Lore - Legends 83: Sweet Home

Episode Date: July 6, 2026

The American South might have its charm, but it also has a tragic history that lingers in the shadows to this day. Narrated and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with writing by Alex Robinson and research by Sam Alberty. ————————— PRE-ORDER EXHUMED TODAY: aaronmahnke.com/exhumed ————————— Lore Resources:  Get Ad-Free Lore: lorepodcast.com/support Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  Official Lore Merchandise: lorepodcast.com/shop ————————— Sponsors: BetterHelp: Lore is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at BetterHelp.com/LORE, and get on your way to being your best self. Mint Mobile: For a limited time, wireless plans from Mint Mobile are $15 a month when you purchase a 3-month plan with UNLIMITED talk, text and data at MintMobile.com/lore. SimpliSafe: Secure your home with 24/7 professional monitoring. Sign up today at SimpliSafe.com/Lore to get 50% off a new SimpliSafe system. Squarespace: Head to Squarespace.com/lore to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using the code LORE. ————————— To report a concern regarding a radio-style, non-Aaron ad in this episode, reach out to ads @ lorepodcast.com with the name of the company or organization so we can look into it. To advertise on this podcast please email: [e-mail]. Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/lore ————————— ©2026 Aaron Mahnke. All rights reserved.

Not all maps are created equal. In fact, most are completely misleading. Since the 16th century, the majority of cartographers have used the Mercator projection when designing maps. Originally created to help in marine navigation, it became a major resource for sailors. And considering that for a few centuries, those were some of the only people who actually needed to use a world map on a day-to-day basis. That's the version that stuck. But if you're not a pirate, then those maps are just a headache. They may be helpful when you're on the high seas, but they also distort the sizes of all the actual continents.

The farther a landmass is from the equator, the bigger it appears. Warm countries seem smaller than they actually are, while cold places seem much larger. For example, in the Mercator projection, Greenland looks significantly bigger than Africa, when it's actually the other way around. Europe looks to be roughly the same size as South America, when it's significantly smaller. I think you get the idea. But the problem goes a little deeper than simple factual accuracy.

These incorrect images can subtly influence people to believe that their country is bigger and therefore more important than it actually is, an easy trap for most people to fall into. It's a powerful misconception. All of us have a tendency to believe our neck of the woods is the most important, that our perspective isn't mere opinion but definitive fact, And naturally people throughout history have allowed that inflated sense of self-importance to drive their actions, no matter how many people they hurt in the process. And if the stories that are whispered down in the state of Alabama are any indication, a lot of darkness and tragedy can be created when small men act big.

I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is lore legends. Daniel wasn't just a hard worker. He was a visionary. an altruist, a shining example of what a southern businessman really could be, if that is you ignore all the enslaved human beings that he owned. Daniel Pratt didn't start his life in Alabama, though. He was born in New Hampshire, and he didn't move south until he was 20 years old. In fact, his southern neighbors probably called him a Yankee. He may not have had much formal education under his belt, but he did just finish a four-year

architecture apprenticeship, and as it turns out, that would be more than enough. Daniel undoubtedly had talent for the field, but he was also in the right place at the right time. In the early 19th century, the antebellum south was experiencing an economic boom like never before. Only two decades before Daniel found himself in Georgia, Eli Whitney had invented the cotton gin. This contraption would change agriculture and human rights in the South for nearly a century to come. It seemed that more people use the cotton gin to make money off the backs of enslaved ones. workers, the better the economy became. And the more the economy improved, the bigger cities grew, which all translated into more business for Daniel, which is how, after less than a decade on the job,

he became one of the South's leading architects. Even so, Daniel wanted more. And in the late 1820s, he got it. That's when Daniel was offered a position as the manager of a cotton gin factory in Alabama. And by 1833, he had set up a factory of his own. Daniel Pratt had said, suddenly become one of the few businessmen who produced the machinery that ran the entire southern economy. His business grew so rapidly that by the 1840s, the Pratt Gin Company had become the largest supplier of cotton gins in the entire world, shipping them as far away as Russia, although, of course, his favorite clients were always his neighbors in Alabama. By 1848, he owned two three-story factories, and by 1850 he employed nearly 200 workers. When he died in 1873,

is remembered as an incredible businessman, a devout husband and father, and a generous philanthropist. The only problem with his legacy was that it was built atop hundreds of enslaved children and adults. According to the 1840 census, two-thirds of his workforce consisted of enslaved human beings. He didn't personally own most of them outright, though, choosing instead to lease the majority of them from their traffickers. But that didn't mean that he didn't have any. In fact, in In 1860, he was on record as owning over 100. The rest of his employees were most likely children, who were the next cheapest option, and sadly, their age wouldn't shield them from the harsh realities of factory work.

