Paramount Arts Center - Ashland, KY
N 38° 28.818 W 082° 38.566
17S E 356710 N 4260385
This historic art-deco performing arts venue in Ashland, KY is home to "Paramount Joe". "Joe" was a construction worker in the 1940's who was found hanging from the curtain rigging and who has several ghost stories associated with him.
Waymark Code: WM2NHP
Location: Kentucky, United States
Date Posted: 11/26/2007
Views: 159
According to the website The Shadowlands (
visit link) the following are ghost stories about "Paramount Joe"
It is said that during some early renovation work on the Paramount Theatre, a death occurred there and the man’s ghost has forever since haunted the Paramount. In the early 1940s, four construction workers from Boyd Theater Company in Cincinnati, Ohio were working on a project inside the auditorium. It is reported that all of them had gone to lunch except one man, a guy named Joe. When the other three returned, they found Joe hanging from the curtain rigging, dead. And since then, sounds have been heard, things have gone missing, cold drafts have been felt, and some folks even claim to have seen the image of a man appear on occasion. However, he is by all means a “good ghost” - one who seems to look out for the benefit of the theatre and its occupants. When Billy Ray Cyrus was here filming his video for "Achy Breaky Heart," he was told about the legend of Paramount Joe. Between breaks, Billy Ray would talk to Joe, laughing and joking with him, sometimes even asking for his help. It is customary to get 8 x 10 photographs signed by each performer that appears at the Paramount and then hang the photo on the 'Wall of Fame' in the box office. Billy Ray personally autographed large color posters to each of the female employees working here at the time - and one with a personal inscription to Paramount Joe, whom he now had a fondness for. Each lady put her poster near her desk and Joe's was hung in the box office, near all the other performers. As time passed and the walls in the box office became too full of 8x10’s signed by other performers, the executive director felt that some of the pictures and posters needed to come down. Since there were so many of Billy Ray, she asked the women to remove their posters since they were all so similar. Nobody wanted to take their personally autographed picture of Billy Ray down so they took down the one he had signed to Paramount Joe. The next day, when the ladies came to work, every single 8x10 and poster that had been hanging neatly on the walls the night before were now lined strewn on the floor, many of their glass frames shattered! It was as if someone had wiped each one off the wall. To this day, Paramount Joe’s poster still hangs in the Paramount, in a very special part of The Marquee Room, which is now the site of Paramount Joe’s Rising Star Café’. There is another story about the time two new employees wanted to investigate the basement in the Paramount and some old items that had been stored there. To reach the basement, you must go through a door that is located just inside the lounge outside the ladies restroom. This brings you to the top of the stairs. At the top of those stairs is a light switch that will light the first section of the stairwell. As you progress, there is a switch that will light each area in front of you. And, there is no partner switch. In other words, you must turn the light off at the same place you turned it on. The marketing director had offered to take the two new female employees into the basement and turned on the lights at the top of the stairs. The ladies hurried down the steps. At that moment the marketing director was called to take a phone call inside the office. He told the other two employees to wait, he would be right back. In their excitement however, they did not hear him and they continued on. Recounting the story later, it was at this point they called up to him to turn on the next light for them. As it turned out, he was on the phone longer than expected and met the ladies as they were coming back up the steps. "Thanks for turning on the light for us," one of them said, "but we can't get it to turn off." Puzzled, he explained that he had not turned on the light for them – and in fact, could not turn on the light. The expression on their faces revealed that they were not kidding with him. They lead him back into the basement, only to be met by darkness. 'Someone' had turned the light off again as well. "Well, thanks Joe," called out one of the ladies, as she shivered. In 2004, marketing director Tyson Compton was giving a tour to some high school students. As he was relating the Paramount Joe story, he realized that he was always talking about Joe, and not to him. So as he spoke to the students, he stopped and called out, “Joe, are you here? Is it ok that I tell your story?” While he swears that he then heard a seat squeak, that is not the the most chilling part of this story. Compton relates how he received a call the very next day from a psychic who lived in the area. She asked him if someone in his family or a close friend had recently died because she had gotten a message from “the other side.” He said no that he could think of no one. “Well, she said, “I’m supposed to tell you that Joe said he is here.”