Booming Ghost Town

Originally Published in the April 2026 edition of Texas Town & City Magazine
By Tim Roberts - City of Mansfield Tourism Manager

A pale woman dressed in white floating in the window of an abandoned home. The mysterious phantom of the theater who turns off lights and throws pens from the balcony. A cowboy, shot in the back, roaming Main Street looking for justice the 19th century courts denied him.

These are just a few ghost stories Mansfield residents have swapped for nearly a century. Every Texas town has them. Local legends that spice up a place’s history and keep the kids (and sometimes adults) on their toes around those strange spots.

Beginning in 2019, the City of Mansfield set a goal: to transform those haunting local tales into destination tourist attractions.

Mansfield’s Executive Director of Community Engagement, Theresa Cohagen, noted that while the city always offered some ghost tours around Halloween, there was never anything substantial or available year-round. She felt that the city's rich history was waiting to be "activated.”

A formerly niche and unusual area has blossomed into a significant tourism sector, contributing over $30 billion annually to the U.S. economy, according to the travel site Evendo. Mansfield initiated its participation modestly, beginning with a single ghost hunt at the Historic Farr Best Theater, organized by the tourism manager. This singular event quickly expanded—first to two nights, then to two full weekends, and eventually encompassing a whole month across several venues, all unified under the new brand "Haunted Mansfield."”

Now the paranormal investigations are part of the city’s Cultural Incubator Program. This program was initially founded to encourage the growth of theater groups, musicians and artists. The city allows free usage of its properties, in this case the ones with haunted histories and revenue is split between the city and the local organization. In this case the monthly ghost hunts are hosted monthly by local enthusiast, Tracy Mays, founder of Wandering Soul Paranormal.

“I was always fascinated with the paranormal growing up,” said Mays, “My parents would take me to historically haunted locations but what really started to drive it was when my mother passed. After that I wanted answers for things I couldn't understand.”

For destinations, the best part is that spirit spots are already established and just require activation. The City of Mansfield currently operates three historic properties that transform into paranormal destinations after dark: the Farr Best Theater, Man House Museum, and Wallace-Hall Art House.

But a place isn’t limited to what is municipal property. Local businesses and even homes can serve as the key components to being an attraction for spectre seekers.

“Get to really know the town,” Mays advises other cities. “Get to know the shop owners and their buildings. Tell their stories as if they were your own because what you do in return helps them.”

The growth of the paranormal scene has been a clear boon to the city. In just the first six months the year round ghost hunts brought in over $3,000 in sales to the Cultural Incubator Program, led to overnight hotel stays and also led to thousands of dollars worth of in-kind advertising as most participants produce social media and web content around their hunts which further promotes the city.

Being a destination for scary seekers isn’t entirely based around the few nights a month that ghost hunts take place. The city has constructed passive tourism options for the average guest, including self guided ghost tours with a virtual component. Guests who visit the Man House and Art House during normal operating hours are also clued into the haunted happenings of the historic homes.

October remains the prime season, and the growth of Haunted Mansfield has led to a huge array of events for all ages. The downtown Halloween festival is now the largest attended city hosted event with over 6,000 visitors. Mansfield then launched new events like a walk-through art themed haunted house, an adult Halloween party and a city-wide ghost themed scavenger hunt in 2025.

On the promotional side, the city has produced six short paranormal documentaries in-house, collecting over 10,000 views. The videos have won a wide array of awards including Best Short Documentary at the WorldFest Film Festival and, most excitingly, the Roswell Daily Record Film Festival, further spreading Mansfield’s reach into the world of the weird.

“In the end it really is all about storytelling and it is on you to get those stories out there so that the broader world hears them and becomes intrigued,” said Cohagen.

The overall attention created by these stories helped bring the popular paranormal program Ghost Adventures: House Calls to the city with their episode “Mansfield Meltdown.” The Visit Mansfield website saw a 100% increase in web traffic following the episode.

“While the target audience of paranormal tourism may seem smaller or unique, its tourism impact is the same as any other,” Cohagen said. “Folks who would otherwise never visit your city stay in your hotels, eat in your restaurants and most importantly contribute to the stories that build and preserve your town’s history.”