Old Cahawba Archaeological Park

Old Cahawba was Alabama's first state capital, from 1820 to 1826, built where the Cahaba River meets the Alabama. After the capital moved the town slowly emptied, and today it is the state's best-known ghost town, preserved as an archaeological park where columns, ruins and cemeteries mark where a city stood. During the Civil War a cotton warehouse here became Castle Morgan, a prison built for 500 Union soldiers that held more than 3,000; as many as 147 men died there. Many of the survivors were aboard the steamboat Sultana when it exploded on the Mississippi in 1865, killing roughly 1,800 men on their way home. The park's oldest ghost story is the Pegues Ghost: from 1862 onward, people walking behind Colonel C.C. Pegues's house described a glowing ball of white light that darted along the path close enough to touch. Even at the time, many put it down to a will-o'-the-wisp. Visitors today report a phantom woman near the Crocheron columns, children's laughter at the old schoolhouse site, and figures moving through the ruins after dark. The park runs its own night-time Haunted History Tours.