For example, in 1893, a 10-year-old boy named Willie Youngblood worked at the Pratt Cotton Gin factory. He was stationed on the third floor of the cotton mill in what was called the spinning room. On Friday, March 24th, Willie was on his assigned floor, talking with the few of the elevator operators. Hearing chatter come from the floor below, he turned toward the open elevator shaft entrance to see what was going on. But as he turned, he lost his balance and fell 30 feet to the bottom. Remarkably, Willie was alive when his body was recovered, but he died the very next day, surrounded by his loved ones. Now, you might expect me to tell you that Willie's spirit has been seen running around the old factory, but he never has. It would seem that Willie, as far as we know

at least, is fully at peace. But definitely not his mother. Vinny Youngblood never recovered from the loss of her son. In her grief, she mourned him for a full year, and then she threw herself off the Prat Mill Dam into the river below. And ever since her death, employees and visitors alike have reported seeing, and I quote, a sad and sullen woman around the area. She is described as being dressed in all black like she is still mourning her loss. Those who have seen her suspect that she's still looking for Willie, as though her son might suddenly reveal that he'd been playing an elaborate game of hide-and-seek this entire time. But nobody has ever reported seeing the apparition of the little boy himself,

especially not since the old factory burned down in 2002. All that's left today is an empty lot, and occasionally a woman in black. After the Civil War, slavery didn't go away. It just changed clothes. The cotton field didn't wither. The mines didn't dry up. There was still work to be done, and you can be sure that white landowners weren't about to do it themselves. So they did everything they could to get their labor at the cheapest price possible. The most popular way to do that was simply to lowball the formerly enslaved folks who were now looking for paid jobs. They were given a pittance for the exact same work they'd been doing before the war, that is to say, barely enough to live on. Other white business owners got a bit more inventive and found ways to pay their workers even less. It was simple, really. They just leased convicted criminals from the local jail. Both of these methods were obviously deplorable, sacrificing human dignity for the almighty dollar, which is why the ever-thrifty businessman, Colonel James Withers Sloss, indulged in both. After the war, the colonel had set up

shop in Jones Valley right up against the Red Mountains. The region was chalk full of rich iron ore deposits, and he figured that as the South began to industrialize, the men who control the iron would be the ones to make their fortune. Which is why, in 1881, Colonel Sloss established the Sloss Furnace Company. He and his two sons built two furnaces in eastern Birmingham to process iron for the nearby railroad lines. The company ran in some capacity or another for a full century, and by the time World War I hit, they had even become one of the largest producers of pig iron. Those two simple furnaces eventually turned into seven, and they were joined by thousands of ovens, acres, full of coal, and even a few mines. Clearly, Sloss and his sons had built an empire,

but they weren't the ones who were toiling over the hot furnace fires day in and day out. During the first few years of the company's existence, it employed, and I'm using that term loosely here, as we've already discussed, over 500 formerly enslaved people. After the colonel sold his ownership in 1886, that number only increased. One source claimed that the factory had such an abundance of cheap labor that they didn't even bother installing machinery until their workforce began to migrate north in the 1920s and seek of better paying jobs. Which means that whenever there was a workplace accident, it wasn't the sloss furnace company's revenue or white owners that got hurt. It was their black workforce. Now, sadly, there were too many accidents to name

here, but a few stand out. In November of 1882, for example, two men tumbled into one of the furnaces. Ten years later, the scaffolding fell out from beneath eight men, sending them plummeting 60 feet to the ground. Just a few weeks after that, another worker was crushed by a pile of coal. In 1897, one man fell into a vat of water and was boiled alive. A woman's shoe was found floating near his disfigured body and his neck was covered in bruises, leading some to speculate that foul play was involved. Those who suffered most, though, were the convicts who worked down inside the mines. In the year 1890 alone, 90 out of 1,000 prisoners died, nearly 10%, and that pattern repeated year after year with no escape in sight for the men who are forced underground

