{"id":1404,"slug":"ghost-house-trail-big-ridge-state-park-maynardville-tennessee","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Big Ridge State Park, twenty-five miles north of Knoxville in Union County, was created in the 1930s under the Norris Project — TVA, the Park Service, and the Civilian Conservation Corps converting farm country into one of Tennessee's first three state parks. The settlement it swallowed left traces on the ground: chimneys, foundations, and small graveyards, several of which the park's trail system now passes.","The 1.2-mile Ghost House Trail, an easy loop near the group camp, is built around two of them — Norton Cemetery, with markers dating roughly 1907 to 1929 and the sunken grave of Maston Hutchinson, and the foundations of the Hutchinson home itself, the 'ghost house' that names the trail."]},{"heading":"The Hutchison telling","paragraphs":["The Knoxville News Sentinel's account preserves the tradition the file records: that the Hutchisons' daughter — the dossier's entity lists her as Nancy; other published retellings call her Mary — died of tuberculosis, and that friends coming up the trail to visit the sick girl heard a woman's cries and a dog running at them that simply wasn't there, arriving to learn she had died moments before. Later tellings add Maston himself, said to wander the woods searching, and a phantom dog hikers report panting up behind them before vanishing.","These are filed as report and legend — the claims stay 'recounted,' never established. The research notes flag the open items: the exact split between house and cemetery records awaits park-source verification, and the operator's page was unreachable. What is verified is the walk itself and the ground it crosses."]}],"name":"Ghost House Trail — Big Ridge State Park","aliases":[],"type":"TRAIL","type_label":"Trail","cats":["LOCAL_LEGEND","HAUNTED_TRAIL"],"groups":["legends","nature"],"desc":"Trail in Maynardville; research record.","full_desc":"Ghost House Trail — Big Ridge State Park is a trail in Maynardville, Tennessee. Trail in Maynardville; research record. Its signature presence is Nancy Hutchison — the figure the file’s accounts keep returning to. The dossier holds 1 reported claim, 1 legend and 1 named or described presence — all telling, no verified spine yet, and the file says so plainly. Access details are unverified — research before visiting.","address":null,"city":"Maynardville","county":"Union County","state":"Tennessee","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":36.246953,"lon":-83.805677,"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":"Source excerpt places house foundations and cemetery along the loop. Exact house/cemetery record split awaits park-source verification; operator site returned HTTP403.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"LEGEND_ONLY","score":30.6,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.55,"identity_confidence":0.45,"historical_confidence":0,"source_quality":0.6,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.5,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.35}},"claims":[{"id":644,"type":"APPARITION","description":"The newspaper recounts a Nancy Hutchison ghost tradition beside old house foundations. Open country keeps its stories differently — Ghost House Trail — Big Ridge State Park in Maynardville, Tennessee files its reports in weather and distance. It's a documented legend: the telling is real, the contents remain folklore. The report is preserved in sources like 'Park Spawns Spooky Stories'. Whatever walks there, it walks often enough to keep the reports coming.","evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","evidence_label":"Documented legend","entity":"Nancy Hutchison","where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.65,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Park Spawns Spooky Stories","url":"https://archive.knoxnews.com/news/local/park-spawns-spooky-stories-ep-410821030-359724961.html/","publisher":"Knoxville News Sentinel","type":"NEWSPAPER","authority":3},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"The newspaper recounts a Nancy Hutchison ghost tradition beside old house foundations. Open country keeps its stories differently — Ghost House Trail — Big Ridge State Park in Maynardville, Tennessee files its reports in weather and distance. The account has a collector's pedigree — written down as legend, which is the most honest status it can hold. Sources including 'Park Spawns Spooky Stories' keep the claim in circulation. The tale is the site's other archive — oral, embroidered, and outlasting the documents.","earliest":null,"evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","source":{"name":"Park Spawns Spooky Stories","url":"https://archive.knoxnews.com/news/local/park-spawns-spooky-stories-ep-410821030-359724961.html/","publisher":"Knoxville News Sentinel","type":"NEWSPAPER","authority":3}}],"entities":[{"name":"Nancy Hutchison","claimed_identity":"Nancy Hutchison","verified":null,"summary":"The newspaper recounts a Nancy Hutchison ghost tradition beside old house foundations. A natural place in Maynardville, Tennessee doesn't need walls to hold a legend; it has geography. 'Park Spawns Spooky Stories' carries the account. The name travels further than the proof; the sightings keep renewing the lease.","behavior":"The newspaper recounts a Nancy Hutchison ghost tradition beside old house foundations.","area":null,"first_ref":null,"source":{"name":"Park Spawns Spooky Stories","url":"https://archive.knoxnews.com/news/local/park-spawns-spooky-stories-ep-410821030-359724961.html/","publisher":"Knoxville News Sentinel","type":"NEWSPAPER","authority":3}}],"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":"Park Spawns Spooky Stories","url":"https://archive.knoxnews.com/news/local/park-spawns-spooky-stories-ep-410821030-359724961.html/","publisher":"Knoxville News Sentinel","type":"NEWSPAPER","authority":3}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":1,"history":0,"legends":1,"entities":1,"sources":1}}