Cahawba, AL
Cahawba has a pretty illustrious history for a ghost town: from 1820 to 1826, it served as Alabama’s state capital before flooding enough times that most of the residents fled for drier pastures (and took the title of capital with them).
After years as a hub of cotton distribution, a massive Civil War prison known as Castle Morgan was built there from 1863 and 1865 — it housed over 3,000 Union soldiers. In a not-at-all-surprising development, though, Cahawba kept flooding (shocker) and by 1900 was effectively abandoned. Residents left nothing but a few empty buildings, a cemetery, and some ghost stories behind.
