Oh, The Places You'll Go!

During our drive from Florence to Oxford, Mississippi, in June, a coworker and I discussed our fascination with the dark and Gothic history of the South and how every beautiful place has some sort of haunting behind it.

I realize that I'm in the heart of Dixie," a phrase emblazoned in the middle of a read heart on all of Alabama's license plates, but it didn't hit me how close I am to Civil War-era destruction until I learned about the Forks of Cypress.

All that remains of the plantation are its columns, rumored to be made of grounded horse hair and molasses, after a fire destroyed the house in 1966, and the chimney from the old slave's quarters.

There's also a bridge on the property -- known as "Ghost Bridge" -- but it's behind locked fences and is regarded as a place where Satan worshipers and people with a death wish visit because they believe it's highly haunted. Legend has it that a slave family tried to escape the plantation but were caught on or by the bridge by owner James Jackson, who was reportedly cruel to his slaves and had them all hanged from the side of the bridge.

Also on the property is a slave cemetery, and its legend says that at it you can hear slaves singing old spirituals and other songs late at night.

Absolutely terrifying. It helps demonstrate why the best two words I can think of to describe the South are "humid" and "haunted."

I love it. Not the racism part; the history part.

My coworker, Christine, drove me to the Forks one drizzly evening on our dinner break, so I was able to get fairly close to the ruins and take a few pictures, such as the one above with the horses and this one. Christine has a terrifying tale of visiting the Forks with a friend in the middle of the night, breaking onto the property and crawling around the wooded edges of it near the slave quarter's chimney. She kept trying to take a picture of the chimney, but her camera wouldn't work -- only when pointed at the ruins. Pointed at the ground? Worked just fine. Pointed at the pile of bricks? Nothing.

As her heart began to race faster, she turned around and saw two horses standing exactly behind her. As her friend encouraged her to be calm, she lost it and began to sprint across the property and back to the car.

Nothing as dramatic happened on our brief visit, but my favorite photograph from the evening is a shot of the entrance to Ghost Bridge. Part of the image around the gate looks blurry and mysterious. The bar catching the light? Steam from the previous rain? Probably.

But it's more fun to pretend otherwise.