Almost every well-known ghost story in Tuscaloosa has the same ZIP code: 35401. That isn’t a coincidence. 35401 is the city’s oldest ground. It holds the old state capital site, the antebellum houses along Greensboro Avenue, the state’s first psychiatric hospital and the historic core of the University of Alabama campus. Old buildings collect stories, and Tuscaloosa’s oldest buildings are packed into one ZIP.
This guide lists the best-known local legends, the documented history behind each place, and the address and ZIP code where it stands. The ghost stories are folklore, told here the way local writers, tour guides and paranormal groups tell them. The history and addresses are checked against the sources at the bottom.
Tuscaloosa ghost stories at a glance
| Place | The story | Address | ZIP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drish House | A burning tower that never burns | 2300 17th St | 35401 |
| Jemison-Van de Graaff Mansion | Dead camera batteries and a portrait that won’t photograph | 1305 Greensboro Ave | 35401 |
| Bryce Hospital (now UA’s Welcome Center) | Voices and footsteps in empty halls | Bryce Lawn Dr, off University Blvd | 35401 |
| Greenwood Cemetery | A baby crying among the graves | 29th Ave and 11th St | 35401 |
| Evergreen Cemetery | Lights and shadows at dusk | 1027 12th St | 35401 |
| UA campus (Gorgas Library, Smith Hall, Little Round House, Woods Quad) | A self-driving elevator, a dead man’s lectures, a duel’s gunshots | Campus street addresses | 35401 (mail: 35487) |
| Jemison Center | Northport’s abandoned state hospital farm | Former Cherokee Place plantation, Northport (closed to the public) | Northport |
The Drish House: the tower fire that isn’t there
Dr. John R. Drish built his house in 1837 on a 450-acre plantation that was then at the edge of town. It was built by people he enslaved. Before the Civil War he remodeled it with a three-story Italianate tower, the feature the legend is built around.
Drish died in 1867 after a fall down a stairway. Local lore blames drinking. The story told by Kathryn Tucker Windham in 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey goes like this: his widow, Sarah, lit candles around his body for the wake and put them away, saying she wanted the same candles burned at her own funeral. When she died in 1884, nobody could find them. Ever since, people have reported light in the tower windows, and passersby have seen what looked like the tower on fire. Accounts say the fire department has been called more than once and found nothing burning.
The house has had a strange life even without ghosts. It was the Jemison School from 1906 to 1925, a wrecking company’s parts warehouse, and then Southside Baptist Church from 1940 to 1995. Paranormal investigators say their equipment reacts most near the old baptismal area. It was restored and is now a private event venue, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015. Its owner has told reporters about a front door that opens and closes by itself, a whistling sound and the smell of roses when there are no flowers in the house, and says whatever is there isn’t hostile.
The Jemison-Van de Graaff Mansion
Senator Robert Jemison Jr.’s Italianate mansion at 1305 Greensboro Avenue was completed in 1862 and later served as Tuscaloosa’s public library. It is now open for tours and events. Paranormal groups who have investigated it most often report one thing: camera batteries draining fast. One group said a portrait wouldn’t photograph until they asked Priscilla Jemison for permission. A local historian interviewed by The Crimson White said he once heard a crash like a bookcase falling, but nothing in the room had moved.
Bryce Hospital
Bryce opened in 1861 as the Alabama Insane Hospital, the state’s first psychiatric hospital. Its first superintendent, Peter Bryce, was 27 years old and pushed for humane treatment, and restraints were abandoned by 1882. A century later conditions had collapsed. In 1970, 15-year-old patient Ricky Wyatt became the named plaintiff in Wyatt v. Stickney, the class action that set national minimum standards for institutional care. The case ran 33 years before it was dismissed in 2003.
The University of Alabama bought the property in 2010, patients moved to a new Bryce Hospital in 2014, and the restored administration building is now UA’s Welcome Center. The stories told about it are the ones told about most old asylums: voices with no one there, footsteps in empty corridors, sudden cold, shadows in the old wards at night. The real history is the heavier part. Two patients’ own accounts survive, The Letters of a Victorian Madwoman and Joseph Camp’s An Insight into an Insane Asylum.
Greenwood and Evergreen cemeteries
Greenwood Cemetery, at 29th Avenue and 11th Street, dates to about 1820 and is one of the oldest burial grounds in the city. John Drish is buried there. Local ghost tours tell visitors that if they hear a baby crying and follow the sound, it leads to the grave of Abby Snow, who died in 1844 at 18 months old during an outbreak that killed many young children that year. In the story, she is crying for all of them.
