HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
An 1892 Victorian jail where five men were executed before the building became a museum — staff still report tobacco smoke in the entrance hall and footsteps when alone at night
112 Lafayette Pkwy, LaGrange, GA 30240
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Museum admission fees apply; check lagrangeartmuseum.org for current hours and pricing. The Strange LaGrange Walking Tour ($20 adults) includes this building as a stop on Friday evenings.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Historic Victorian building in downtown LaGrange; paved access
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1892 · Pauly Jail Building Company Construction · Troup County Criminal Justice History · Chattahoochee Valley Art Association
The Troup County Jail was built in 1892 under a contract awarded in January of that year to the Pauly Jail Building Company of St. Louis, Missouri, for $13,500. The Pauly Company was one of the leading jail construction firms of the late nineteenth century, specializing in steel cell systems designed to resist escape attempts. The steel cells installed in LaGrange proved their durability when, during a test by Georgia Tech machinists, two hours of drilling, sawing, and chiseling produced no appreciable impression.
The structure contained three sections: a jailer's residence at the front, a cellblock divided by race according to the practices of the era, and an execution area at the rear. Five men were hanged inside the building between 1901 and 1918: Edmund Scott (1901), Ingram Canady Jr. (1908), Lucius Truitt (1909), Walter Thomas (1910), and John Marvin Thompson (1918). Thompson was the only white man executed there.
The building was decommissioned as a jail in 1939 and converted to house the LaGrange Daily News. It subsequently served as a furniture store. In 1978, the Callaway Foundation donated the structure to the Chattahoochee Valley Art Association, which established the LaGrange Art Museum in the building. The museum continues to operate galleries across the Victorian structure at 112 Lafayette Parkway.
Sources
The paranormal accounts from the LaGrange Art Museum come primarily from staff rather than visitors, accumulated over the building's decades as a cultural institution following its time as the county jail.
The current director reports a recurring phenomenon: the smell of tobacco smoke in the entrance hall of a building that has operated under a strict no-smoking policy for years. No source has been identified. The maintenance worker describes hearing footsteps inside the building when he is alone at night — sounds that stop when he investigates, with no one else present.
A co-worker reported seeing faces peering out of the tower windows at night — a location accessible only by ladder from an interior room, making casual occupation of the space unlikely.
A psychic visitor to the building described detecting three presences: an African American man who communicated that he had acted in self-defense, positioned near the back cellblock; a hunched figure; and a feminine presence connected to one of the incarcerated individuals. The building's history of housing a racially segregated cellblock and conducting five executions between 1901 and 1918 gives the accounts a specific historical context, though no documented individual has been matched to any of the reported phenomena.
The building is a stop on the Strange LaGrange Walking Tour.
The LaGrange Art Museum occupies the former Troup County Jail, a Victorian building constructed in 1892 at 112 Lafayette Parkway. The museum operates galleries across the structure, which includes the former jailer's residence, cellblock, and execution area. The building's history as a working jail from 1892 to 1939 is part of the interpretive context available to visitors.
The Strange LaGrange walking tour includes the LaGrange Art Museum building as a documented stop, with guides drawing on the building's history as the county jail and the staff paranormal accounts. The tour departs Friday evenings at 7 PM from the Legacy Museum on Main at 136 Main Street.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Brunswick, GA
The Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation was established in the early 1800s by William Brailsford along the Altamaha River, producing rice through the labor of enslaved people on a flood-controlled tidal system. The property passed through several generations of the Troup and Dent families. Ophelia Troup Dent, the last heir, donated it to the state of Georgia in 1973. It is now a Georgia State Parks Historic Site and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (reference #76000635).
Tuscaloosa, AL
Gorgas House was built in 1829 as a dining hall for the newly founded University of Alabama. It is the oldest surviving building on the campus. Confederate Brigadier General Josiah Gorgas, who served as the Confederate Army's chief of ordnance during the Civil War, became president of the University of Alabama and lived in the house from 1878 until his death there in 1883.
Creede, CO
Silver was discovered in Creede, Colorado in 1889, and within a year the town had grown from nothing to 10,000 people. It drew some of the frontier era's most notorious figures: Bob Ford (who killed Jesse James in Missouri in 1882) and con man Soapy Smith both operated there. The mines closed in 1985. Local miners subsequently blasted 600 feet of tunnels into the cliff above town to create the Underground Mining Museum, which opened to preserve Creede's silver era history.