Sturdivant Mansion in Jacksons Gap AL

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  Cat

  on October 6, 2025

  The picture above is not of the old Sturdivant mansion in the Jacksons Gap area. The photo is an old one of Sturdivant Hall in Selma, Alabama, taken in the 1930s. It’s now a museum. Two different buildings in different towns.

  The Sturdivant mansion/house in Jacksons Gap was built by the Sturdivant family on a hill, overlooking the town of Sturdivant, AL. It was designed with a center hallway through the middle and four main rooms, two on either side of the hall. The kitchen was in a separate building but connected to the main house with a covered walkway. The house had gas lighting and was considered a very fine home at the time.

  Unfortunately, the family’s fortune changed. The town of Sturdivant (Sturdivant Station) depended on being the last stop on a railroad line for much of its livelihood centered around passengers and freight. The town of Alexander City had been pushing to get the railroad line extended to their town and were successful, causing Sturdivant to decline. In 1928, the town was flooded when Lake Martin was created, leaving the house alone on what used to be a hill, now overlooking the water. Then in the Great Depression, the bank the Sturdivant family were involved in Dadeville failed. Their fortune lost, the family had to abandon the mansion.

  The house stayed intact until the 1950s, then was gradually looted and left in disrepair.

  Christmas Day, 1958, four teens had an accident with a train while walking across a nearby train tressle. They were walking to the area of the old house along with a new hunting dog one of the boys got for Christmas, to see if the dog could chase anything down. One boy jumped off the tressle into the water and lived, while the other boy and two girls were hit by the train and died.

  The house eventually became a hangout and party spot for teenagers in the region to meet up, sneak alcohol, and play in the abandoned old house in the woods, especially on the weekends and after football games. Teens would drink, make out, and try to scare each other. Over the decades of abuse, neglect, and the elements, the woodwork started to give way. By the 1970s the roof and floors were sagging and creaky. This didn’t stop the region’s teenagers, who would party around the outside of the house and dare each other to go inside without falling through the floor. All sorts of scary stories were dreamed up over the years to scare each other and dates, fueled by cheap beer, moonshine, and any other sort of alcohol that could be obtained and smuggled out there. By the 1980s, the house had started collapsing in on itself, leaving the walls as a shell. By the 2010s, all that remained was the stone and brickwork of the walls, with no floors, ceiling, or roof remaining, the inside just a heap of the decayed remnants of the rotted wooden beams and flooring, all blanketed with a thick layer of years worth of fallen leaves.

  Generations of teens have sneaked over and partied there for over 60 years, each telling ghost stories and trying to scare others, repeating stories they’d heard previously from others. Some of the stories have been handed down into local legend. Some of the more often repeated stories are of a homicidal lodger who murdered everyone in the house in their sleep, or of a crazed cook who decapitated the homeowner. There is no documentation or proof of any of these stories actually happening. No reports in old newspapers, when such shocking news would have been all over papers. It’s all most likely stories made up by teens to explain why the house was abandoned and to entertain with ghoulish tales, and “sightings” made by drunk teenagers waving flashlights in the dark.

  The only spirits there are of Jack Daniels, George Dickel, Jim Beam, and Jose Cuervo.