Haunted Houses (Marietta, Kennesaw, Decatur: theatre, closing, living in)

[LovinDecatur]

Growing up in the Druid Hills neighborhood of Atlanta, I heard that the Rainbow Mansion (home of Coca-Cola heiress Lucy Candler Heinz) on Ponce DeLeon Avenue was notoriously haunted. Ms. Heinz left the mansion after her husband was shot and killed by a burglar in his study. The mansion sat vacant for years (and the bullet holes remained undisturbed in the study wall)...several people over the years claimed to see lights and hear voices coming from the empty house. A friend told me that one of the ghosts occupying the mansion was the alcoholic cook, and that if you left a glass of bourbon on the kitchen counter, it would be emptied in short order.
Sometime in the early 80's, the mansion was made the centerpiece of a townhouse complex and divided into four condominium units...pity. I've heard no reports of hauntings by the current residents.

[plessthanpointohfive]

Now that's a crying shame! What a perfect Halloween attraction!!!

[ajax general]

I recently heard that the top three most haunted cities in the US are:

1. Savannah, GA
2. New Orleans, LA
3. St. Augustine, FL

I've been to all three and St. Augustine is super cool. Savannah is nice, but it is definitely a creepy place (some creepy people as well) just kidding

I would think Atlanta should have some pretty good activity, especially in the Kennesaw area and maybe even parts of Newton and Clayton county and that area where Sherman marched through. But what? Romanticized phantoms of Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler? Nevermind.

I have also had spooky feelings up in Chickamauga, but I guess that's obvious. And there is supposed to be some church in Canton, where satanic/ritualistic murders took place in the 60s, that is hotbed of paranormal activity. I think they call it "Hell's Church", but I don't know where it is exactly.

I guess I'm not so much scared as I am uneasy about being watched by some invisible entity. I like my privacy

[DoveDiva]

Well, I never experienced anything in my home, but 3 years ago when I was pregnant with my son, I was driving down Rose Avenue in Douglasville, next to the golf course. I was behind someone who was turning into their subdivision and on the right I saw this shadowy figure in tattered clothes run by. Looked just like a teen girl.
*shrug*
Haven't seen her since. But then again, they say pregnancy really does a number on your body and mind, so....lol. Maybe I was having pregnant woman visions or something, lol

[meadgrad]

Originally Posted by ajax general

I ain't laughin' brother!


There is a neighborhood in Chattanooga called St. Elmo. 19th century homes built after the War of Northern Aggression , purportedley on mass graves of Union soldiers who rushed up Lookout Mtn only to be cut down by entrenched Confederate troops. Locals say the entire neighbohood is haunted, and the city has been paying folks to buy and renovate those old houses, but people don't seem to last very long. I've been there and it's pretty! Pretty darn creepy, that is. Gettysburg (Pickett's charge) is another place that gives me the creeps...to the point where I feel overwhelming sadness and my eyes well up with tears.

.

I always wondered about all the civil war battle sites around Atlanta that are now neighborhoods...seems like if there were ever going to be some civil war ghosts they would be walking around these places. similar to the Chattanooga neighborhood.

quote from a picture on Wiki..."Few battlefields of the war have been strewn so thickly with dead and wounded as they lay that evening around Collier's Mill." (Union Major Gen. J.D. Cox)

[ajax general]

Originally Posted by meadgrad

I always wondered about all the civil war battle sites around Atlanta that are now neighborhoods...seems like if there were ever going to be some civil war ghosts they would be walking around these places. similar to the Chattanooga neighborhood.

quote from a picture on Wiki..."Few battlefields of the war have been strewn so thickly with dead and wounded as they lay that evening around Collier's Mill." (Union Major Gen. J.D. Cox)

I'm a bit of a Civil War buff, and have been to most of the battlefields and related curtilage. There are a few that give me the creeps besides Gettysburg. One of those is Andersonville in south GA, the old Confederate POW camp. But Collier's Mill and Tanyard Creel Park does have a strange aura about it. But then again, most of Buckhead is kind of creepy. Sometimes it seems the area is still stuck in the 19th century, and I've met a few Buckhead residents who are stuck there as well. I'm speaking of the "Old Atlanta" community who's families have lived in Atlanta since the 19th Century and earlier; some of whom may still be named Collier. I haven't seen anyone in a seersucker suit calling themselves "The Colonel" though. It reminds me of the old Bugs Bunny cartoon playing off of Gone With The Wind, when Bugs knocks on the front door of "Tara" where Yosemite Sam plays the old Southern colonel, and says, "Sir, the Yankees are in Chattanooga!" and passes out .

