ATCHISON, Kan. — October is the beginning of “spooky” season for many, and whether you believe in ghosts or not, Halloween-themed tourism is a big deal in Atchison, Kansas.
The “holiday season” has a slightly different meaning here.
"From here to probably the end of November, it seems as if we have all new people," said Presley Busenbarrick, owner of Presley Pierce Interiors in Atchison. “I love it. I love it. I'm so proud of our town."
Or perhaps, the holiday season just has an earlier start.
"For our town, it's probably bigger than St. Joe, or even places in Kansas City honestly," Eddie’s Five and Dime owner Scott Weinmann said.
During the so-called “haunted season,” visitors flock to this town of just over 10,000 people to be scared or catch a glimpse of something unexplainable.
"Pre-pandemic to now, our haunted season is up about 230%," Director of Locally Atchison Jill Thorne said. “It's a huge impact for our little town."
Weinmann has owned Eddie's Five and Dime for a few years, and is thrilled to see the scares come back after some very lean times. He says he’s seen a bump in his store’s income from 2020 to 2021, and now to 2022.
"The Haunted Atchison people love telling you where they've been that day, and what they've done," Weinmann said.
Angela Harris-Spurlock owns Backroad Atlas antiques, across the street from Eddie's. She told KSHB 41 News how the people of Atchison banded together during the height of the COVID pandemic.
"We had to make it happen, because people weren't coming,” Harris-Spurlock said. “So, what was it going to take for us to get through? We all kind of got together and supported each other through that whole thing."
Now she says that shoppers are changing.
"Before COVID, they were shopping Amazon, shopping online,” Harris-Spurlock said. “Now they want to touch it, they want to feel it, they want the experience and it's really helping downtown Atchison."
This year, all the spooky options are back on the table, most notably, the city's haunted houses. Visitors can tour RavenHearse Manor, or spend the night in the Sallie House or the Haunted McInteer Villa. But it's a hot ticket. Sallie House, for example, has its weekends booked solid all month long.
That's good news for Atchison, and sometimes, it's twice as good.
“We ran into a couple that were staying the night here (in the Sallie House), got too freaked out, and went to the Holiday Inn," Thorne said.
Visitors to the spooky attractions often also means customers for the other businesses in Atchison.
"The nice thing about the Sallie House is when somebody is spending the night in town, they're typically out exploring during the day, which is great," Weinmann said. "It's a whole season that can be capitalized on, not just one defining event, but a whole six weeks."
Weinmann and Harris-Spurlock both mentioned that they’ve had events happen inside their respective stores that can’t be explained.
KSHB 41 News anchor Taylor Hemness visited the Haunted McInteer Villa in 2019. You can watch his conversation with the owners here, and see the paranormal investigation he joined at the house.
