Ep. 637 - Haunted Fort Smith, Arkansas
History Goes Bump: Ghost Tours For The Mind
Diane Student
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2026
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Fort Smith in Arkansas was the gateway to the West. The city is over 200 years old and got its start as a military outpost. There are several haunted locations here that are connected to that military heritage. And some are connected to the law, like the US Marshals. And then there are places of ill-repute. Fort Smith was a place where outlaws, bootleggers, gamblers and ladies-of-the-evening flourished on the traffic that came up the Arkansas River. Join us as we share the history and hauntings of Fort Smith! This Month in History features The Haymarket Affair.
Check out the website: http://historygoesbump.com
Show notes can be found here: https://historygoesbump.blogspot.com/2026/05/hgb-ep-637-haunted-fort-smith-arkansas.html
Become an Executive Producer: http://patreon.com/historygoesbump
Music used in this episode:
(This Month in History) "In Your Arms" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Music: Ambient Acoustic Guitars Vol. 3
Produced by Sascha Ende
Link: https://ende.app/en/song/13335-ambient-acoustic-guitars-vol-3
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, you spectacular people. |
| 0:02.0 | Welcome to this 637th episode of The History Ghostbump Podcast. |
| 0:06.3 | Ghost Tours for the Theater of the Mind. |
| 0:07.9 | I am your host, Diane. |
| 0:08.9 | And this is Kelly. |
| 0:09.9 | Kelly on this episode, we're heading to the state of Arkansas. |
| 0:13.3 | All right. |
| 0:14.8 | Arkansas. |
| 0:15.9 | To a city called Fort Smith. |
| 0:18.2 | There's a few haunted places there that we're going to share with you. |
| 0:21.5 | Looking forward to bringing this to the listeners. |
| 0:25.1 | History tells the story of the world and of our lives. Sometimes that history goes bump in the |
| 0:33.7 | night. Broadcasting from the center of oddity and the supernatural in central Florida. |
| 0:40.6 | It's the History Goes Bump podcast. Before we get into talking about the history and hauntings of |
| 0:49.5 | Fort Smith, we want to welcome into the Sputacular Crew, Drew, DRU. Thank you so much for joining our Facebook group place at a labor demonstration in Chicago, Illinois. |
| 1:23.8 | The event became known as the Haymarket Affair. |
| 1:26.8 | This was a rally that began peacefully on May 3rd, but then erupted into violence when police fired at the crowd of strikers. |
| 1:33.2 | It was organized to support striking workers who were demanding to reduce their work shifts to eight hours per day. |
| 1:39.2 | The initially peaceful gathering was held at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company plant on the west side of Chicago. |
| 1:46.0 | On the fourth, an unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at the police as they were working to |
| 1:50.8 | disperse the crowd. The resulting gunfire from the police resulted in the deaths of seven officers |
| 1:56.5 | and four civilians, with many others injured. Eight suspected anarchists were identified and charged with the bombing. |
... |
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