in the area.

“We tell stories to drive tourism to Lawrence, and (‘Supernatural’ is) just one aspect of the many things that drive tourism to Lawrence,” Johnson said. “People will actually come to stay in the supposed haunted room at the Eldridge, and that’s their reason for visiting Lawrence. Some people go there and ask for that room.”

Another experience that draws paranormal enthusiasts to Lawrence is its ghost tour, operated by Ghost Tours of Kansas.

The company hosts tours in Topeka, Wichita, Shawnee Mission and Kansas City, but Lawrence is the company’s most popular tour, said Beth Kornegay, a guide.

Kornegay stops at a handful of locations around town, including Pioneer Cemetery on the University of Kansas’ west campus, the Haskell Indian Nations University campus, and KU’s Sigma Nu fraternity house.

KU’s Sigma Nu fraternity house is one of many places in Lawrence associated with the paranormal.

“Most of the people who go on our tours — I think secretly they want to see a ghost,” she said.

Tense topics

On a local level, Lawrence’s ghost stories engage with the city’s turbulent past.

Kornegay believes Lawrence’s plethora of ghost stories stems from a “psychic” imprint left by the area’s bloody Civil War history.

“I think the history is so interwoven with some of the stories,” she said.

Paul Thomas, author of “Haunted Lawrence,” sees the area’s violent past as essential to modern Lawrencians’ identity and the overall profile of the city.

“(Lawrence) wasn’t founded in a time of peace or a time of prosperity. It was founded in a time of bloodshed and turmoil and difference. And maybe that psychically echoes for people,” Thomas said.

With the moral ambiguity of Lawrence’s — and America’s — troubled past comes a complicated discussion of how to best engage with it.

“When (dark tourism) becomes problematic is when these particular topics end up presented as titillating, for lack of a better word,” Dickey said.

When sensationalized, the tales that form the heart of dark tourism affect Douglas County residents in very personal ways. And this tension is particularly apparent in two places: Stull Cemetery and Haskell Indian Nations University.

Stull is best known in urban legends as a gate to hell. It’s also a familiar location for “Supernatural” fans, as the cemetery has featured in three episodes of the show.

In January 2016, “Supernatural” creator Eric Kripke tweeted that Sam and Dean Winchester are from Lawrence because of its proximity to Stull Cemetery. KazCon’s programming mentions a nighttime trip to Stull as part of the conference. And Johnson, of Explore Lawrence, says “Supernatural” fans frequently come to the city’s visitors center asking for directions to Stull.

#SPNFunFact. The reason Sam and Dean are from Lawrence, KS? Proximity to the urban legend of Stull Cemetery. https://t.co/Jb7JVsyRa1

— Eric Kripke (@therealKripke) January 13, 2016

But the legends associated with the cemetery are much older than the show, and they have given it worldwide notoriety. Stull appears in books, podcasts and blog posts on the paranormal, and even pop star Ariana Grande made a stop there when she was touring in the area in 2013.

The rumors involving the cemetery have been traced back to KU students in the 1970s. Kornegay says the tale emerged from a creative writing class, and Dickey’s book traces it to an article published in KU’s student newspaper, the University Daily Kansan.

No matter how big its hype grows, however, the real Stull Cemetery is a working burial ground located on private property within an unincorporated community.

Explore Lawrence discourages tourists from going there. At one point it mentioned Stull on its website, but the reference has since been removed entirely, Johnson said.

On a county level, the high volume of attention Stull gets causes headaches for those who live nearby, said Jenn Hethcoat, public information officer for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.

“We do receive calls from members of the community who request more patrol in certain areas from time to time, and we oblige as we are able,” Hethcoat said in an email. “We often receive requests from the individual who cares for the property to increase our patrol in the area.”

Cemetery caretaker Phil Vannicola declined to comment for this story, but Hethcoat said autumn is a particularly troublesome time for crime at Stull.

