{"id":210,"slug":"ball-cemetery-springfield-nebraska","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Ball Cemetery began as a family burying ground in the Sarpy County woods outside Springfield — a small private plot whose oldest surviving marker is dated 1869. Its most storied resident is William 'Rattlesnake Pete' Liddiard, a Springfield implement dealer turned United States Marshal who rode with Buffalo Bill Cody and was brought home for burial after dying on the West Coast. Interments continued into the present century. It is private property on a dead-end road, watched by neighbors who have made their feelings about night visitors plain."]},{"heading":"What is reported","paragraphs":["The haunting claims are the standard contents of Nebraska's most-repeated cemetery file: a tall male figure with a bad temper said to walk the graves after dark and blamed for grabbing or bruising late-night visitors; a woman identified in the lore as Mary Mumford, one of the interred, whose voice and laughter are reported along with tugs on visitors' clothing — the specific claim Nebraska Tourism repeats. Other filings describe stones that tip over and right themselves, and pale mists appearing in photographs.","None of it is verified, and the file says so. What is documented is the vandalism the legend attracts: markers toppled, gates replaced, a caretaker's shotgun in the retellings. The archive keeps the two registers side by side — a real pioneer graveyard with real graves to protect, and the reported figures that keep drawing strangers up the one road in."]}],"name":"Ball Cemetery","aliases":[],"type":"CEMETERY","type_label":"Cemetery","cats":["HAUNTING"],"groups":["cemeteries","hauntings"],"desc":"Cemetery associated with documented cultural history.","full_desc":"Ball Cemetery is a cemetery in Springfield, Nebraska. Cemetery associated with documented cultural history. The archive files it under haunting reports. The dossier holds 1 reported claim — all telling, no verified spine yet, and the file says so plainly. It is private property; the dossier documents it, it does not invite you in. The dossier keeps the place and the story in the same record — which is what the archive is for.","address":null,"city":"Springfield","county":null,"state":"Nebraska","postal":null,"region":"Midwest","lat":41.107246,"lon":-96.148539,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"UNKNOWN","access":"PRIVATE","access_notes":"Tourism explicitly labels private property; permission required.","ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Discovery pass. Earliest attestation, primary history, precise location and current access require independent enrichment.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":51.9,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0,"source_quality":0.6,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":161,"type":"HAUNTING","description":"Reported encounters include a woman pulling visitors' clothing. A cemetery in Springfield, Nebraska accumulating ghost reports is almost tautological — but this is the one the record kept. Witnesses report it; the record leaves it there. It's the kind of claim that outlives debunkings — too many witnesses, too few explanations.","evidence":"REPORTED_EXPERIENCE","evidence_label":"Reported experience","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.7,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Haunted & Spooky Attractions in Nebraska","url":"https://visitnebraska.com/trip-idea/haunted-spooky-attractions-nebraska","publisher":"Nebraska Tourism Commission","type":"TOURISM","authority":3},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Private property; not open to the public. View only from public rights-of-way where legal.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Haunted & Spooky Attractions in Nebraska","url":"https://visitnebraska.com/trip-idea/haunted-spooky-attractions-nebraska","publisher":"Nebraska Tourism Commission","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":1,"history":0,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":1}}