Old State Bank
Perhaps the most well-known Decatur spirits are the Lady in Black and the Lady in Blue, who haunt Old State Bank.
Several people have reported seeing a woman in a black dress reflected in the large mirror that once stood in the lobby, or glimpsing a figure in blue staring out from a second-floor window before fading into darkness.
Dubbed the Lady in Black, this mournful spirit is sometimes heard weeping. Legend says she was a mother who learned, within those very walls, that both her sons had been killed in battle.
The Lady in Blue occupies the second floor. Some believe she was a Civil War nurse who tended to the wounded when the building was used as a Union headquarters — its vault repurposed as a makeshift hospital.
Ghost hunters and paranormal investigators have visited Old State Bank for decades, many reporting strange sounds and unexplained chills, especially near that infamous vault.
Bank Street
“Bank Street has been ground zero for most of the big events that have happened in Decatur,” said John Allison, Decatur Morgan County Archivist. From war to disease to tragic death, Bank Street has seen it all.
Several businesses along Bank Street have reported activity – objects falling from walls, whispers in empty rooms, even the sight of a little girl. That child is thought to be Constance Couch, a 13-year-old who fell through a skylight to her death at the old Decatur Grocery Company in 1937. Children who lived in the apartments above the businesses of Bank Street often played on the second and third floors of the buildings, sometimes venturing onto the roof. On that fateful day, Constance leaned too far.
Some say she still roams the buildings, forever curious, forever thirteen.
Simp McGhee’s
Simp McGhee was a notorious 19th-century riverboat captain known for his wild antics and disregard for authority. His legend looms so large that a Bank Street restaurant now bears his name.
Could the ghost haunting Simp McGhee’s be the captain himself, still stirring up mischief from beyond? Maybe. But others believe the spirits come from Lafayette Street Cemetery, dating back to 1818, which lies directly behind the restaurant.
Ground-penetrating radar has revealed that the cemetery is even larger than once thought — and the restaurant may, in fact, rest atop part of it. Perhaps the laughter and clinking glasses inside the restaurant awaken the restless dead beneath.
Historic Train Depot
The Depot was Alabama Main Street’s Historic Preservation Project of the Year in 2015. Now home to a railroad museum, it stands as a symbol of the city’s rich railroad heritage, which stretches back to the 1830s.
The Depot itself was originally constructed in 1905 by the Southern Railway, and it remained in service for many years. As such, thousands of passengers passed through, and some met their untimely death on the tracks.
Suzanne Langon, the Historic Museum Supervisor for Decatur Parks and Recreation, once had her own ghostly encounter. “I was here by myself after a private tour,” she recalls, “and I saw a man come out of the bathroom. It flustered me because I thought someone was left behind. I tried to speak to him, and he just disappeared. He was as solid as you and me standing here.”
Ghost hunters have captured audio of footsteps echoing down the empty platform and the unmistakable creak of the doors opening and closing when no one is there.
Are the depot’s ghosts trapped? Or are they simply waiting — for the last train home, for one final journey, or for someone to remember their names?
