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Chasing Ghosts in a Forgotten Town
What happens when a town is a no more? Does it live on? Or is it lost in the winds of time?
Welcome to Athens, Mississippi. Athens is an unincorporated community just a few minutes outside of the small town that I reside in. But, somehow, I had never explored it.
I assembled a dream team of myself, Davis Helton, and Luke Johnson (Davis would kill me if he didn’t have a shout-out), and we decided to delve deep into this lost community to visit the long-fabled Athens Jail.
Built in 1830, the jail is somewhat mysterious, with stories of ghosts running abound in my community. According to the fine folks at the Monroe County Historical Society (this society is truly top notch, keeping records and finding stories of a small community with little publicity), Joshua Toomer created the current structure of the jail in 1845. Later that night, Toomer drunkenly hopped on the wrong horse and was accused of being a horse thief. This accusation landed him the luxury of being the first person to stay a night in this newly founded jail.
It is no surprise that ghostly rumors would be abundant for a building of this nature. This is where things get a little murky, as the jail kept no records as to who exactly died there and how.