Plastic skeletons and blanket ghosts are festooned over yards across the state, ready to welcome trick or treaters on Halloween.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But in communities all over Georgia, storytellers and historians whisper dark tales of the past that are more hair-raising than any inflatable lawn ghoul, and some say remnants of that past linger today in old or forgotten places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some are firm in their belief in the supernatural; others say these ghost stories are nothing more than a fun way to learn a little bit about life in the old days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But wherever you fall on that spectrum, there\u2019s no denying Georgia is home to some truly macabre history. Here are some favorite Georgia ghost stories from tour guides and historians from across the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1915, there was nothing better than a circus coming to town, and on one particular November afternoon, a train full of performers from Con T. Kennedy\u2019s traveling circus was en route to Alabama to put on their next show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe was probably just as popular as P.T. Barnum, but in the South,\u201d said Victor Feliciano, owner-operator of Vicinity Tours in Columbus. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t like nationwide like P.T. Barnum was, but they had their own trains. P.T. Barnum hit the bigger cities, and it appears that Con T. Kennedy would go to the smaller towns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The train\u2019s wooden cars were full of colorful performers \u2014 Siamese twins, acrobats, a brass band, jugglers and clowns \u2014 as well as performing animals and equipment like a Ferris wheel and big tents slicked with oil to keep out the rain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But none of them knew they had already performed their final acts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, the conductor of a steel passenger train bound from Columbus to Macon was stopped at Muscogee junction, where the conductor received a message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cApparently, the conductor didn\u2019t hear the message, or if he did, he didn\u2019t pay heed to it, or it could have been he didn\u2019t care,\u201d Feliciano said. \u201cThe train must go on. But it rolled out on schedule at 1:30. The thing is that the message was to wait for about 10 minutes so that the circus train can pass through and then they can go ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The trains collided into a cacophony of explosions, shattering wood and buckling metal. Only a few injuries were reported on the passenger train, but the performers were not as lucky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cUnfortunately, the circus train was made of wood except for the engine and the caboose, and the caboose actually made its way into the engine compartment, basically smashing animals and people that were from the circus train,\u201d Feliciano said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rescue efforts were hindered by the oiled tents, which fed the flames, and the fact that nobody knew how many people were supposed to be on the train.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBack then, the circus people would hop on and hop off, so no two shows were exactly alike because it all depended on how many people were at the tent at the top of the show,\u201d Feliciano said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is believed that 24 people died that day, but some in Columbus remember the story more for one miraculous survivor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Knowing they had no chance to escape the twisted wreckage, the mother of young Hazel Kempf managed to pass her through a small window as the flames grew around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe knew the inevitable was about to happen, and unfortunately, the windows of the circus train weren\u2019t big enough for the adults to climb through,\u201d Feliciano said. \u201cAnd so what she did was she grabbed her daughter and put her out the window.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Little Hazel escaped with minor injuries. She became the darling of Columbus, and she would go on to live a happy and successful life, passing away in 1999 at the age of 84.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kennedy, the circus owner, built a monument<\/a> carved to look like a circus tent in Riverdale Cemetery as a tribute to those who died in the wreck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Feliciano said his Wicked River Cities Tour is about teaching history rather than the paranormal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPersonally, I don\u2019t really deal with the paranormal, I don\u2019t really want to play with it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI have a, I won\u2019t say a fear, but I have a strong respect for the spiritual realm, and I\u2019ve got enough demons in my life, I don\u2019t need to invite any more,\u201d he added with a laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, he says people on his tours have sent him photographs that they say contain ghostly orbs, and generations of Columbus schoolchildren have whispered about hearing carnival music and seeing oddly-dressed people near the cemetery late at night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At five stories, the Landmark Building is the tallest building in downtown Dalton and also one of the city\u2019s most historic structures. The original 1890 building, then called Hotel Dalton, was destroyed by a 1911 fire that devastated the downtown, and it was restored in 1923. It now serves as office space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When local historian Connie Hall-Scott began leading haunted ghost tours around the city, she at first did not include the old building in her stops, despite employees there reporting strange occurances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEveryone who worked there believed it was haunted because of a heavy feeling, like someone or something is there that isn\u2019t, that sort of thing, and also a disembodied cry, like a woman crying when there actually wasn\u2019t a woman crying there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hall-Scott dug into the building\u2019s history, but didn\u2019t find anything that could indicate it had been haunted, and calls to the owners also yielded no leads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She put the tales of the weeping woman aside, until a chance conversation with her father, a former police officer, helped her put the pieces together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hall-Scott and her parents were passing the Landmark after she had taken them on a tour one night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAfter the tour, my dad said, \u2018Hey, did I ever tell you about when I was a Dalton police officer and the suicide case I worked at Hotel Dalton?\u2019 And of course he had not,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the late 1960s, a woman checked into Hotel Dalton. People remembered her as a pretty young lady, about 17 or 18, who had taken a job as a carhop at the Cherokee Drive-in movie theater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What they didn\u2019t know was that she had been involved in a relationship with an older man, who apparently had cut things off, leaving her distraught. Some versions of the story say she had become pregnant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Broken-hearted, she brought a pistol up to her third-floor room and ended her short life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When she did not leave her room, the hotel staff sent a bellhop to check on her. He discovered the grisly scene and called the police, and Hall-Scott\u2019s father, who was still relatively new on the force, was sent to investigate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hall-Scott said she confirmed the story with her father\u2019s former partner, the coroner at the time, and even the bellhop who discovered her.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Weeping Woman of Hotel Dalton<\/h4>\n\n\n\n