Evergreen Cemetery, behind Bryant-Denny Stadium at 1027 12th Street, dates to the mid-1800s and holds three former University of Alabama presidents and Civil War-era graves. The stories here are about glowing lights and figures moving between headstones at dusk.
Ghosts on the University of Alabama campus
UA’s historic quad is in 35401 for street addresses, though campus mail uses the university’s own ZIP, 35487 (see the UA ZIP code guide). The best-known campus stories:
- Gorgas Library. Staff stories say the elevator stops on the fourth floor, where Amelia Gayle Gorgas’s desk is kept, as if she is checking that everything is in order.
- Smith Hall (Alabama Museum of Natural History). People working late report a lecture coming from an empty room, said to be Eugene Allen Smith, the state geologist the building is named for. Some add the creak of carriage wheels and horses outside.
- The Little Round House. The 1860 cadet guardhouse is one of the few buildings that survived when Union troops burned the campus on April 4, 1865. A legend says cadets lured Union soldiers inside with whiskey and ambushed them, and that you can still hear them searching if you press your ear to the door. Historians say there’s no evidence the ambush happened.
- Woods Quad. The story is of an 1870s duel between two students on the Woods Hall balcony. Some say gunshots echo across the quad, and others say a young man paces the balcony late at night.
- Theatres. Students say the Marian Gallaway Theatre is haunted by Gallaway herself, a UA theatre professor from 1948 to 1973, described as friendly and mischievous.
Northport’s Jemison Center
Across the river, Northport’s best-known creepy site is real, abandoned and off-limits. The Jemison Center sits on the former Cherokee Place plantation and is often wrongly called “Old Bryce.” It was built around 1939 to relieve overcrowding at Bryce and operated as a segregated state farm colony where Black patients worked the fields. A 1970 Tuscaloosa News report described appalling conditions there, and the center became part of Wyatt v. Stickney. Farming at state institutions ended in 1977, and the neighboring S.D. Allen facility closed in 2003. The property has inspired countless ghost stories online, but the documented history is grim enough on its own.
Don’t go in. The site is closed, police and a neighborhood watch patrol it, and trespassers are reported. The Northport ZIP code guide covers the public places in 35473, 35475 and 35476.
Visiting the haunted places that are open
- The Drish House is a privately owned event venue. Check for public events or ghost tours before you go, especially in October.
- The Jemison-Van de Graaff Mansion offers tours and events.
- Greenwood and Evergreen are active historic cemeteries. Visit in daylight and treat them as burial grounds, not attractions.
- UA’s campus buildings are open during normal hours. The Welcome Center at the former Bryce Hospital is the university’s front door for visitors.
Most of these places are covered with their history and addresses in the guide to landmarks in 35401 and the museums and historic sites by ZIP code list.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most haunted place in Tuscaloosa?
By reputation, the Drish House at 2300 17th Street, 35401. Its “burning tower” story has been told for generations and appears in Kathryn Tucker Windham’s 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey.
What ZIP code is the Drish House in?
35401. So are the Jemison-Van de Graaff Mansion, Bryce Hospital, Greenwood and Evergreen cemeteries and the street addresses of UA’s historic campus.
Can you visit Old Bryce or the Jemison Center?
No. The abandoned Jemison Center in Northport is closed and patrolled. The original Bryce Hospital building in Tuscaloosa is now UA’s Welcome Center and is open as a university building.
History and addresses in this guide were checked against the sources below on October 11, 2026. The ghost stories are local folklore and are presented as such.
Sources
- Wikipedia — Drish House (with HABS and NRHP references) (accessed October 11, 2026)
- Visit Tuscaloosa — Top haunted places in Tuscaloosa (accessed October 11, 2026)
- The Crimson White — The ghosts of Tuscaloosa past (accessed October 11, 2026)
- The Crimson White — Buildings on campus and around Tuscaloosa thought to be haunted (accessed October 11, 2026)
- WVUA 23 — West Alabama haunts (accessed October 11, 2026)
- Alabama Public Radio — Tuscaloosa Haunts (accessed October 11, 2026)
- Southern Spirit Guide — Alabama Hauntings, County by County Part VII (accessed October 11, 2026)
- Wikipedia — Bryce Hospital (accessed October 11, 2026)
- Wikipedia — Greenwood Cemetery (Tuscaloosa, Alabama) (accessed October 11, 2026)
- Wikipedia — Jemison–Van de Graaff Mansion (accessed October 11, 2026)
- Abandoned Alabama — Jemison Center (accessed October 11, 2026)
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