Paramount Arts Center

Kentucky · United States · Execution site

Ashland's 1930s theatre keeps a ghost the staff call Paramount Joe, and performers still leave him a signed photograph.

The Paramount Arts Center in Ashland, Kentucky has a resident the building has never quite let go of. The story begins with renovation work in the early 1940s, when four construction workers from a Cincinnati theatre company were finishing a job in the auditorium. Three of them went to lunch. When they came back, the fourth, a man remembered only as Joe, was hanging from the curtain rigging above the stage.

What people report since is mild by ghost story standards. Sounds in an empty house. Objects that go missing and turn up somewhere else. Sudden cold in a room that should be warm. Now and then a figure glimpsed where no one is standing. Nobody at the Paramount describes him as frightening. Joe is spoken of as a caretaker who looks after the theatre and the people in it.

The house tradition is that every performer signs an eight by ten photograph for the wall, and that Joe gets one too. When Billy Ray Cyrus filmed the video for Achy Breaky Heart in the building, he was told about Joe and spent his breaks talking to him.

FAQ

Where is Paramount Arts Center located?

Paramount Arts Center is in Kentucky, United States.