Category: American South

Like many lakes in the South, Lake Lanier is the source of numerous legends. One of the most frightening stems from the fact that a town with cemeteries and homes was flooded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to create the lake.

According to reports the Georgia Department of Natural Resources reported more than 200 deaths in the lake in the past 30 years. Supposedly, the lake is cursed because some of the bodies were not removed from the cemeteries before the land was flooded in the 1950s.

“Legend has it the ghost of a long-dead woman roams this lake in a flowing blue dress. Mysterious arms reach out for swimmers from the watery depths. Angry spirits call people home to submerged graves,” CNN says.

Adjoining Huntsville’s historic Maple Hill Cemetery is a playground that looks much like any other, featuring a modern swing set and climbing apparatus. But this playground isn’t like others. Passersby often say they can see the swings moving on their own volition, as well as orbs or spectral figures.

So how did the innocent place get its gruesome name? According to legend, many children who died in Huntsville during the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic are buried in Maple Hill plots adjoining the playground. The spirits of those children, some say, come out after dark to run and play, as they might have in life. An online search turns up photos of unexplained shadows and orbs.

According to legend, a young bride dressed in her white dress took her life at a natural geologic formation near the Arkansas River in Pulaski County.

The woman, Martha Sanders “lost her husband, Gustavus Sanders, days after their wedding,” according to a Arkansas Facts for kids website. Gustavus and Martha were married at the top of the Natural Steps, their favorite rendezvous.

“Unfortunately, the honeymoon was short for the young couple because just days later he was dead and was laid to rest behind the old wooden church,” the website says. Martha, overcome with grief, disappeared not long after his funeral and was never seen again. Legend says she took her life by jumping from the Natural Steps into the Arkansas River and her ghost haunts the site until this day.