Why Savannah is so haunted
Savannah's haunted reputation is built on centuries of layered tragedy. When General Oglethorpe laid out the city in 1733, he established it on land that already held Native American burial grounds — and the English colonists who followed built their homes and squares directly on top. Yellow-fever epidemics swept through in 1820 and 1854, killing thousands in a matter of weeks; bodies were buried in mass graves beneath what are now park squares and building foundations. The Civil War brought occupation, suffering and death to the city's doorstep. Colonial Park Cemetery — the city's oldest — sits in the middle of the Historic District, its oldest headstones dating to 1750. Add Bonaventure Cemetery's Victorian statuary and the wrought-iron atmosphere of moss-draped squares after dark, and you have a city that practically writes its own ghost stories. Paranormal investigators, Travel Channel specials and the novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil have all leaned into the legend. Local ghost-tour operators don't have to invent much — the history is strange enough on its own.