{"id":336,"slug":"devils-chair-at-union-cemetery-guthrie-center-iowa","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Union Cemetery opened as a private burial ground on the north side of Guthrie Center in 1885. Somewhere among its rows stands a cement-cast chair, unmarked, set between the Peterson and Miller graves and belonging, apparently, to neither. Its folklore is young for a cemetery fixture: documented tellings reach back only about three decades, though the object itself is plainly older."]},{"heading":"A recognized type","paragraphs":["The chair belongs to a catalogued American species — the graveyard 'mourning chair' or Devil's Chair, cemetery seats that accrete dares the way other monuments accrete lichen. Guthrie Center's version follows the pattern: sit in it and bad luck follows. Variants add that the Devil occupies the seat on Friday the 13th — and, more puzzlingly, Friday the 17th — at three in the morning; that a psychic seated there might hear the dead speak or be granted gifts, if the Fiend approves; and that strange smells mark his proximity. Iowa's history journals file it alongside the state's Black Angel statues as seasonal folklore.","The chair does the only verifiable work on the site: it converts a graveyard visit into a dare, and has done so longer than anyone can document."]}],"name":"Devil’s Chair at Union Cemetery","aliases":[],"type":"CEMETERY_MONUMENT","type_label":"Cemetery Monument","cats":["FOLKLORE","CURSED_MONUMENT"],"groups":["cemeteries","legends"],"desc":"Cemetery monument associated with documented cultural history.","full_desc":"Devil’s Chair at Union Cemetery is a cemetery monument in Guthrie Center, Iowa. Cemetery monument associated with documented cultural history. The archive files it under folklore and cursed monuments. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 1 legend — all telling, no verified spine yet, and the file says so plainly. Access details are unverified — research before visiting.","address":null,"city":"Guthrie Center","county":null,"state":"Iowa","postal":null,"region":"Midwest","lat":41.677935,"lon":-94.499153,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"UNKNOWN","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":null,"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":"Chair located among graves in Union Cemetery. Narrative origin and association with any named grave unverified.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"LOW","score":43.1,"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,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":255,"type":"CURSE","description":"Local legend says sitting in the unmarked chair brings bad luck. Devil’s Chair at Union Cemetery in Guthrie Center, Iowa carries the report the way old places do — as part of its identity. The claim is neighborhood knowledge — retold locally, verified nowhere. The report is preserved in sources like 'Iowa’s Unique Gravestones and Burials'. As folklore it's unkillable: the story is too good, and the place too fitting, to let go.","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":"Iowa’s Unique Gravestones and Burials","url":"https://www.iowapbs.org/article/8644/iowas-unique-gravestones-and-burials","publisher":"Iowa PBS","type":"LOCAL_JOURNALISM","authority":3},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Local legend says sitting in the unmarked chair brings bad luck. The site in Guthrie Center, Iowa gives the account a documented setting: real place, real history, unresolved reports. Local lore carries the account; no documentation has ever caught up with it. The account appears in 'Iowa’s Unique Gravestones and Burials'. It's the version the place will be remembered by, whether or not it's the true one.","earliest":null,"evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"Iowa’s Unique Gravestones and Burials","url":"https://www.iowapbs.org/article/8644/iowas-unique-gravestones-and-burials","publisher":"Iowa PBS","type":"LOCAL_JOURNALISM","authority":3}}],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","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":"Iowa’s Unique Gravestones and Burials","url":"https://www.iowapbs.org/article/8644/iowas-unique-gravestones-and-burials","publisher":"Iowa PBS","type":"LOCAL_JOURNALISM","authority":3}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":1,"history":0,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":1}}