The tour and its stories are based on the 1977 book, pictured above, "A Ghostly Tour of Harpers Ferry."

Shirley Dougherty, the author, had opened up a popular Harpers Ferry restaurant in 1968, "The Old Iron Horse." Although Shirley did not believe in ghosts when she opened the restaurant, she and others soon experienced a number of unexplainable ghostly phonomenon that caused her to start asking questions about the history of the building and Harpers Ferry hoping to find explanations that might account for, or explain the strange things that were happening.

Not only did Shirley learn about some of her building's past history, but local people also came to her with stories about many of the other buildings in the historical "Lower Town" section of Harpers Ferry, which she subsequently published in her book and began to tell on nightly tours, which she had combined with other stories, including some that were told on tours that the National Park used to conduct themselves.

Today, the tour continues to tell both the stories originally recorded by the National Park, as well as those compiled and told by Shirley Dougherty herself on what is now the oldest ghost tour in America!