Ghost Stories of the Allen House

"The Halloween season would not be complete without the tales of ghosts, ghouls and things that go bump in the night. But in the town of Monticello, those tales live year round in the Allen House."-(KHTV, Little Rock, AR, October 29, 2007)

Even the smallest of towns seem to have at least one old dwelling that people perceive as creepy and about which lurid tales of murder, suicide, or horrific accidents get passed from generation to generation. Kids on Halloween dare each other to enter the yard, maybe even go up onto the porch. However, relatively few haunted houses get written up in books or on websites or featured on the evening news or listed as tourist attractions. The Allen House in Monticello, Arkansas, is one of those few.

This Victorian mansion was built in 1906 by the prominent businessman Joe Lee Allen as a gift to himself, his wife, and their three daughters, Lonnie, Lewie, and Ladell. Joe Lee died in 1917 at the age of 54. His wife stayed in the house until her death in 1954. His daughter Ladell, along with her son Allen Bonner, returned to the house following her divorce in 1927. Allen Bonner died at the age of 28 on January 23, 1944. At the age of 54, Ladell died on January 2, 1949, as the result of deliberately consuming mercury cyanide.

For over 50 years, occupants of the house have told of paranormal experiences.

One of the most provocative ghost stories associated with the house is that of residents seeing one to three young girls playing in the front hallway. A person's initial thought would probably be that such a sighting represents a residual haunting, an event from the past that re-plays repeatedly, maybe at a certain time and under certain conditions--an occasion in the lives of the Allen daughters somehow imprinted on the house. An alternative explanation might be grounded in the theory that whatever happens to us in the afterlife is what we expect or desire. If childhood was the happiest time in the lives of the Allen daughters, then perhaps that is the period of life they have chosen to occupy for eternity. Such a theory may also explain sightings of a boy. Could Allen Bonner's preference be for eternal childhood?