As the sun sets over Knoxville and lights flickers to life, a once pleasant city transforms into something else entirely.

At the time of year most people associate with the supernatural, an older section of the city offers both history and ghostly activity for those seeking a thrill. Both St. John’s Lutheran Church and its neighbor Old Gray Cemetery, occupy a section of Broadway Street allegedly home to congregations of both the living and the dead.

Jeremy Roberts, an intern at the Tyson House, said he experienced ghostly encounters both within the church as well as in the cemetery across the street.

“The spiritual happenings there are almost hard not to feel,” Roberts said of his nearly eight years spent attending St. John’s Church. “There’s definitely a presence living in the downstairs.”

Roberts attributes his paranormal experiences to the ghost of Martha Henson, a church member whose donation of land in 1910 allowed for the development of the current church building.

Describing her as an almost “cliché ghost,” Roberts claims to have witnessed a variety of strange incidences, from doors opening inexplicably, disembodied footsteps echoing through the halls and feeling an unusual presence in the lower portions of the church.

“There are a few old bathrooms that are very dark … You can tell she’s there,” Roberts said.

While Roberts said he believes to have felt a presence in the church on several occasions, he does not believe the ghost of Martha to be malicious.

“She’s still kind of part of the church she spent a lot of her life in,” Roberts explained. “She probably hasn’t crossed over, if that’s how it happens.”

Just across the street from St. John’s, Old Gray Cemetery offers its fair share of history with a touch of mystery.

Organized in 1850, Old Gray is home to more than 9,000 graves, home to the likes of Civil War generals and the father of renowned playwright Tennessee Williams.

For Alix Dempster, executive director of Old Gray Cemetery, her job offers the chance to combine her love of the past with her love for Knoxville.

“I’ve always been interested in history and preservation and the community,” Dempster said. “These three things tie in together, preservation of the past and preservation of the future.”

Citing rampant vandalism to the cemetery around Halloween, including damage to a Celtic Cross worth over $20,000, Dempster said she plans to hire police security over the weekend to protect what she sees as a beautiful and historically precious site.

Roberts, however, sees the cemetery in a very different light, noting the often “sketchy” crowd that wanders through the grounds from the nearby Knoxville Area Rescue Ministry.

“It’s interesting to see the contrast … the lives being lived on top of the graves and the lives that were lived in the graves,” Roberts said of the atmosphere, commenting that Old Gray was “oddly beautiful in the day and oddly beautiful in the night for very different reasons.”

While Roberts admitted to not being as familiar with the cemetery as with the church, he claims to have viewed the rumored shadowy figure which haunts the cemetery by night.

“It could have been somebody, it could have not been somebody,” he said, “or it could have used to have been somebody.”

For those closest to the cemetery, like groundskeeper Tracy Weeks, work is just a matter of being friendly to both the living and the dead.

“I get along with everyone around me,” Weeks said smiling. “That’s my joke.”