In the spirit of Halloween, today we’re sharing an excerpt from “25 Tales: Even More Appalachian Ghost Stories & Mysteries,” edited by Terry Shaw and published by Howling Hills Publishing. “The End of the Line” takes us to Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, Tenn., about an hour northwest of Knoxville.
Howling Hills writers are storytelling at 8 p.m. each night during the Mabry-Hazen House’s A Victorian Seance Experience and The House of Tarot at 1711 Dandridge Ave. Oct. 23-26 — click here for more details.
As a paranormal researcher and medium, I’ve traveled across America searching for truth, chasing mysteries, and witnessing the unexplainable at countless haunted locations. Some sites give you pause, others strike fear in your heart, while still others invoke a deep sadness. In the mountains of East Tennessee, Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary embodies all three in equal measure. Opened in 1896 and operated by the Tennessee Department of Corrections until it closed in 2009, the maximum-security facility earned its nickname as “the end of the line.” Brushy housed the worst of the worst—murderers, gang leaders, and violent offenders with average sentences exceeding 200 years.
I’ve investigated Brushy four times. My first visit was in 2019, and that night is etched in my memory. Surrounded by sheer rock walls and treacherous terrain, Brushy’s location is as unforgiving as its reputation. Driving up the long, twisting road toward the prison, I felt energy fill the night air like the calm before a summer storm.
Completed in the mid-1930s, the stone prison was intentionally designed in the shape of a Greek cross, symbolizing hope for inmate reform. But reform was nowhere to be found.
Though meant to hold 676 inmates, Brushy regularly housed more than 900. Overcrowding plagued the prison for decades. Corruption was rampant. Guards stole from prisoners and from the state. Some aided in revenge killings. Others turned a blind eye. Disease was just as deadly as the violence. Tuberculosis, pneumonia, and typhoid fever swept through the prison regularly.
Yet the moment Brushy came into view, a strangely comforting anxiety knotted my stomach. The building is imposing, with an almost magnetic pull: a mix of anticipation and nervousness, like riding a roller coaster for the first time.
The entranceway felt flat, buffered from the rest of the structure. That feeling changed when we passed into the cell block and a heavy sadness engulfed me.
Our team passed through a large steel door and entered the auditorium. Al James, who was ahead of me, suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. This was still early in Al’s paranormal career, and his reaction was completely out of character. Normally, he would rush into the most sinister of locations, ready to face anything. This time, he was still. I also felt the cold, heavy, oppressive force. We both hesitated.
This area, for me, would prove to be the most unsettling part of the entire prison. We explored for a while, trying to get a feel for the room. I noticed Ronda Caudill, our lead medium, humming a classical-sounding tune and moving her hands as though conducting an invisible orchestra.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” she answered.
I explained what I had witnessed.
“Well, I see this man,” she said. “He’s dressed nicely, and he’s humming this music. He seems completely unaware of the prison he’s in.”
We paused, conducting an EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) session in hopes of capturing a ghostly voice or perhaps the conductor’s melody. After several minutes and no otherworldly responses, we moved on to the chapel.
That’s when I sensed a male energy, first lurking ahead––and then creeping behind us. I was a few feet behind my teammates when I heard a man’s voice yell, “Hello.” I quickly turned around, shining my flashlight down the dark hallway behind me.
It was empty.
We made our way down to the hole—the solitary confinement cells beneath the chapel. It felt almost too cliché, a slice of hell hidden beneath a place of worship. The hallway was dark, tight, and oppressive. The thick steel doors of the cells were cold and damp, with only a tiny slit allowing a sliver of light to penetrate, even during the day. I felt trapped.
I’m a career firefighter. Dark, tight spaces don’t usually faze me, but I needed air. So I retreated upstairs to regain my composure. Looking up at the window, I saw, for the second time in my paranormal career, a full-body apparition standing and staring back at me. The figure was in the middle window, behind a locked door inaccessible to visitors. We were the only people on the site, yet there it stood.
I stood transfixed, then the figure disappeared. My heart raced as I rejoined the team. Teammate Wes Spurgeon, Al, and I returned to the hole, determined to make contact with the dark figure. The temperature had dropped further, and the weight of despair seemed heavier. We decided to use a spirit box for real-time communication.
I positioned myself in the doorway of a cell, my back to the cell as I filmed the session. My frame barely fit, but suddenly I was shoved from behind.
