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Pickens County Courthouse in Carrollton, Alabama, is famous for its "Lightning Portrait of Henry Wells," an odd phenomena in and of itself. Throw in a supposed ghost for good measure, and you have yourself a story.
The courthouse was burned down in November of 1876. The culprit was thought to be Henry Wells, a former slave ne'er-do-well. He was also thought to have committed other crimes of a more serious nature, so when he was apprehended in 1878, the citizens were less than pleased with him. To prevent a lynching, he was hidden in the garret of the new courthouse as a mob formed below. As the terrified man peered through a window at the frenzied throng below, lightning struck, imprinting an image of the man's frightened face on the pane of glass. Some stories say the strike killed him, but most say that he died in jail from injuries he received while trying to escape.
There is most definitely an impression of what appears to be a face in some sort of emotional turmoil in the lower right hand pane of the garret window. It has been scrubbed with everything from soap to gasoline, but nothing has ever managed to remove it. It is also the one pane that has never been destroyed by hail or storm. An eerie sight to behold in normal circumstances, but imagine looking at it on a stormy night with the ghostly face of Henry Wells peering from behind his own likeness! There have been several such claims of seeing this specter.
Pickens County Courthouse is located thirty miles west of Tuscaloosa in Pickens County, at the intersection of Highways 17 and 86.
