Haunted Places in Atlanta

The deadliest hotel fire in American history happened on Peachtree Street, and the building is still a hotel. What is there, what it changed, and what any of it costs.

The Winecoff, 7 December 1946

A hundred and nineteen people died and more than ninety were injured in a fifteen-storey hotel on Peachtree Street that had been advertised as fireproof. The steel frame was indeed fireproof; everything inside it was not. The fire was noticed around a quarter past three in the morning, and within minutes the single stairway was impassable. Fire department ladders could not reach the upper floors. People jumped. It remains the deadliest hotel fire in United States history.

One staircase, and it was legal

The building had one stairway, no fire escapes, no fire doors and no sprinklers, and it complied with the code it was built under: in 1912 a hotel on a lot measuring under five thousand square feet needed only one set of stairs. That is the part worth carrying away. Nothing about the Winecoff was a scandal of neglect at the time - it was ordinary, and legal, and it killed a hundred and nineteen people in about an hour.

It changed every hotel you have stayed in

The fire drove the code reforms that now require more than one protected way out of a building and self-closing fire-resistant doors on hotel rooms. The heavy door that swings shut behind you on the way to your room, the second stairwell at the far end of the corridor - both are downstream of this night. The building still stands at 176 Peachtree Street and operates as the Ellis Hotel. It is not a ghost attraction and does not sell itself as one.

Oakland Cemetery

Atlanta's oldest public cemetery is the substantial stop here and it is free, open roughly six in the morning until eight at night. Tickets are only needed for its own fundraising events, including the Halloween tours it runs each autumn. It holds a great deal of the city's nineteenth century in one walled forty-eight acres, and it repays an unhurried hour more than anything else on a haunted-Atlanta itinerary.

Free, paid, and what a tour is for

Oakland is free. Peachtree Street is free, and the Ellis lobby is a hotel lobby. Underground Atlanta still exists but it is no longer the enclosed mall people remember - it is an open, redeveloping district with music venues and events rather than an attraction. So an Atlanta ghost tour is narration over ground you can reach yourself, and the measure of a good one is whether it leads with 1946 or with a rattling door.

That sits in the typical band for the category, whose median is $30.

Atlanta ghost tours

1 of the 1 Atlanta tours we track . Ordered by review depth.

Questions people actually ask

What is the most haunted place in Atlanta?
By history, the building at 176 Peachtree Street: the Winecoff Hotel, where a hundred and nineteen people died on 7 December 1946 in the deadliest hotel fire in American history. It operates today as the Ellis Hotel and does not trade on the story. By reputation, Oakland Cemetery and the Fox Theatre get named more often, and Oakland is free to walk.
What is the most haunted hotel in Atlanta?
The Ellis, at 176 Peachtree Street, though it does not present itself that way. As the Winecoff it burned on 7 December 1946, killing a hundred and nineteen people - it had been advertised as fireproof and had a single stairway, which was legal under the code it was built to in 1912. It is a working hotel with an open lobby and no tour access to the floors.
Does Underground Atlanta still exist today?
Yes, but not as the enclosed shopping mall many people remember. It is now an open, redeveloping mixed-use district downtown, with nightlife, events, art spaces and a live music venue, and it has been drawing more than a million visitors a year. Treat it as a neighbourhood rather than as an attraction with an entrance, and do not expect the 1990s version.
What is the scariest haunted house in Atlanta?
That question is about seasonal haunted-house attractions, which run in and around Atlanta in October with actors and built sets, and which are a different product from a ghost tour. If you want the historic kind instead, Oakland Cemetery runs its own Halloween programme each autumn, and the free daytime walk is better than either.
Is Oakland Cemetery free?
Yes. It is open to the public daily, roughly from six in the morning until eight at night, at no charge, and there is no ticket needed to walk it. Its own fundraising events are ticketed - the Halloween tours and the seasonal illuminations among them - but the cemetery itself, which is the reason to go, costs nothing.