The University of Montevallo is located just south of Birmingham. The university is the realization of the dream of educator and social activist Julia Tutwiler, who envisioned an institution where young women could acquire skills that would enable them to become self-sufficient. As a result of the urging of Tutwiler and citizens of Montevallo, Senator Solomon Bloch introduced a bill establishing the school in the small town of Montevallo. Alabama’s Girls Industrial School opened its doors i...| The Ghost Doctor
The Sloss Furnaces owe their existence to the rich mineral resources of Jones Valley and the vision of James Withers Sloss. Born in limestone County in 1820, Sloss’ business acumen first surfaced in 1835, when he began working as an accountant for a butcher. In 1842, he opened what was to become the first of a chain of mercantile stores in Athens, Alabama. By 1862, Sloss had invested heavily in railroads. After the Civil war, he took the first step toward creating the transportation network...| The Ghost Doctor
On November 21, 2003, between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m., a psychologist named Dr. Virgil Davis was driving toward his home in Morehead, Kentucky. Riding with him were his two sons, aged 15 and 18. They were almost home when suddenly, they witnessed a bright, oval-shaped craft flying over a field near their home. Dr. Davis described the craft as moving erratically, like a hummingbird, quite a distance from the ground. After a few minutes, it moved down a hundred feet or so, stayed in that positi...| The Ghost Doctor
By the 1890s, James Hatcher had become one of the richest men in Pikeville, Kentucky. His career as a businessman began at the age of eighteen when he opened a warehouse on the river. After building a steamer called the “Mountain Girl,” he branched out into the contracting and the timber businesses. He also dabbled in politics, becoming the Clerk of the Pike County Court and Railroad Commission for the district. In 1891, Hatcher married Ocatavia Smith, the daughter of one of the founde...| The Ghost Doctor
In his book Beyond the Grave, author Troy Taylor provides an account of one of Kentucky’s most bizarre legends. Late one afternoon after a hard day’s work, Carl Pruitt came home, expecting to find his wife in the kitchen cooking supper. He sensed that something was wrong when she did not answer his greeting from the kitchen, so he began to search for her. When Carl opened the door to the bedroom, he was shocked to find is wife in bed with another man. Blind with rage, Carl grabbed a s...| The Ghost Doctor
One of Ashland, Kentucky’s most elegant historic landmarks is The Paramount Arts Center. It is housed in the Paramount Theater, which was originally designed by the architectural firm of Rapp and Rapp to show silent movies. Ironically, by the time construction was completed in 1931, silent movies had been replaced by “talkies.” The spacious theater continued to show movies for the next forty years. The Paramount closed in 1971 but reopened in 1972 as a performing arts center called t...| The Ghost Doctor
Every year, hundreds of UFO sightings are reported throughout the world. Thousands of images of UFOs have been captured in photographs and on video, but very little physical evidence of UFO visitations has been collected. In 1957, several UFO fragments of a UFO crash were collected in Ubatuba, Brazil. In 1966, a disk-shaped object that landed in Horseshoe Lagoon in Australia left behind a circular impression. That same year, a camp site at Roaring River, Missouri, is reputed to have been ...| The Ghost Doctor
Eastern Kentucky, which is also known as the Appalachian Plateau, is a triangle-shaped region stretching from New York to Alabama. This mountainous area is part of the Appalachian Mountains system. Kentucky’s primary mountain ranges—the Cumberland and Pine Mountains—form much of the southeastern border of Kentucky. Eastern Kentucky’s most valuable natural resource—coal—can be found in the Eastern Coal Field. Sharp ridges and narrow valleys, created by eroding streams, wind thro...| The Ghost Doctor
The Tutwiler Hotel had its inception in a statement made by the President of the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company. In 1907, George Gordon Crawford told Robert Jemison, Jr., that when members of the finance committee came to visit him in Birmingham to consider appropriations for the modernization of existing plants and the building of new ones, they spent most of their time complaining of inadequate hotel facilities. Realizing that Crawford’s concerns were valid, Jemison began looking...| The Ghost Doctor
Old, abandoned houses are the most ideal settings for ghost stories. A close second, however, is bizarre-looking houses with odd inhabitants. Such is the case of the Old Stone House in Alcoa, Tennessee.| The Ghost Doctor