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Heavily Investigated

Something flickers in the tower when the doors are locked and no one should be inside. Tuscaloosans have called it the 'death lights' for over a century — a slow, candle-warm glow that fire responders have answered more than once, finding no flame, no source. The legend pins it to Sarah Drish, who reportedly saved every candle from husband Dr. John's funeral, then drifted through the emptying house until her own death in 1884. People say she never stopped lighting them. Guests at modern events report cold spots, unseen touches, and a presence near the staircase where Dr. Drish is said to have fallen.

Dr. John R. Drish arrived in Tuscaloosa around 1822 and wed wealthy widow Sarah Owen McKinney in 1835. Their stuccoed-brick mansion — designed by architect William Nichols and built by enslaved craftsmen who plastered much of early Tuscaloosa — finished in 1837 on a 450-acre plantation while the city was still Alabama's capital. After Sarah died in 1884 it became a public school (1906), an auto-parts warehouse photographed by Walker Evans (1925), then a Baptist church (1940–2006). Demolition threatened in 1994; the Alabama Trust listed it 'Places in Peril' in 2006. Stabilized by 2009, it reopened as an event venue in 2016.