4 Real-Life Haunted Places in Franklin

Lotz House

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2.Lotz House

The Lotz House has been referenced many times as a Franklin haunt. The website Are you Terrified, along with the Travel Channel, named this historic home as  “One of the Most Terrifying Places in America.” Built in 1858 for the Lotz family, it was the site for a portion of the Battle of Franklin and later became a hospital for wounded soldiers. Witnesses have said they hear drums playing inside the home and a woman crying out for a loved one.

They claim many have spotted ghostly figures peering out the windows while the house is closed.

“I’ve always said if you believe in ghosts, this is where they’d be,” said Margie Thessin, of Franklin on Foot. “If you think about why spirits are left behind, their lives have been cut short often. It’s unfinished business, and sometimes they just don’t know they’re dead.”

“Things go bump in the night,” said J.T. Thompson, owner of the Lotz House, to WSMV in 2014. “There’s no doubt about that. When you consider what happens inside this house and on the property surrounding this house, I can’t imagine anything more terrifying.”

The Lotz House was once home to a German immigrant family searching for a simple life in the Antebellum south, but instead found themselves in the middle of the Civil War. According to some who have lived and worked around the house, something from a bygone era has remained in the house and on those mist covered battlefields 150 years after the Battle of Franklin.

“This was the heart, soul, ground zero of the battle,” Thompson said. “It was the bloodiest five hours of the American Civil War.”

“These were soldiers who were on top of each other within 20 minutes of starting the charge,” Thessin added.

“Because of its place on the battlefield, it’s used as a hospital for both confederate and federal troops,” Thompson said to WSMV in 2014. “It’s a very unique situation to house both under the same roof, under the same structure. The best way I can describe it comes from Lotz in his diary about the dead in his front yard the next day. He says they’re standing like scarecrows. They may not fall for the dead at their feet.”

“The first thing I say every day when I walk in this house is, ‘Hello everyone,'” Thompson said.  “It’s when you fail to acknowledge them that they remind you that you forgot.”