Cold fingers gripped the back of my neck, pushing me away from the door. Stunned, I commanded, “You are not welcome to harm us!”
Nothing happened for several more minutes, so we regrouped in the cafeteria, the site of many violent attacks and deaths. Others exploring this part of the prison have heard footsteps, seen shadowy figures, and dodged chairs that had been thrown through the air.
Ronda and I decided to turn off every flashlight and sit in complete darkness. The moment the lights went out, the room came alive. We could feel movement around us on all sides. The ambient moonlight cast eerie shadows across the room, and we caught glimpses of a human-like figure just outside the cafeteria entrance. Suddenly, we heard movement in the kitchen behind us and the sound of a cell door slamming down the hall.
Then, as quickly as it started, the energy lifted. An eerie silence fell over the prison, and the rest of the investigation was quiet.
Life at Brushy was brutal from the beginning. Its original structure was a four-story wooden stockade that housed 210 prisoners, all sentenced to hard labor in the newly established Frozen Head Mine. The work was back-breaking, and inmates were expected to meet daily quotas of coal. Those who failed were beaten in the yard with a seven-foot leather strap. Many were killed by the conditions. Others were murdered. Violence was an everyday occurrence. The mines themselves were deadly. The region’s unstable geology created methane pockets and collapses. Fires and explosions were constant threats. There were no safety standards. Inmates were disposable labor.
In 1932, former inmate Rex Cosby risked his life to expose the horrors. Serving fifteen months for forgery, he wrote a series of articles detailing the conditions, using his real name and fully aware of the danger that posed. During his sentence, he saw thirteen men die. Another former inmate, a World War I veteran, said he would rather face the trenches of Europe than return to the mines of Brushy.
These testimonies ignited public outrage. Political leaders, clergy, and local citizens demanded change. The state responded by constructing the stone fortress that stands to this day.
Mining continued, along with several violent revolts. Prisoners repeatedly took guards hostage in protest of the conditions. After several inmates serving time for petty crimes died in yet another mine collapse, the state finally shut down mining operations in 1966. The last load of coal pulled from Frozen Head Mine marked the end of an era of forced labor.
Violence remained until the end. One inmate was hacked to death with a meat cleaver in the kitchen. Another was killed when a hammer was driven into his skull in the cafeteria line. Guards were sometimes outnumbered 30 to 1. Brushy finally shut down in 2009. The costs were too high, the buildings too old, the staff too thin.
Each of my subsequent visits to Brushy Mountain has been just as unique and hair-raising. On one moonlit night, we encountered the spirit of Joe, an inmate who was murdered while lighting a cigarette. His throat was slit from behind, and he died in seconds—never having the chance to light his smoke. Investigators often light a cigarette for Joe, and many teams have documented the ghostly moment when the lit cigarette glows brighter, as if someone is taking a drag. We tried this too, and to our amazement, the cigarette grew brighter as the meter spiked. We continued to speak with Joe, and again, the meter spiked, followed by the cherry of the cigarette glowing brighter. We asked him to take a drag, and on command, the meter spiked once more, the cigarette glowing brightly.
Then, just as suddenly as the encounter began, it ended.
The otherworldly experiences I’ve had at Brushy Mountain are too many to recount in one sitting. It is a place with a violent, bloody past responsible for over 10,000 deaths in its 113 years of operation. It’s no surprise it remains a paranormal hotbed as the restless souls of countless inmates continue serving their sentences long into the afterlife, condemned to relive the hell they once called home.
Today, Brushy Mountain lives on as a distillery, concert venue, and tourist destination.
Visitors can explore the haunted halls, hear the stories, and even take paranormal and historical tours. Even if you don’t believe in ghosts, Brushy remains a dark chapter in the history of American incarceration—a monument to pain, cruelty, and survival.
It truly was the end of the line.
MATTHEW SORGE has been a career firefighter for over two decades. After an unexplained encounter, he began his quest for answers to the unknown and unexplained. Over the years, hundreds of investigations at some of America’s most infamous hauntings and countless residential cases have taught him that paranormal phenomena not only exist but have an impact on those who encounter it. His story, “A Shadow in the Attic of Deery Inn,” appeared in 23 Tales: Appalachian Ghost Stories, Legends & Other Mysteries. Learn more about Matthew and his work at www.srsparanormal.com.
