Magnolia Cemetery
Officially founded in 1818 on the grounds of 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 raised himself a granite tomb after a ruined rival took his own life and cursed Barron to die without a grave to shelter him. By the time Barron died in 1875, his fortune was gone and his body was sealed inside the mausoleum without a coffin; the keyhole was covered and, by legend, the key thrown into the Savannah River, leaving the only crypt in the city with no door and no way in. Visitors drifting past the windowless granite box have long claimed to hear faint noises shifting within, and the old question still hangs over the stone: could that be Wylly, trying to get out? The curse half kept its word, granting him shelter but never quite a proper rest.
📍 702 3rd St, Augusta, GA 30901, Augusta, GA · Get directions