1875 Second Empire courthouse with decommissioned prison cells on the upper floors — staff report disembodied footsteps and unexplained whistling near the old cell block
65 Union St S, Concord, NC 28025
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
See Historic Cabarrus Association website for tour pricing and hours
Access
Limited Access
Multi-story historic courthouse; upper floors with former cell block accessible by staircase only
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1876 · National Register of Historic Places · Second Empire Architecture · Cabarrus County Seat History · Historic Jail Preservation
Cabarrus County, established in 1792 from portions of Mecklenburg County, has had its seat at Concord since the county's founding. The courthouse at 65 Union St S dates to 1875–1876, when it was built to replace a previous courthouse destroyed by fire the same year. The replacement building was designed in the Second Empire style — identified by its distinctive mansard roof — which was among the more fashionable architectural forms for American civic buildings in the 1870s.
The building served as Cabarrus County's functioning courthouse and included jail facilities on its upper floors, with prison cells that held defendants and convicted inmates during the county's active use of the building. The structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, recognizing its historical and architectural significance to the Concord downtown.
The Historic Cabarrus Association acquired and now operates the building as a museum and arts venue, offering tours to the public. The former prison cells on the upper floors are accessible to tour visitors, giving the public a direct encounter with the building's custodial history.
Concord's History & Haunts ghost walking tour includes the courthouse as a featured stop, connecting its documented history — the fires, the executions, the long jail function — to the paranormal claims reported by staff and visitors.
Sources
The paranormal claims at the Cabarrus County Courthouse center on two recurring phenomena documented by the Cabarrus Weekly and confirmed as stops on the official History & Haunts tour. Staff working in the building have described hearing footsteps on the main staircase that occur with no one on the stairs — a report repeated across multiple staff members rather than as a single incident. Near the decommissioned cell block on the upper floors, unexplained whistling has been reported, with no identified source.
The building's history as a functioning jail and courthouse provides the frame for these accounts. Upper-floor cells held individuals awaiting trial or serving sentences over the building's decades of custodial use, and the staircase between floors was the daily transit point for that movement. The specific location of the footstep reports — the staircase — and the whistling near the cell block rather than elsewhere in the building, give the claims a degree of specificity that distinguishes them from more generalized hauntings.
The History & Haunts walking tour of Concord, operated as an official city tourism product and documented in the Cabarrus Weekly, includes the courthouse as one of its stops, indicating that the building's paranormal reputation is recognized in the local tourism context and not limited to word-of-mouth reports.
The Historic Cabarrus Association offers tours of the 1875–1876 Second Empire courthouse at 65 Union St S in Concord. The building features decommissioned prison cells on the upper floors where staff have reported disembodied footsteps on the staircase and unexplained whistling near the old cell block. The courthouse is also a featured stop on Concord's official History & Haunts ghost walking tour.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
.jpg)
Winston-Salem, NC
The Single Brothers House was built in 1769 as the communal residence and workshop for unmarried men of the Moravian congregation at Salem, North Carolina. The Moravians operated the house as a combined living quarters and craft training facility, with individual brothers assigned to trades including shoemaking, tailoring, and carpentry. The building is part of Old Salem Museums & Gardens, the most intact surviving Moravian settlement in America.
.jpg)
Winston-Salem, NC
The Salem Tavern was built in 1784 to serve travelers stopping in the Moravian settlement at Salem, North Carolina. The Moravian congregation built and operated the tavern — a common enterprise in Moravian settlements — as a source of revenue and a place of hospitality for outsiders. President George Washington lodged here in May 1791 during his Southern Tour, an event documented in his own diary.
Frederick, MD
Schifferstadt is one of the oldest surviving houses in Frederick, completed in 1758 by Elias Brunner and his wife Albertina on the family's 303-acre farm tract. The Brunners named the property after their hometown in the German Palatinate. The Frederick County Landmarks Foundation purchased the house in 1974 and opened it as an architectural museum.