Join me on learning about five haunted houses in Alabama! Some of these I could find quite a bit of information on and others not so much, but they caught my eye nonetheless. I hope you enjoy reading about these five haunted places in Alabama.
Let’s get into these five haunted houses in Alabama:
Redmont Hotel (Oldest active hotel in Birmingham, Al)
The Redmont Hotel is the oldest active hotel in Birmingham. It first opened in 1925. Guests at the Redmont have reported many strange incidents. Some of which include doors opening and closing by itself, baggage moving around, a woman in white has been spotted on the ninth floor and even an apparition of a small dog that is seen roaming the hallways.
A few more specific ghosts are Clifford Stiles, the former owner of the hotel. Some say that the ghost of Hank Williams has haunted the building since it was supposedly the last place he stayed in 1953, in suite 301. According to this article about the hotel the present day desk clerks will not confirm unless you specifically request the room. Some people that have stayed in suite 301 were said to have seen him roaming the hallways near the room and inside the room.
Some former employees say that Al Capone stayed there and was involved in a shootout with the FBI for bootlegging whiskey. There are supposedly bullet holes on the lobby staircase wall to prove it. I couldn’t find many sources on how concrete this is besides the aforementioned article. Another rumor in that same article said that a man had set himself on fire and still haunts the hotel.
Gaines Ridge Dinner Club (Most haunted restaurant in Alabama)
This club has been named the “Most Haunted Restaurant in Alabama”. This restaurant is inside an 1820s Antebellum home. Many guests and the owner have reported hearing screams. One of these instances was with the owner herself, Betty Gaines Kennedy. Betty had a party to get the restaurant ready for and her cook was helping with prep in the kitchen. Betty had to go get a cook pot from upstairs. While she was getting the pot she heard someone, who she assumed was the cook in the kitchen, scream “Miss Betty! Miss Betty! Come quick! Oh lordy Jesus!”. Betty dropped the pot and ran back to the kitchen just to open the door and see the cook calmly chopping onions. The cook said “Miss Betty, I didn’t call you”.
Another thing that the owner, her daughter, and many guests witnessed. People had heard a couple of big thumps like someone had fallen and hit their head. Betty’s daughter had come up to her in the kitchen to get her to help a lady who had fallen in the bathroom. When she pushed against the door, she couldn’t get the door open and thought she had jammed the door in the midst of her fall. When Betty and some other guests finally shoved the door open, there was no one there, nobody had fallen.
A common smell in the restaurant is the smell of pipe smoke, despite no one smoking a pipe. Another is hearing a baby incessantly crying coming from one of the upstairs rooms. The story behind the crying baby is from Bettys great aunts. Her aunt weighed 350 lbs and a common thing then, especially in the winter time, was to have the babies sleep with the parents. She had 13 children and was thought to have accidentally killed one of her babies by rolling on it and smothering it to death. Here is the first part of an interview of the owner of Gaines Ridge Club and this is part 2.
Hell Gate Bridge (Most Haunted Bridge in Alabama)
This bridge is located in Oxford and is the most haunted bridge in Alabama. The bridge acquired its name because of this story. Some time during the 1950s, a young couple was said to have driven off the bridge into the water below. Allegedly if you stop on the bridge in your car and turn off all your lights one of the members of the couple will enter your vehicle and leave a wet spot where they sat. Though now you will not be able to drive your vehicle across it, the local officials are using cement blocks to block it off due to the bridge falling apart.
That doesn’t really explain why it’s called “Hells Gate Bridge ” well there is another legend of the bridge that gave this bridge its name. Many people believe that when you stop on the bridge and glance over your shoulder the road behind you the fiery gates of Hell. Many locals claimed to have experienced it.
Sloss Furnace
The Sloss Furnaces from 1882 to 1971 the Sloss furnaces transformed coal and ore from the surrounding acres into steel. It actually was one of the furnaces America came to rely on and gave Birmingham the nickname “The Magic City”.
In the early 1900s there was a foreman of the graveyard shift named James “Slag” Wormwood. He ran a skeleton crew of about 150 workers during the night. During the summer months the temperature would reach more than 120 degrees! The crew had a problem with lack of sleep as well as the low visibility while working made working that shift a living hell. The graveyard shift was mostly run by workers who were desperate for employment which meant recently arriving immigrants. They were forced to live in the cramped housing that was on site and could be forced to go to work at any time of day.
Wormwood definitely didn’t make things any better. He would make his workers take dangerous risks in order to speed up production. While he was working there 47 workers died which was ten times more than any other shift in the history of the furnace! If that wasn’t enough, there was even a record explosion that left 6 workers burned blind! No breaks or holidays either.
In October of 1906 Wormwood lost his footing at the top of the highest furnace aka Big Alice and plummeted into the pool of melted iron ore below. It was reported that it was the methane gas that made him dizzy enough to fall to his death. The only problem with this is that Wormwood had never set foot on top of furnaces during his years of employment. Many people believe that the workers had enough of his harsh ways and decided to feed him to the furnace, though no workers were brought to trial.
“Slag” is supposed to still haunt the area, pushing people from behind and shouting at people to “get back to work” or “to go push some steel”. Though, an extra terrifying encounter happened to Samuel Blumenthal, a night watchman, in 1971. He described it as simply evil and said that a half man/half demon tried to push him up the stairs. When he refused, the demon man began to beat him with only his fists. After the attack the doctor found him covered with intense burns. Unfortunately Blumenthal died before ever returning to Sloss.
Now Sloss Furnace is home to an, unfortunately, closed haunted house/ walk. This is their informational page about the legend of Sloss Furnace and goes into more detail in some stories and the study performed by the paranormal team of Fox’s Scariest Places.
Fort Morgan
This doesn’t really come to a surprise that this fort that completed its construction in 1833 and had many soldiers and civilians die in its walls is haunted. Some people report seeing glowing orbs after taking photos, screams, crying, and even full on apparitions
One of the sources of crying is allegedly from a prisoner in 1917 hanging himself in the old barracks room. Many reports say that they hear him cry late at night as well as hearing footsteps or even being touched. During the Civil War, a bomb went off in a room that killed several men. Some say that they can still be heard screaming in pain. One of the apparitions that is most reported is a young woman.
Some time in the 19th century she was attacked and she roams around today still looking for her attacker. This article has a short interview with one of the workers at Fort Morgan as well as more of the history of Fort Morgan. You can still go on tours of the fort today.
Thank You for Reading!
I hope you enjoyed this reading journey of going through five haunted houses in Alabama. Let me know if you have ever visited and experienced anything spooky in the comments below. Don’t forget to subscribe to my email list to get updates on when I will be posting and join me next week for five haunted places in Alaska! Check out Alabama Cryptids if you are looking for more spooky tales!
About the Spook Shack
The Spook Shack is…A blog that I, Jodie Webb, decided to start to learn/teach about the haunted places and cryptids of different places. So far, I am working on the 50 states with five cryptids and haunted places/houses, but I plan on going out of the USA and into other countries with their cryptids/haunted places.