Pickens County Courthouse
photo taken from wikimedia.org
Located in Carrollton, Alabama, the Pickens County Courthouse was renamed after the original Carrollton Courthouse that burnt to the ground in 1876. No one knew for sure as to how the fire started, but the people of the town blamed it on a man named Henry Wells. Henry Wells was a black man who lived outside the town who had a reputation of being rowdy. The sheriff arrested Wells and held him up in the attic of the structure set to be the new courthouse.
One night, a mob formed outside of building where Wells was being held, demanding for his head. Suddenly, a thunderstorm came into form, and a flash of lighting struck the roof of the building in which Wells was in, killing him instantly.
The strike of the lightning etched his facial expression into the window pane, and over the countless decades since, nothing has ever been able to wipe it off. Legend has it that on nights when thunderstorms come through Carrollton, the ghost of Henry Wells can be seen through the window of the courthouse where he was taking his last breath.