every day. Over the years, so many incidents ended in tragedy. Explosion, fires, men falling to their death. It was practically a house of horrors. So given its terrible history, it's probably not a shock that the Sloss Furnace Company is considered by some to be the most haunted spot in America. The factory closed in 1980 and in 1981, the site was labeled as a national historic landmark. As a result, over the last 40 years or so, the public has had the opportunity to tour the location and, of course, to see the ghosts. The blowing engine building is said to be the most haunted building on the property. Workers and visitors alike have seen doors open and close on their own, and some have claimed that their belongings were moved

to the other side of the room when they weren't looking. One of the most commonly spotted apparitions is a man walking along the catwalk by the water tower. In fact, elevated spots seem to be popular with many of the factory spirits, because visitors have also spotted what they describe as a glowing humanoid shape on the catwalk of the boiler room. And while we don't know who most of these spirits were in life, we do know the name of at least one ghost, Theophilus Calvin Jowers. Allegedly, sightings of this spirit go all the way back to the early 19th century. After his death, he would sometimes appear when one furnace was producing molten iron.

Then, after it was torn down in 1905, he moved on to the next furnace. When that furnace was torn down, he just wandered around the campus. Some locals think that he won't leave until the very last stacks are demolished. And honestly, who could blame him? After all, how could he pass up the chance to see his own personal hell destroyed forever? It was the second time the place had burned down in a decade. Not the best track record, that's for sure. But to be fair, the locals couldn't have done anything to stop either disaster. The Pickens County Courthouse had been burned to the ground by Union troops in 1865. There had been

no reason for it, whether the purpose was logistical or military. As far as anyone could tell, the soldiers did it just because they could. And that was a sore spot for the residents of Carrollton, Alabama. Even after it was rebuilt, they never really let go of their grudge. Northerners had marched into their hometown, bold as brass, and destroyed one of their most prized government buildings. They weren't going to get over that anytime soon, certainly not before the century was out. So it was unfortunate for everyone involved when, just a few, few years after the completion of Pickens County Courthouse 2.0, it too was reduced to a pile of ash. But things got really heated, no pun intended, I swear, when investigators identified at least

four separate spots where the fire had been started. This wasn't your average accidental chimney fire. It was a targeted attack. Someone somewhere had deliberately committed arson. With that revelation, all reasoning flew out the window. Still burning with anger over the long, of their original courthouse, the locals jumped from concerned to outright murderous. They didn't just want justice. They were desperate for revenge. The sheriff did his best to give the people what they wanted. He investigated the matter to the very best of his ability. But he was a small-town cop, and he didn't have all the resources in the world at his disposal. Even months later, no suspects had been arrested. The locals were starting to get antsy,

and the sheriff was starting to sweat. Finally, though, over a year after the fire, they got a lead. The night the courthouse went up in flames, two formerly enslaved men had fled Carrollton. Henry Wells and Bill Buckhawter had both been living on the lamb ever since, becoming the main suspects in a string of burglaries across Alabama. And finally, in January of 1878, the law caught up to Bill. On the stand, Bill confessed to several of the robberies, but he insisted that he hadn't done anything to the courthouse.

his friend Henry had been the one to burn it down. Just a few days later, with the aid of a few gunshots to his back, Henry was captured. The authorities soon brought him, beaten and bloody, to the newly rebuilt Pickens County Courthouse. And just in case you've lost track at this point, this would be the third iteration of the building. The local paper is reported that Henry confessed almost immediately

to having set the courthouse on fire. According to the Pickens Court Herald, Henry claimed that he and Bill had broken into the place in search of cash. But unable to crack the safe open, they had run. Henry claimed that he accidentally left a candle burning by a stack of papers. He didn't realize what he'd done until it was already too late. It was exactly what the townspeople had been looking for. They didn't care that their suspect was trembling from pain while he was on the stand. They finally had their scapegoats, and now they would have their justice.

