Locally owned. Built around curiosity.
Stories become more meaningful when you know where they happened.
Richmond Historic Haunts is a locally owned storytelling company rooted in the history, neighborhoods, and enduring mysteries of Richmond, Virginia. It is the home of Haunts of Richmond, RVA Hidden History Storytellers, and Richmond Haunts Media.
Together, the three brands explore the past through walking tours, private programs, special events, video, and written stories. Their subjects range from well-documented turning points to overlooked lives, local folklore, and experiences that do not fit neatly into an ordinary historical account.
One company, three ways to tell a story
Haunts of Richmond was founded in 2004 and established the foundation for everything that followed. Its tours showed that guests were interested not only in a good ghost story, but also in the real people, places, and events behind Richmond’s haunted reputation.
That research frequently uncovered stories that deserved to be told even when nothing paranormal was attached to them. RVA Hidden History Storytellers was created in 2018 to give those subjects a home through history tours and programs of their own.
Richmond Haunts Media expands the same curiosity into a broader archive. Its episodes and dispatches preserve ghost stories, folklore, dark history, and place-based research from Richmond and far beyond the city limits.
Each company has a different focus. Together, they allow a story to find the form that suits it best.
CHRIS AND BETH
The people behind the companies
Chris and Beth Houlihan oversee Richmond Historic Haunts and the three brands that operate beneath it. Their work reaches across research, writing, tour development, guide training, partnerships, media, and the practical details that keep each experience moving.
Beth brings a storyteller’s attention to audience, pacing, and the human center of a narrative. Chris is drawn to the research behind the story, the details that connect it to a place, and the structure needed to carry it from an idea into a tour, article, or program.
Both believe that good historical storytelling requires curiosity and restraint. Sources matter. Context matters. So does acknowledging the point where documentation ends and tradition or personal experience begins.
Their goal is not to flatten Richmond into a tidy collection of facts or exaggerate it into something unrecognizable. It is to share the complicated, unsettling, inspiring, and sometimes unexplained stories that make the city worth knowing.
How we work
Research before repetition
Familiar stories still deserve to be checked. We return to original reporting, public records, historical scholarship, and the physical places themselves whenever the subject allows.
Context before spectacle
Death, conflict, injustice, and tragedy appear throughout Richmond’s history. We do not need to exaggerate them to make them compelling.
Clear lines between history and folklore
A documented event, a long-told legend, and a personal paranormal account are not the same kind of evidence. Each can belong in a story, but they should not be presented as interchangeable.
Storytelling that respects the audience
Our work is meant to be thoughtful, engaging, and accessible. We want guests and readers to leave curious enough to keep looking.
Milestones
2004
Haunts of Richmond is founded and begins building a growing collection of neighborhood ghost tours.
2018
RVA Hidden History Storytellers is created to share the overlooked history uncovered through years of local research.
Today
Richmond Haunts Media carries the work into a growing archive of video, folklore, travel, and written storytelling.