Est. 1929 · Chain-Gang Era Prison · North Carolina Corrections History · Industrial Heritage Repurposing
The original Mount Pleasant Prison dorm/barrel house was built in 1929 on what is now Prison Camp Road in Cabarrus County. During its active years, the prison operated during the peak of the chain-gang era in the American South — inmates in striped uniforms, supervised outdoor labor, a system that defined incarceration in the region through the mid-20th century. The prison held killers, bootleggers, and all categories of criminals over its eight-decade run. It closed in 2011.
The facility sat vacant until 2014, when North Carolina natives Leanne Powell and Thomas Thacker founded Southern Grace Distilleries. They moved into the former prison on Labor Day weekend 2016 and placed their first barrel of bourbon into the century-old prison dormitory in January 2017. The production facility occupies the original dormitory buildings, with everything largely as it was found — the perimeter barbed wire still intact, the guards' watchtower overlooking the grounds.
Southern Grace is described as America's only distillery housed in a former prison. The juxtaposition is entirely intentional — the brand leans into the property's history as a feature rather than a liability. Ghost Hunt Weekends and other paranormal investigation operators have partnered with the distillery to offer access to the facility after hours, and Southern Grace was featured in an episode of Ghost Hunters.
Distillery employees have reported unexplained echoes of footsteps in empty areas, disappearing keys, and sounds in the night. The Cabarrus Weekly and regional press have covered the distillery's dual identity as a working production facility and paranormal venue.
Sources
- https://www.cabarrusweekly.com/tour-the-only-whiskey-prison-in-the-us/
- https://www.southerngracedistilleries.com/
- https://journalnow.com/this-n-c-distillery-has-a-spooky-past/article_ea7f85be-9585-5c60-b82e-c707827da811.html
Shadow figuresPhantom footstepsPhantom soundsEVPObject movementDisembodied voices
The activity at Whiskey Prison — as Southern Grace markets the venue — tends to manifest in the physical spaces that saw the most institutional traffic. Employees arriving for early shifts have reported the sound of footsteps moving through sections of the facility with no one present. Keys left on surfaces have been found moved or missing. At night, investigators describe unexplained thumps in the building's older sections.
Paranormal investigation groups operating at the site have documented shadow figures moving through the corridors of the original cell block areas. Disembodied voices have been recorded by multiple independent investigators. The dormitory space, where bourbon barrels now age, reportedly produces consistent EVP activity in sessions conducted by organizations including Ghost Hunt Weekends.
The facility's intact physical context — barbed wire, guard tower, original institutional architecture — contributes to what investigators describe as a pervasive atmosphere of residual activity. The chain-gang era, with its documented brutality and high mortality rates in North Carolina's prison system during the early 20th century, is the historical layer most often cited by investigators as a potential source.
Ghost Hunters featured the distillery in an episode that documented the team's findings at the property.