They would never get the chance, though, because just a few days after the trial, the papers reported that Henry had passed away inside his jail cell. No one ever gave a specific cause of death. The most likely scenario is that his gunshot wounds became infected. But one local legend claims that God himself struck Henry dead with a bolt of lightning as divine punishment for his crimes. According to another version, an angry white mob took matters into their own hands, storming the prison, and lynching him.

Now, this particular legend claims that the next day, one of the murderers was walking by the jailhouse when he felt a pair of eyes on him. He looked up to see Henry's face staring down at him through the window of his cell. Terrified, the man screamed that Satan had come to haunt him. His hysterics drew a crowd who all saw the same thing. The image of Henry's face clearly imprinted onto the window pane. Nobody was ever able to scrub his likeness from the glass. The window pain that bears his image never breaks,

not even after hailstorms or vandalism. To this day, you can still see him, staring out at the community that condemned him to death. Locals claim that on stormy nights, you can sometimes hear Henry's whales rising from the jailhouse, still screaming his innocence. Long after anything could ever be done about it. History is full of powerful men who have gotten away with murder.

When we hear the term powerful men, we tend to think of politicians, nobility, business moguls. That's the sort of influence we focus on today. But the men from today's stories were hardly royalty. They lived in tiny, largely unimportant towns. They were local businessmen, law enforcement, and most importantly, they were white. These men from Alabama didn't have much power outside of their little bubbles.

But even presiding over their own tiny kingdoms, they could always find people who were less fortunate than them to crush beneath them. their feet. They could work children to the bone. They could stick their black employees in unsafe work environments. And of course, they could bring a suspect into court, riddled with bullet holes to force a confession to a crime that he most likely didn't commit. But justice, or what counted as justice back then, has already had it say. It's too late for history to give up the ghost now. Now, that being said, historians don't believe that Henry was actually killed by lightning or lynched by a crowd. In fact, many think that his murder may have been confused with another lynching that

happened the year before his death. One local newspaper reported that, back in September of 1777, a man named Nathaniel T. Pierce was taken from his jail cell by an angry mob, dragged through the streets, and hanged. It was an event that would mark the start of a terrible pattern. Between Nathaniel's murder and the beginning of World War I in 1917, a total of 15 African Americans were lynched in Pickens County, most of them right there in the seat of power itself, the courthouse square. And speaking of that courthouse, it looks like the third time was the charm. That iteration of the Pickens County Courthouse is the one that's still standing today.

The blood may have since been scrubbed from its front steps, but the terrible reputation remains, staining an otherwise beautiful building. And on the courthouse walls, pointing proudly, is a huge arrow, identifying the window with a face forever imprinted on the glass. A constant reminder of, and an eternal witness too, the worst that humanity has to offer. I hope you enjoy today's trip into the American South. Clearly, the villains we meet in real life are nothing like the ones in storybooks.

Oftentimes, they're worse. We've all met our fair share of folks who act like they're bigger than they actually are. But if you look hard enough, you might just find the occasional person whose terrible reputation isn't just deserved. It's worthy of a novel. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. We talk about mental health a lot more openly these days, which is definitely a good thing, but asking for help can still feel hard, and BetterHelp's latest research confirms it. BetterHelp's 26th State of Stigma Report surveyed 2,000 Americans and revealed that 85% of Americans believe

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client reviews. Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com slash lore. That's BetterHELP.com.com. This episode was made possible by MintMobil. There are things in life that you don't want to be transparent, like your swimsuits or your search history. But when it comes to your wireless bill, transparency is everything. That's why MintMobile's wireless plans have no gimmicks and no gotchas, just high-speed data and reliable coverage on the T-Mobile 5G network.

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Upfront payment of $45 for three-month, $90 for six-month or $180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees. Extra initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabyte may slow when network is busy includes up to 20 gigabyte hotspot, capable device required, availability, speed, and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. When it comes to Aunt Jenny, nobody can seem to agree on her story.

