{"id":325,"slug":"brown-mansion-coffeyville-kansas","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["The Brown Mansion is Coffeyville's hilltop — the sixteen-room 1906 house W.P. Brown built with the gas fortune he literally smelled coming out of his lumberyard. The architects trained under Stanford White; the Inglenook is the one White designed for Tiffany; the ballroom on the third floor doubled as the son's schoolroom. The Depression took the fortune; Violet sold it to the Historical Society in 1970.","The hauntings are the vacant years' — the green lights in the windows when the power was off, the shadow figures the investigators report, the little black dog a child saw in the hall. The museum keeps the Browns' original furniture — the mansion that went from the gas boom to the ghost tours, the Stanford White schoolhouse on the Kansas hill.","The file keeps the Brown Mansion: the gas fortune, the Stanford White design, the Depression loss, and the haunted museum.","Brown Mansion is the archive's gas-boom file — the mansion built on a smell of natural gas."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Brown Mansion is the archive's gas-boom file — the Coffeyville mansion and its green lights.","A mansion keeps its vacancy — the file's suggestion being that Brown's hold is the empty years: the Stanford White details, the Depression's loss, and the ghosts that moved in when the power was off."]}],"name":"Brown Mansion","aliases":[],"type":"MANSION","type_label":"Mansion","cats":["HAUNTING"],"groups":["hauntings","historic-sites"],"desc":"Mansion associated with documented cultural history.","full_desc":"A mansion in Coffeyville, Kansas, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Brown Mansion is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Mansion associated with documented cultural history. It sits in the archive under haunting reports. The dossier holds 1 reported claim, 1 legend and 2 documented facts, with the verified spine filed separately from the lore. The site is open to visitors.","address":"2109 S. Walnut Street","city":"Coffeyville","county":null,"state":"Kansas","postal":null,"region":"Midwest","lat":37.032717,"lon":-95.65158,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"HISTORIC_SITE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":"https://www.coffeyvillehistory.com/the-brown-mansion","phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":"National Register of Historic Places","current_use":null,"research_notes":"Construction-date conflict retained; year_built unset. Operator lists 2109 S Walnut while city prose says 2019; operator address used pending parcel audit. Operator child-fee text overlaps age 6; only unambiguous adult fees exported.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":69.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":247,"type":"PHANTOM_SMELL","description":"Accounts describe family apparitions and phantom pipe smoke. The house's rooms are where the accounts concentrate — old houses keep their stories in the walls they were built around. The claim is neighborhood knowledge — retold locally, verified nowhere. The account appears in 'Haunted Kansas Road Trip: 13 Spooky Locations to Make…'. The sound is the signature — visitors listen for it whether or not they believe.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.7,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Haunted Kansas Road Trip: 13 Spooky Locations to Make Your Blood Run Cold","url":"https://www.travelks.com/blog/stories/post/haunted-kansas-road-trip-13-spooky-locations-to-make-your-blood-run-cold/","publisher":"Kansas Tourism","type":"TOURISM","authority":3},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"The historical society dates completion to 1906. Brown Mansion's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. The detail is preserved in 'The Brown Mansion'. The detail belongs to the verified spine of the entry. The account stays in the file — reported, retold, unresolved.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"The Brown Mansion","url":"https://www.coffeyvillehistory.com/the-brown-mansion","publisher":"Coffeyville Historical Society","type":"HISTORICAL_SOCIETY","authority":2}},{"description":"The city page instead dates completion to 1904. Brown Mansion's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. Sources including 'Brown Mansion' carry the record. The detail belongs to the verified spine of the entry.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Brown Mansion","url":"https://www.coffeyville.com/315/Brown-Mansion","publisher":"City of Coffeyville","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Accounts describe family apparitions and phantom pipe smoke. Brown Mansion in Coffeyville, Kansas is the kind of old house where every sound eventually gets a name. Local lore carries the account; no documentation has ever caught up with it. Legends accrue where records go silent; this one filled the gap and stayed.","earliest":null,"evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"Haunted Kansas Road Trip: 13 Spooky Locations to Make Your Blood Run Cold","url":"https://www.travelks.com/blog/stories/post/haunted-kansas-road-trip-13-spooky-locations-to-make-your-blood-run-cold/","publisher":"Kansas Tourism","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}}],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"admission_fee":"Adults $10; seniors 65+ $9.","tour_availability":"Guided tours Tuesday–Saturday at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.; arrive 15 minutes early.","operating_season":"March–October; special December candlelit events.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-14T10:36:19+00:00","source":{"name":"The Brown Mansion","url":"https://www.coffeyvillehistory.com/the-brown-mansion","publisher":"Coffeyville Historical Society","type":"HISTORICAL_SOCIETY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Haunted Kansas Road Trip: 13 Spooky Locations to Make Your Blood Run Cold","url":"https://www.travelks.com/blog/stories/post/haunted-kansas-road-trip-13-spooky-locations-to-make-your-blood-run-cold/","publisher":"Kansas Tourism","type":"TOURISM","authority":3},{"name":"The Brown Mansion","url":"https://www.coffeyvillehistory.com/the-brown-mansion","publisher":"Coffeyville Historical Society","type":"HISTORICAL_SOCIETY","authority":2},{"name":"Brown Mansion","url":"https://www.coffeyville.com/315/Brown-Mansion","publisher":"City of Coffeyville","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":1,"history":2,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":3}}