Augusta's spookiest landmark is its famous "haunted pillar.”
It's all that's left of the old city market that straddled Broad Street at Centre (now Fifth) Street from 1830 until February 1878, when it was destroyed by a rare winter tornado.
The "haunted'' part is a local legend: Move the pillar, try to destroy it or even touch it and you die.
The source for the curse is varied.
According to one story, a traveling preacher was denied permission to evangelize at the market and put it under a curse.
The preacher stood in the middle of the square and "threatened that a great wind would destroy the place except for one pillar and that whoever tried to remove this remaining pillar would be struck dead,'' according to the Year Book of the City Council of Augusta, Georgia, of 1977 .
The storm is said to be the result of the preacher's curse.