Bess Lovejoy

Joined Atlas Obscura in 2011

Bess Lovejoy is a writer and editor in Seattle who specializes in obscure history. She is the bestselling author of Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses and Northwest Know-How: Haunts. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, Time, Lapham’s Quarterly, The Public Domain Review, Atlas Obscura, and elsewhere.

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Articles by Bess Lovejoy

21

Stories

Stories shared by this traveler.

John Horne has uncovered the stories of numerous people buried in Nothern State Mental Hospital's cemetery, including this grave belonging to Jessie Comer, a 34-year-old housewife who died of uterine cancer in 1914.

cemeteries

One Man’s Fight To Save a Mental Hospital's Forgotten Cemetery

John Horne is determined to preserve the stories of those who were left behind.

Crystal Palace Park dinosaur.

dinosaurs

How New Yorkers Became Convinced That Dinosaur Bones Were Buried in Central Park

Islands of The Undesirables: Rikers Island

islands of the undesirables

Islands of The Undesirables: Rikers Island

Islands of the Undesirables: Hart Island

islands of the undesirables

Islands of the Undesirables: Hart Island

Islands of the Undesirables: Randall's Island and Wards Island

islands

Islands of the Undesirables: Randall's Island and Wards Island

Islands of The Undesirables: Roosevelt Island

obscura day

Islands of The Undesirables: Roosevelt Island

The McBarge: A Failed Floating McDonald's That Wants a Second Chance

abandoned

The McBarge: A Failed Floating McDonald's That Wants a Second Chance

One of Seattle's Most Beautiful and Ghostliest Theatres Goes Dark

ghosts

One of Seattle's Most Beautiful and Ghostliest Theatres Goes Dark

The Sticky, Cult, & Giant Shoe Secrets of Seattle's Pike Place Market

shops

The Sticky, Cult, & Giant Shoe Secrets of Seattle's Pike Place Market

Eight Beaches Where Strange Things Wash Ashore

beach

Eight Beaches Where Strange Things Wash Ashore

Copyrighting Cartography with Fictional Places

maps

Copyrighting Cartography with Fictional Places

Morbid Monday: Hazardous Dr. Hazzard, Whose Cure Was Starvation

morbid monday

Morbid Monday: Hazardous Dr. Hazzard, Whose Cure Was Starvation

Xylotheks: Wondrous Wooden Books That Hold Wooden Collections

libraries

Xylotheks: Wondrous Wooden Books That Hold Wooden Collections

Einstein's Brain Slides

medical museums

The Fates of Famous Brains

Dante's Dust: A Curious Discovery in Florence's Central Library

libraries

Dante's Dust: A Curious Discovery in Florence's Central Library

A partial view of the Davis Monthan Air Force Base via GoogleEarth.

ruins

Where Do Objects Go When They Die?

Has the wreckage of the ship that "changed human history" been found?

shipwrecks

Has the wreckage of the ship that "changed human history" been found?

How the Ouija Board Got Its Name

occult

How the Ouija Board Got Its Name

Waiting for Houdini to Escape from Death

cemeteries

Waiting for Houdini to Escape from Death

The Horror of Premature Burial

31 days of halloween

The Horror of Premature Burial

How Did Bits of Percy Shelley's Skull End Up in the New York Public Library?

skulls

How Did Bits of Percy Shelley's Skull End Up in the New York Public Library?