Snow Hill Institute was added to Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on July 14, 1981

Snow Hill Institute

Today – July 14 – marks 41 years since Snow Hill Institute was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage in 1981.

I was out riding around on Saturday and eventually found myself on County Road 26, driving towards the old Snow Hill Institute. I turned down Edwards Drive and eased down to the old school campus, where I parked at the historical marker in front of the school. I have been to these old school grounds many times before, and not much had changed since my last visit a couple of years ago.

Those of you familiar with the historical marker at the school will know that it tells about how educator William James Edwards and planter R.O. Simpson founded Snow Hill Institute in 1893. The school was eventually listed on the National Register of Historic Places after it closed in 1972. There’s no telling how many students walked the halls of this old school during its 80 years of operation.

When I think about Snow Hill Institute, I can’t help but think of the ghost stories I’ve heard from the Snow Hill area. One of the best-known stories is about a young coon hunter who was hot on the trail of a large coon that led the hunter and his pack of hounds through the dense woods near the school. When the hunter and his dogs arrived at the tree that they thought the coon had climbed, the hounds broke and ran away as fast as their legs could carry them.

The story goes that the hunter approached the tree but froze in his tracks when he looked up and saw an apparition sitting in the branches. The hunter locked eyes with this apparition and fled the woods. Many questions remain as to what the hunter saw, and I’ve never met anyone who could tell me what the apparition looked like.

Before heading home, I drove the short distance down County Road 26 and got out for a quick look at Institute Creek. As I stood there for a few moments beside the road looking at the creek, I listened for the sounds of the crying young woman who is said to haunt this neck of the woods. While I didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary, I did witness a blue bird flit down into the grass and depart with a luckless grasshopper in its beak.

The best version of the crying girl story that I know of can be found in a book called “Haunted Alabama Black Belt” by David Higdon and Brett Talley. According to Higdon and Talley, the girl came to Snow Hill all the way from Boston to attend Snow Hill Institute. She became severely home sick and depressed, and one day she walked to the creek and drowned herself in its muddy waters. “To this day, if you go down to the little creek beside the school, you can hear the sound of sobbing,” Higdon and Talley wrote.

In the end, I’d like to hear from anyone who has more details about the stories above. Also, if you know any other spooky tales from the Snow Hill area, let me hear from you. Many longtime residents of this area probably have their own ghost stories to tell about the Snow Hill area, and I’d like to hear them with my own two ears.