A Ghost Portrait

Carrollton, Alabama
March 25, 2010

Click on the image to enlarge and to see the lightning portrait

Do you see a faint outline of a face in the lower right pane of the window? Click on the photo to get a closer view. Do you see it yet? If you have a laptop, move the screen up and down and around. Can you see it?

I went many miles into the countryside to reach a small town in Alabama to bring you this story of the lightning portrait of Henry Wells. On a top floor window of the Pickens County Courthouse in Carrollton, it is said that a face of a jailed man was etched into the window by a stroke of lightning in 1878. Check out the Roadside America website for more about this eerie story.

Yes, I did see a face in the window. Although it changed with the angle of the view and the sunlight, I saw the face as I walked up and down the street, following me, then disappearing, then reappearing. My imagination probably got the best of me, but I started to see the face pressed against the glass with a look of fear. And then the wind began to gust, and I thought I heard a whispered scream.

Pickens County Courthouse

The window with the lightning portrait

is on the top (attic) floor

Web Links

Roadside America - Lightning Portrait Etched in Window

Explore Southern History - Face in the Window