One of the few facts about her life that we absolutely know is true is that she was born as Louisa Elizabeth Jane on January 22nd of 1826. She married a man named Willis Brooks, and together they had several sons, who they raised in the mountains of Northwest Alabama. And that's it. Everything else people say about her is a hodgepodge of rumor and legend. People seem to agree that Jenny's spouse and her eldest son John were both killed during the Civil War. war, but nobody can quite decide how. One version of the legend claims that Willis and John resisted being drafted into the Confederate Army, and so they were shot. Another version says that, no, actually her husband had joined the fight when the war came to Alabama, and he survived

every battle he participated in, too, only to be killed when he finally came home. Allegedly a neighbor had harassed Jenny while Willis was away. When he heard about her stalker, Willis killed the man, In return, though, the man's family shot Willis and then threw their son John into a sinkhole. What followed was a 60-year blood feud between the two families. Now, there's another version of the story that claims that Willis Sr. and his son, John, had actually opposed Alabama's secession from the Union. Eventually, they were accused of aiding the resistance and were summarily executed by the Confederate Army. In response, Jenny swore that she would kill the men who murdered her family and made all

her children do the same enlisting them into her plot for revenge. Regardless of how she got to that point, though, the legends all seemed to agree that Jenny wanted revenge for her husbands and her son's untimely deaths, and to aid in her quest, she taught her sons how to shoot. By the time they were old enough to fight, she had the makings of a small private militia. She put them to good use, too. In the end, it said that she and her boys managed to kill almost all of her targets. Some said that Jenny poisoned most of them, while others claimed that she and her sons hunted them down one by one.

It was a non-traditional childhood, that's for sure, and unfortunately it would seem that Jenny's single-minded goals had put all of her boys on a violent path. They only knew how to solve their problems with a shotgun, and so that's exactly what they did. In 1884, neighbors accused her sons of stealing their horse. So in the dead of night, the boy snuck over to their house, intent on killing everyone and setting the home on fire. Unfortunately, the neighbors were waiting for them, guns in hand. Jenny's son Gainham was killed in the ensuing shootout. According to the legend, Jenny, ever won to hold a grudge,

threatened to take revenge and murder all of them. After that, the entire neighboring family actually fled the state. They might have been willing to go toe to toe with her sons, but Jenny herself was a fight they didn't want to take on. Later, the rest of her sons moved to Texas, where they formed the Brooks gang. After just a few years of causing havoc, they became the lone star state's most wanted men.

But they escaped capture easily enough, continuing their lives as outlaws as if they didn't have a care in the world. They even had time to collect a few more blood feuds. After all, that's really all they'd ever been taught how to do. In the end, all but one of Jenny's sons were killed in Texas. The last of them, Henry Brooks, moved back to Alabama in 1911

so he could care for his age. mother. Despite his new role as caretaker, though, it seems that he couldn't fully leave his life of crime behind. Instead of supporting Jenny with a regular job, he entered the moonshine business. He was finally gunned down in 1920, and with that, the last of the Brooks gang was gone. In her twilight years, Jenny seemed to put her desire for revenge behind her. Perhaps she had lost her taste for bloodshed, or maybe after all those years, she was just tired. They say she found religion and gave her life to God. Her final days on earth were spent caring for the poor and the sick,

and she even donated two acres of her land to the church. In 1924, Aunt Jenny passed away at the ripe old age of 98, and right up until that day, she remained proud that all of her boys had, and I quote, died like men with their boots on. There are those who claim to have seen Jenny's ghost wandering through Alabama's bankhead forest, Although I prefer to believe that after a long and difficult life,

Jenny is finally at peace and reunited with her boys. This episode of lore legends was produced by me, Aaron Manke, with writing by Alex Robinson and research by Sam Alberty. Some of today's topics were actually submitted to us by our listeners. And if you have a local legend that you love and you want us to possibly mention on this show, email us at Stories at lorepodcast.com. My team and I cannot wait to see what you send our way. Now, just a reminder, we are coming up on the publishing of my brand new creepy history

book called Exhumed. It comes out on August 4th, and it explores the roots of the New England vampire panic and the story of Mercy Brown through the lens of centuries of folklore, medical advancements, and pseudoscience. It's available for pre-order right now, and if you pre-order the hardcover, my publisher has a web page set up where you can submit your receipts and get a free tote bag that's got some gorgeous artwork from the book on it. Head over to Aaron Mankey.com slash exhumed to lock in your copy today.

Follow the show on YouTube, threads, blue sky, and Instagram. Just search for lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.