Haunted things to do in Des Moines

Looking for haunted places & dark-history spots in Des Moines? These 5 are the genuinely strange ones — Drake Municipal Observatory, Woodland Cemetery — City Receiving Vault & Baby Hill, Kate Shelley High Bridge and more — each hand-vetted and sourced, not pulled from a top-ten list. Great for an unusual date, a weird afternoon, or showing a visitor the side of Des Moines they'd never find on their own.

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Drake Municipal Observatory A 1921 limestone observatory hidden inside a public golf course, where the cremated ashes of astronomer Danie… Drake
Woodland Cemetery — City Receiving Vault & Baby Hill Des Moines' oldest cemetery, established in 1848 on land donated by five farmers, holds more than 80,000 grav… Sherman Hill / Woodland Heights
Kate Shelley High Bridge The Kate Shelley High Bridge is a soaring 185-foot-tall, 2,685-foot-long double-track railroad viaduct comple… Boone
Granny Sprague Cemetery Officially renamed the Niles-Sprague Pioneer Cemetery, this is reputedly "Iowa's Smallest Cemetery" — a singl… Amana Colonies
Buxton Historic Townsite & Cemetery The vanished site of Buxton, a 1900-1920s coal town of ~5,000 that was a rare, thriving racially-integrated c… Lovilia (Monroe County)