Magnolia Cemetery
Founded in 1818 on a former plantation, Magnolia Cemetery is Augusta's oldest public burial ground, sixty acres holding seven Confederate generals, three Southern poets, and reputedly Georgia's oldest tree. Its strangest resident is gambler Wylly Barron, who in 1851 built himself a granite tomb after a ruined rival took his own life and cursed him to die without a grave.
When Barron died in 1875, his fortune gone, his body was sealed inside without a coffin; the keyhole was covered and, by legend, the key thrown into the Savannah River, leaving the city's only crypt with no door. Visitors drifting past the windowless box still claim to hear faint noises within, and the old question hangs over the stone: could that be Wylly, trying to get out?
📍 702 3rd St, Augusta, GA 30901, Augusta, GA · Get directions