“The Stull Cemetery is an area of interest for media all over the country,” Hethcoat said in the email, “and each Fall when they write or broadcast stories on-air it increases instances of trespassing and vandalism in the area. This is private property that is clearly marked as such and anyone found on the property without permission is in violation of a state statute.”

photo by: Maddy Mikinski

No trespassing signs hang on a fence at Stull Cemetery, located in rural Douglas County. Due to its prominence in urban legend, the cemetery is frequently the site of vandalism.

Those involved in Lawrence’s dark tourism industry find themselves grappling with the enormity of the legends surrounding Stull.

“I have no real patience for the Stull legend,” said Thomas, the “Haunted Lawrence” author.

Kornegay said that on nearly every tour someone asks about the cemetery.

“I don’t encourage anyone to go there, either,” she said. “There’s so many other places, especially in Lawrence, that you can get real, true stories.”

Thomas included Stull in his book but said it was a tough decision.

“There were two instances in the book where I had serious misgivings about writing about something. Stull was one of them,” he said.

The other one? Haskell Indian Nations University.

Nearly every person the Journal-World interviewed for this story mentioned Haskell as a place requiring extra care and thought.

Haskell might not be as notorious in popular culture as Stull Cemetery, but it’s still home to its share of ghost stories, such as those set in a dormitory or its on-campus cemetery.

However, many of those stories have their roots in a violent, oppressive past.

In the 1880s, the U.S. government began a policy of assimilation, and boarding schools such as Haskell — which opened in 1884 as the United States Indian Industrial Training School — were used to brutally stifle Native culture by restricting language use and other traditional practices. Native American people arriving at Haskell were subjected to mandatory haircuts, and the forced burning of students’ personal possessions was a common practice, according to Tribal College: Journal of American Indian Higher Education.

photo by: Maddy Mikinski

Due to its colonialist history, Haskell Indian Nations University plays a complex role in Douglas County’s cottage industry of dark tourism.

Banker, the fan fiction writer, took a ghost tour offered at KazCon, and she recalled her unease when it stopped at Haskell.

“It was fun with the exception that, when we went by Haskell, that was the only thing,” she said. “I felt this odd trespassing feeling.”

Many of the people who tell Haskell’s history through a paranormal lens, such as Kornegay and Thomas, do so with heightened awareness.

“I think there is a difference between the ghost of Virginia at Sigma Nu … and the stories of Haskell, which absolutely happened,” Thomas said.

Kornegay said she knew little about Haskell before becoming a tour guide but has since educated herself on the school’s “sad” history.

Haskell spokesperson Stephen Prue declined to comment for this story. “For cultural reasons, Haskell does not participate in (discussions) of this topic,” he said.

A chance for education

But controversies like these aren’t reasons to condemn dark tourism, those versed in the topic say. Dickey, the “Ghostland” author, said this type of tourism can provide valuable opportunities to educate people on the uglier parts of America’s past.

“America’s history is built on the kind of racialized or sexualized violence that is being interrogated right now,” Dickey said. “Dark tourism is sort of naturally placed to have these types of conversations because of the way it’s structured. For me, it’s a question of how to do it ethically and responsibly.”

For Kornegay and Thomas, this responsibility lies in educating people on the unadorned facts of these places.

“I understand that people are curious (about Stull),” Kornegay said, but she always debunks the myth when customers on her tour ask.

Thomas is also cognizant of the sensitivity of these issues.

“I’m not an indigenous person — I’m just a white dude — so it felt weird to be writing about these people,” he said. “All of these stories have hurt and pain in them, but (Haskell’s history) is a power dynamic that goes beyond anything else in the book.”

Dickey believes the right approach to dark tourism is through historical accuracy and focusing on the topics and people that have been left out of the American historical canon.

“(Those are) the two most vital things you can do. Doing those two things will sort of allow tourists to get the story but get it in a way that reflects on the structures that enable these violences rather than treating these events as salacious and titillating true crime entertainment,” Dickey said.

Dickey sees the industry as having the potential to reframe established discussions of American history.

“I really do think dark tourism has a real possibility to go straight to the heart of a lot of topics that are being rethought or reexamined,” he said.

For him, this potential comes when these topics are engaged with ethically and thoughtfully.

“I think that we owe a responsibility to understand this history,” he said, “and understand the ways in which these forces have shaped American history and American culture.”