Bobby Mackey's

The land on which Bobby Mackey's Music World sits in Wilder, Kentucky has a varied and violent past. The basement location was originally used by the government to house military criminals so beings the bloody and harsh history. 

The building was then bought and used as a slaughterhouse in the early 19th century. Again, blood, death, and destruction. The slaughterhouse closed in the early 1890s. 

It sat empty for a time, during which it is reported that people used the abandoned building as a place to practice the dark arts because it has a well, which dumped right into the Licking River, thus destroying all evidence of wrongdoing. However, the satanic group was exposed in 1896 when it was discovered they were involved in murder. 

Pearl Bryan was part of a prominent family who lived in Greencastle, Indiana. From all accounts, she was a lovely, popular girl who simply fell in with the wrong men. She met Scott Jackson, a dental student in Ohio, through a mutual friend and little did she know that Mr. Jackson was an oculist. Mr. Jackson was a charming fellow and seduced Pearl with little effort. She then became pregnant. Mr. Jackson suggested they travel to Cincinnati where an abortion would be performed in short order. In February 1896, Pearl, five months along, told her parents she was going to Indianapolis. Instead, she made plans to meet with Mr. Jackson and his roommate, Alonzo Walling, in Cincinnati. That was the last time her parents saw her alive. After the three met in Cincinnati, they traveled to Kentucky near Fort Thomas. It was in this spot that Walling and Jackson severed Pearl's head from her body using dental tools. Pearl's body was found less than two miles from the abandoned slaughterhouse. Her head was nowhere to be found and she was identified by her shoes. Her head was never found and legend holds that it was used during a satanic ritual at the slaughterhouse, dumped into the well, and then lost. Walling and Jackson were quickly brought to trial and found guilty of the murder. They were sentenced to hang for their crime. However, they were told that if they would disclose the location of Pearl's head, they would not be hanged, but live their lives in prison instead. They refused and were hanged on March 21, 1897. 

That's where the story of Pearl Bryan ends, but not the ghastly history of the location. The slaughterhouse remained empty for many years. In the 1920s, it was finally torn down and a roadhouse was built on the location. Rumor has it that there were murders committed at the speakeasy during this time, but that the bodies were dumped elsewhere to distract from the illegal gambling and drinking being done during that time. 

In 1933, Buck Brady bought the building and renamed it Primose. His business thrived for a few years and then came under the attention of the Cincinnati Mob. They moved in on him and began strong arming him in order to get a piece of the action. Because he refused them, his business was vandalized and his patrons began being threatened and beat up in the parking lot. Over time, the mob wore him down and finally he sold out to them. As he left his business, he swore the place would never thrive again as a casino. Then, Buck Brady committed suicide in 1965.

In the 1950s, the building was renamed the Latin Quarters and opened as a nightclub. During that time, the owners were arrested several times on gambling charges.  Apparently, Brady's prediction was coming true. It is also during this time that the owner's daughter, Johanna, fell in love with one of the singers are the club and became pregnant. Her father was furious. Since the father had mafia connections, he had the singer killed. Johanna was so overcome with anger and grief that she tried to poison her father and then take her own life. She was unsuccessful in killing her father, but her body was found in the basement and it was noted that she was five months pregnant. 

In the 1970s, the building got another owner and became the Hard Rock Café. However, that didn't last for a long time, as it was closed down by authorities in 1978 due to fatal shootings taking place on the site. 

This brings us to to the present owner, Janet and Bobby Mackey. They purchased the building in the spring of 1978 and turned it into a popular and successful bar called Bobby Mackey's Music World. Mackey had already made a name for himself as a recorded country music artist. Although the bar is thriving, it hasn't always been sunshine and rainbows. Carl Lawson was the first person Bobby hired when he bought the place. Carl was a handyman and caretaker at Mackey's. He lived in the apartment above the bar and spent a good deal of time, day and night, inside the sprawling building. Carl began to see and hear things inside the building that he couldn't explain. Others thought he was crazy until they began to experience this phenomenon for themselves. As a matter of fact, Janet Mackey had experiences of her own. She was pushed down the front stairs when she was five months pregnant. However, Bobby Mackey claims never to have had a single experience inside the bar and insists that it isn't haunted.