Jailer's Inn Bed and Breakfast

Kentucky's oldest operating jail complex operated from 1797 to 1987 before being converted to an eccentric bed and breakfast. The Travel Channel named it one of the 10 Most Haunted Places in the United States.

The Jailer's Inn Bed and Breakfast in Bardstown occupies what was once the Nelson County Jail, constructed around 1819 with stone walls over a foot thick. The facility operated continuously as a working jail until 1987, making it Kentucky's oldest operating jail complex, and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building served a dual purpose for nearly two centuries — the front section housed the jailer's family, while the rear held inmates in cells that guests now sleep in, separated from their history by fresh linens and a thin veneer of hospitality.

The most frequently encountered ghost is Mrs. McKay, one of the original jailers. Her husband served as jailer first, but when he died, Mrs. McKay ran for the position herself. The community knew her well and respected her professional abilities — she had run the jail alongside her husband for years, and the inmates praised her cooking, though they learned quickly that misbehavior meant bread and water. She won the election with ease. In death, Mrs. McKay continues her rounds. Guests report waking in the dark to find her standing at the foot of their bed, looking down at them with what some describe as a watchful, almost protective expression. So many guests have reported this encounter that the Travel Channel once named the Jailer's Inn one of the ten most haunted places in the United States. Some visitors have been so unnerved that they packed up and left in the middle of the night.

The darkest chapter involves Martin Hill. Around the turn of the twentieth century, Hill shot and killed his wife in a drunken rage. She was believed to be pregnant at the time. He was captured and locked in the Nelson County Jail, pacing his cell in the knowledge that the gallows in the courtyard were being prepared for him. But before he could be hanged, Hill died in his cell from an unknown illness, his final moments marked by screams that echoed through the stone walls. A 1909 newspaper article discovered by Bardstown's prominent ghost hunter Patti Starr reported that prisoners in Hill's former cell could hear strange sounds — the pacing of footsteps, groaning, restless tossing on a bunk, and blood-curdling screams reverberating through the stone corridors. Starr believes the most active presence in the jail is not Hill but his wife, Esther, who followed her husband into the jail in spirit form and has remained trapped there ever since.

The courtyard where the gallows stood is particularly haunted. Multiple public hangings took place there, including the execution of Phil Evans in January 1894, convicted of rape and hanged just weeks after his arrest. Photographs displayed inside the inn show crowds lining the top of the stone walls to witness the executions. Kentucky was notably one of the last states to permit public hangings.

Guests report a catalog of ongoing activity: feeling a presence sit beside them on the bed, being touched by unseen hands, televisions changing channels by themselves, footsteps and unexplained voices in empty corridors, and objects that go missing and reappear elsewhere. An employee once saw a man's face staring at her from a mirror and turned around to find no one there. One guest had a full conversation with a man in the courtyard who simply vanished when the guest looked away for a moment.