Gurdon Lights Mystery

Gurdon is a little Arkansas town located about halfway between Texarkana and Little Rock, on Interstate 30. It’s known for three things, logging, the Gurdon Lights and as the place where the International Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo was conceived.

Marilyn grew up there and during a discussion about the place, she provided me with an answer to a mystery that has haunted southwest Arkansas for decades – the mystery of the Gurdon Lights.

The railroad runs through Gurdon and residents have reported seeing unexplainable lights on the railroad track for many years. Many people have seen the phenomena and reported it – too many sightings to easily be discounted. Some people think it is the ghostly lantern of a man that lost his head in a railroad accident.

Gurdon has twenty-five hundred residents, about sixty-five percent white and thirty-five percent black. Growing up, Marilyn’s mother Joy had a black assistant named Hattie and when Marilyn was only twelve Hattie conveyed this extraordinary story to her and her sisters. The story is ghostly, and creepy, but it is plausible. It is a real mystery, and also perfect Halloween fare.

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