Atlanta should be more haunted than it is, especially since Sherman's March was one of the most controversial and emotionally disturbing episodes of that era, and especially in the history of Atlanta. And it was widespread throughout the city. Gettysburg was a turning point in the war and very important on a strategic level. But the Battle of Atlanta had to be the most passionate and emotionally charged fight of all. I can just imagine the utter desperation of the Confederate soldiers who knew that the fall of Atlanta meant the end for the South, and fought tenaciously to the last man, for every little inch of dirt; there was nowhere to retreat. I mean, there must be some residual energy from that if not anything else.

[forresthills]

Check out Charleston S.C.. That is a major industry there. They have ghost tours and all kind of related industries. You use to could buy a "ghost meter" but havent been there in a while.

[meadgrad]

Originally Posted by ajax general

I'm a bit of a Civil War buff, and have been to most of the battlefields and related curtilage. There are a few that give me the creeps besides Gettysburg. One of those is Andersonville in south GA, the old Confederate POW camp. But Collier's Mill and Tanyard Creel Park does have a strange aura about it. But then again, most of Buckhead is kind of creepy. Sometimes it seems the area is still stuck in the 19th century, and I've met a few Buckhead residents who are stuck there as well. I'm speaking of the "Old Atlanta" community who's families have lived in Atlanta since the 19th Century and earlier; some of whom may still be named Collier. I haven't seen anyone in a seersucker suit calling themselves "The Colonel" though. It reminds me of the old Bugs Bunny cartoon playing off of Gone With The Wind, when Bugs knocks on the front door of "Tara" where Yosemite Sam plays the old Southern colonel, and says, "Sir, the Yankees are in Chattanooga!" and passes out .

Atlanta should be more haunted than it is, especially since Sherman's March was one of the most controversial and emotionally disturbing episodes of that era, and especially in the history of Atlanta. And it was widespread throughout the city. Gettysburg was a turning point in the war and very important on a strategic level. But the Battle of Atlanta had to be the most passionate and emotionally charged fight of all. I can just imagine the utter desperation of the Confederate soldiers who knew that the fall of Atlanta meant the end for the South, and fought tenaciously to the last man, for every little inch of dirt; there was nowhere to retreat. I mean, there must be some residual energy from that if not anything else.

I agree about Gettysburg...nothing like sitting on little round top looking over that part of the battle field and just imageing trying to take that hill! I have never been to Andersonville...that would be a good history visit for sure.

wonder if you could get some old musket balls and other stuff with a metal detector in those neighborhoods in Atlanta...?

[LovinDecatur]

Originally Posted by meadgrad

wonder if you could get some old musket balls and other stuff with a metal detector in those neighborhoods in Atlanta...?

Growing up near Emory, my brother and I often found musket balls and, more often, Union Army belt buckles in what is now called Hahn Woods (Houston Mill Rd). The area was originally part of the Powell Plantation (the family graveyard is still located within the Emory Clairmont Campus). After the Atlanta Campaign, Union troops used the farm as an encampment.
I remember that my brother would sometimes be awakened in the middle of the night by a steady "thrum-thrum-thrum" vibration; the dog would also wake up and bark at it. We decided at some point that what he was hearing was the ghostly marching of Union troops.

[Love Cobb]

I have had my share of unexplained events since arriving in GA back in 91.
1. Around 1992-1993 I was working the night shift off Interstate 75/Windy Hill and saw a UFO as clear as day in the parking lot. Apparantly I wasn't alone because the sighting was documented in the AJC the next day.
2. In 1999, I was working off Marietta Square in a law office in the old Brumby Rocking Chair Building. The bathrooms were way in the back of the common hall area, totally isolated. Every time I went in the very first stall loud banging would be in the next stall. Then I saw on the History Channel that that whole area around Marietta Square hs documented hauntings(Kennesaw House and 1884 Plantation House). Needless to say I'm believer!!!