Blanchard Cemetery: The Tall Man and Sergeant Burris

Reviewed by Josh N · Updated August 27, 2026 · How we verify

Blanchard Cemetery, in the town of Blanchard, Oklahoma, is one of those haunted places with no founding tragedy attached to it. There is no fire, no murder, no vanished caretaker in the record to explain why ghost hunters keep coming back. What there is instead is a set of repeated visitor accounts centred on one corner of the grounds, and a documented history that is quieter but considerably more solid: this is a working burial ground, laid out in 1917, and one of its graves belongs to a Choctaw soldier who received the Medal of Honor for what he did on a Korean ridge line in October 1951.

Blanchard Cemetery at a Glance

• Location: Blanchard, Oklahoma
• Founded: 1917
• Size: roughly 20 acres
• Status: active. New burials are still accepted and the cemetery holds regular business meetings
• Notable interment: Sergeant First Class Tony Kenneth Burris, Medal of Honor recipient, buried here after his death on October 9, 1951
• Best known story: the figure visitors call the Tall Man, reported in Section 2

The Grave of Sergeant First Class Tony K. Burris

If you want a reason to walk this cemetery that does not depend on anyone’s ghost story, it is the Burris headstone.

Tony Kenneth Burris was born on May 30, 1929, and served as a Choctaw soldier in the United States Army during the Korean War. He was a member of Company L. On October 8, 1951, during the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge, his company came under intense fire from an entrenched enemy force. According to his Medal of Honor citation, Burris charged the position alone, throwing grenades and destroying approximately fifteen of the enemy.

The following day he spearheaded a renewed assault on the next ridge. He was wounded by machine gun fire and kept going, reaching the crest ahead of his unit and taking a second wound. He then called for a 57mm recoilless rifle team and deliberately exposed himself to draw fire so the enemy machine gun position could be located and destroyed. He refused evacuation, accepted only emergency treatment, and rejoined the attack. When fire from another emplacement stopped the advance, he rose, charged, and destroyed it along with its heavy machine gun and crew of six. Moving on to the next position, he threw his last grenade, destroyed it, and fell mortally wounded. His comrades pushed forward and secured Hill 605, a strategic position in the fight for Heartbreak Ridge.

Burris died on October 9, 1951, and was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously. His grave is here, at latitude 35.1591, longitude -97.65226. That is a rare thing for a small-town cemetery in central Oklahoma, and it is worth locating before you go looking for anything less verifiable.

The Tall Man of Section 2

Everything that follows is reported experience, not documented event. No death, disappearance or crime at Blanchard Cemetery has been offered up to account for it, which is unusual: most cemeteries with a resident ghost also come with a story explaining him. Blanchard’s reputation grew without one.

The figure visitors describe most often is called the Tall Man, and he is associated with a specific place rather than a specific date: Section 2, near a cluster of trees. Accounts describe a tall male figure in black trousers, standing still, one hand in a pocket. Several visitors have said the appearance is preceded by a bright blue light that dims at the moment the figure becomes visible.

What makes the accounts unusual is their reported escalation. The Tall Man is said to sometimes wave, and repeat visitors have described the gesture becoming less friendly over successive encounters, with some claiming he displayed a knife or beckoned them toward the trees. Out of that grew the further claim that he can take possession of a person, which belongs firmly in the category of rumour rather than reported observation.

Guesses at his identity circulate too. The most common is that he was the cemetery’s original caretaker, still keeping an eye on his own family’s plots. There is no record supporting that; it is the kind of tidy explanation that attaches itself to an unexplained figure after the fact.

The Girl Heard Crying Among the Headstones

The second recurring account is much thinner and much sadder. Visitors have reported seeing a small girl moving among the tombstones, and others have described hearing a child crying in the quiet. No name, no plot, no incident is attached to her. As with the Tall Man, these are things people say they experienced, passed along and repeated, with nothing in the cemetery’s records to test them against.

Walking Blanchard Cemetery Without Being a Nuisance

This is not an abandoned graveyard, and that distinction matters more here than at most sites in this guide. Blanchard Cemetery is fully operational: it is maintained, it holds regular business meetings, and it continues to take new burials. Some of the families who use it are burying people this year. The upkeep is the reason the grounds have not slid into the ruin that swallows so many well-known haunted cemeteries in America.

Behave accordingly. Daylight visits, no equipment left behind, nothing touched, nothing disturbed in Section 2 or anywhere else. If you visit for the ghost stories and leave without paying respects at the Burris grave, you have skipped the one part of Blanchard Cemetery that the record can actually vouch for.

See Blanchard Cemetery for Yourself

Sources

• "TONY K. BURRIS" entry
• Burris, Tony, Kenneth, SFC
• Tony Burris
• Wikipedia: Tony K. Burris

Address: 2318 North Council Avenue

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