{"id":1481,"slug":"meridian-lauderdale-county-public-library-meridian-mississippi","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["The Meridian-Lauderdale County Public Library opened in 1967 in the International style of its decade, on the corner where the turn-of-the-century home of A.J. Lyons had stood before demolition made way for the new building. The staff reports collected by the Meridian Star in 2008 are modest and consistent: a janitor alone in the second-floor breakroom heard a feminine voice call his name; a director, working late, heard the elevator ding and found it had not moved; others reported voices, a child's crying, cold spots, unease.","The Star arranged an investigation that same year with author Alan Brown; it probed the building and produced no apparition, no EVP — inconclusive on the record."]},{"heading":"Two candidates for one ghost","paragraphs":["Folklore has supplied two identities. Josephine Lyons reportedly took her own life in the house that preceded the library on the site. Jeanne Broach, the library's stern head librarian from 1945 to 1975, haunts by devotion — the woman who compiled the library's history leaning over the mezzanine to shush the staff below. The Star's own memorial profile complicates the second candidacy: Broach, it noted, would have considered even naming the building after herself a waste of library resources.","The dossier keeps all of it in the reported tense — a modern building on an old lot, staffed by people who hear their names called, and an investigation that found nothing to hold."]}],"name":"Meridian-Lauderdale County Public Library","aliases":[],"type":"LIBRARY","type_label":"Library","cats":["HAUNTED_PLACE"],"groups":["hauntings","institutions"],"desc":"Library in Meridian; research record.","full_desc":"A library in Meridian, Mississippi, Meridian-Lauderdale County Public Library is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Library in Meridian; research record. HauntHunt files it with haunted places. The dossier holds 1 reported claim, every one filed as account rather than fact. Visitor status is unverified; confirm before making the trip.","address":"2517 Seventh Avenue","city":"Meridian","county":null,"state":"Mississippi","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":32.38417,"lon":-88.689448,"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":"Discovery pass. Precise location, historical chronology and current visitor conditions require independent enrichment. Confidence concerns provenance only.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"LOW","score":40.6,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":709,"type":"VOICES","description":"The guide recounts staff experiences of voices, coldness and unexplained elevator sounds. Meridian-Lauderdale County Public Library in Meridian, Mississippi carries the report the way old places do — as part of its identity. It's a reported experience — real to the people who had it, unresolved for everyone else. 'Guide to the Haunted Libraries of the South—Mississippi' carries the account. The sounds are the site's most consistent claim — the one detail witnesses agree on.","evidence":"REPORTED_EXPERIENCE","evidence_label":"Reported experience","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.65,"conflict_notes":"Guide reports a 2008 newspaper-arranged investigation was inconclusive. Suggested identities differ: Josephine Lyons or Jeanne Broach.","source":{"name":"Guide to the Haunted Libraries of the South—Mississippi","url":"https://www.southernspiritguide.org/guide-to-the-haunted-libraries-of-the-south-mississippi/","publisher":"Southern Spirit Guide","type":"BLOG","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[],"legends":[],"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":"Guide to the Haunted Libraries of the South—Mississippi","url":"https://www.southernspiritguide.org/guide-to-the-haunted-libraries-of-the-south-mississippi/","publisher":"Southern Spirit Guide","type":"BLOG","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":1,"history":0,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":1}}