Staff / Joe Livingston
From left, Historian Caprice Walker with her parents Jim and Zubie Asbury in front of their local book store which is considered to be haunted.
From left, Historian Caprice Walker with her parents Jim and Zubie Asbury in front of their local book store which is considered to be haunted.
The bookstore hosts monthly haunted tours around the McDonough square area.
Tours run about two hours and cost $10 per person.
“[The tours] started with local merchants on the square,” said Caprice Walker, who routinely orchestrates the tours. “They would come into the bookstore, we’d get to chatting and they’d tell me ghost stories.”
Walker decided after several instances of that occurring, it would be a good idea to pursue a tour which highlighted many of the structures and homes surrounding the square.
However, Walker sat on the idea for a year until it came to fruition.
In that time, the McDonough Welcome Center started a ghost tour, only enduring for two months.
“They decided that they didn’t like leading it and they asked us to take it over,” said Walker. “We did a lot of history research prior to starting the tours so it’s not just a ghost tour. We call it the haunted history tour.”
Participants are guided to “about a dozen points of interest” in the general proximity of the square and given tidbits on the history of the buildings.
In the six years the haunted history tours have been in rotation, the attendance has stuck to a persistent pattern.
The tour is generally the first Saturday of each month beginning in August, but increases to every Friday and Saturday in October around Halloween.
Aside from the month of October, 20 residents attend on average.
“In October of last year, every tour had 30 to 80 people,” said Walker.
No tours are held during the hotter summer months, although the interest is still peaked from the residents.
So much so, that the bookstore has erected an information corner in the store for the haunted history tours.
“People come in and ask us about the tour,” said Walker. “We take them back there and let them learn about the tour.”
The next tour will be on Sept. 1.
Bell, Book and Candle is at 45 John Frank Ward Blvd. in McDonough.
Information: (770) 957-1880 or www.bellsbooksandcandles.com.
Post a Comment