1.5-Hour Cemetery Ghost Hunt in Chattanooga

1.5-Hour Cemetery Ghost Hunt in Chattanooga is a 90-minute equipment hunt from Chattanooga Ghost Tours, Inc, booking from $33.95 per person at our August 3, 2026 check, when it carried 4.6 from 104 Viator reviews and a likely-to-sell-out flag. Two stops are named and nothing else: the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where the group forms on the sidewalk at 613 McCallie Avenue, and Citizens Cemetery. Its cap of 10 is the smallest and its minimum age of 18 the highest of the four Chattanooga ghost tours bookable at that check. Ghost hunting equipment sits in the inclusions with a professional guide and all taxes and fees. It is not wheelchair accessible, and we print no start time because the sources disagree.

What you will see

Two stops, and that is the whole itinerary. The group forms on the McCallie Avenue sidewalk at 613, one door from the university's own 615 address, so the campus is the start and the cemetery the destination. Chattanooga Ghost Tours says on its own site that the hunt goes into the cemetery and puts the walking at about half a mile; both are the operator's account of its own tour. Our August 1, 2026 extract recorded no pass-by flags for any Chattanooga listing, so pass-by status is unknown rather than ruled out.

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is the older half of the pair on paper and the younger half on the ground. UTC News dates the opening precisely: "On Sept. 15, 1886, Chattanooga University opened its doors for the first time with a teaching staff of seven and an enrollment of 118 students." That building is gone. Per the UTC Library, "Old Main, opened in 1886 as Chattanooga University, was razed in 1917." What stands on this frontage is younger than the story: Founders Hall, completed in 1916 and renamed in 1950. Only 1886 and the Chattanooga University name are unanimous across the university's own sources, so we print no renaming year, partner school or merger year.

Citizens Cemetery is the destination and the reason the hunt exists. Burials began before or during 1837: the Hamilton County Tennessee Genealogy Society's 2001 compilation of the 1938 Lusk and 1939 WPA surveys says in its own header, "It is believed that it began to be used before or during 1837," and records a tract bought in 1838 from Col. William Lindsay, a U.S. Army officer stationed at Ross's Landing. A stone survives for Lucius Polk Montgomery, born 5 May 1835 and died 12 December 1837, a child of two. The city calls it "the oldest cemetery in our city and a place of immense historical significance", which is the city's phrase and not one we can settle, since a 1920 newspaper contradicts it. Chattamatters puts the ground at about 10 acres. We print no burial count: the transcription runs to hundreds of recorded stones, carries duplicates, and covers only what two 1930s surveys could still read.

The 1878 yellow fever dead are the firmest material here, documented by two record types at once. Harry Savage died on 8 October 1878; his survey row reads "Savage, Harry 10/08/1878 died of yellow fever," and three newspapers carried that night's Chattanooga dispatch, Dr. Van Deman's twenty-four-hour death list, with Savage named first. Dr. Edwin M. Baird appears in the same dispatches as a new case on 8 October, and his stone is dated 13 October 1878. Read nothing across the fence: a Confederate burial ground and a Mizpah parcel adjoin this one, a local outlet has already run a correction for conflating two of them, and the listing names Citizens Cemetery alone.

It is also still a burial ground, and city code treats it as a park. Five funeral notices in The Chattanooga News place interments here between 1918 and 1920, and code Article II, codified in 1986 and amended in 1992, still governs it: a permit is required, and no new burials are allowed in what the code calls the pauper burying grounds and potter's field.

The finding that matters most is a negative one: no ghost is named here. The operator sells the stop on equipment and access rather than on a story, listing an Ovilus X, Kii and MEL meters, EMF detectors, a parascope and laser grids on its own site, and setting the age floor at eighteen "in part due to the solemnity and respect required in the cemetery." It names no ghost at either stop, and nothing else we looked at does either: twelve pages of The Chattanooga News from 1918 to 1920 carry no paranormal claim, and neither the city, the genealogy society, Chattamatters nor Choose Chattanooga attaches a haunting to this ground. What you are buying is the epidemic dead, the broken stones and the kit in your hands. The operator's own site is stale on its face, carrying a dated 2024 notice and COVID-era policies, so we attribute what comes off it.

Who it suits

Adults who want equipment in their hands and a real cemetery underfoot, in a group of no more than ten. Ninety minutes of mostly standing and slow walking, about half a mile by the operator's own account. The 18 floor is not a suggestion: adult 18 to 99 is the only band the booking form posts, and the listing states it in words.

• Not for under-18s. No child or youth band exists on this listing at all.
• Not for wheelchair users or anyone unsteady on uneven ground. The listing says so and points wheelchair users to two of the operator's other tours.
• Not for a party crowd, and not for anyone who wants a narrated story walk. That is the same operator's Murder and Mayhem tour.

How it compares

Against the four Chattanooga ghost tours bookable at our August 3, 2026 check, this is the outlier on format: the only one whose inclusions carry ghost hunting equipment, and the only one naming a real cemetery. The city's other equipment product, ChattaBOOga Ghost Hunt, was out of stock at our August 2, 2026 check, as was the Ghost and Booze crawl, so both sit outside every count here. At $33.95 it is second dearest of the four, behind Cursed in Chattanooga at $34.99 and ahead of Chattanooga Ghosts and Legends at $29.99 and Murder and Mayhem at $25.89. Its cap of 10 is the smallest of the four, which post 25, 30 and 30, though a Chattanooga crafts class posts a cap of 6, so that is a claim about ghost tours only. Its 104 reviews are 104 of the 691 the four carry between them, its 4.6 ties two of the other three, it is the only one with a minimum bookable age of 18, and its departure window covers all of 2026 while both Ghost City Tours walks close on 28 November. For the rest of the city, see haunted places in Chattanooga.

Questions people ask

What is the minimum age?

Eighteen. The listing states "Minimum age is 18 years", and adult 18 to 99 is the only booking band posted. That is 18, not the 21 the city's pub crawl carries; different products, different numbers.

Is it wheelchair accessible?

No. The listing cites uneven surfaces: "Due to uneven surfaces, this tour is not recommended for those with walking disabilities or using a wheelchair. Our downtown hunt and original walking tour are both wheelchair accessible." Of the two it points to, the one we carry a page for is Murder and Mayhem, the only one of the four bookable Chattanooga ghost tours listed accessible.

What is included, and where does it start?

All taxes, fees and handling charges, a professional guide, and ghost hunting equipment. It starts at 613 McCallie Avenue, on the sidewalk beside the double staircase and the large concrete University of Tennessee at Chattanooga sign, across from the church.

What time does it run?

We print no clock time here, because the sources disagree. A July 29, 2026 listing check recorded 9:00 pm, the operator's own FAQ posts 9:30 on Fridays and Saturdays, and our August 1, 2026 pull returned no start times. Take the departure from the booking page.

What happens if it rains, and how many people come?

The listing: "Subject to favorable weather conditions. If canceled due to poor weather, you will be given the option of an alternative date or full refund." The group is capped at ten, and it carried a likely-to-sell-out flag at our August 3, 2026 check, so book earlier than you would for a thirty-person walk.