Clarke County Alabama Ghost Walk Festival
Clarke County’s Ghost Walk is the Kathryn Tucker Windham Ghost Walk, a Halloween-season storytelling event staged in downtown Thomasville. It takes its name and stories from Thomasville’s most famous storyteller, whose 13 Ghosts books turned one family’s haunting into a regional institution. On Ghost Walk night downtown fills with hay wagons, costumed storytellers and families waiting to hear the old tales told where many were first lived.
Honesty about the record matters here. The Ghost Walk is documented as an annual event in Thomasville’s own newspaper across many years, and its most recent dated edition researchers could verify was held on Saturday evening, October 15, 2022. No dated edition after 2022 could be confirmed, so nothing in these pages presents the walk as currently scheduled.
Thomasville hosts the event but is not the county seat of Clarke County; that honour belongs to Grove Hill, a distinction kept throughout this article.
About the Festival
The Ghost Walk is also styled simply the Ghost Walk, and the Encyclopedia of Alabama’s Thomasville entry describes it as a several-day event culminating on the Saturday before or after Halloween. Its centrepiece is storytelling: tales drawn from Kathryn Tucker Windham’s 13 Ghosts book series are told by people in period dress, so the narrators seem to have stepped out of the Alabama past the stories inhabit.
Around that storytelling core, the documented programme gathers hayrides through downtown, a costume contest, a haunted house, an antique car show, food and music, with the hayrides as the signature device. Riders board wagons that roll through town while storytellers entertain them between stops, turning the streets into the stage.
For a useful comparison, see the Clarke County Alabama Hometown Celebration Festival for another county festival.
The event’s organisation, as the local newspaper reports it, belongs to the Arts Council of Thomasville. The Thomasville Times has described the annual Ghost Walk as both sponsored and organized by the Arts Council of Thomasville, and billed the 2005 edition as the Arts Council of Thomasville’s Ghost Walk, using the initials ACT. Supporting pieces sit in their own layers rather than inside that organiser name: a carnival was sponsored by the Thomasville Chamber of Commerce, and a Haunted Hille Hotel was put on by the Lion’s Club, with the spelling of both names kept as the newspaper published them.
The walk is, at heart, a literary festival in a Halloween costume: its ghosts come from books and its audience is drawn as much by Windham’s reputation as by any appetite for fright.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event name | Kathryn Tucker Windham Ghost Walk, also styled simply the Ghost Walk |
| Host town | Thomasville, Clarke County |
| County seat | Grove Hill, not Thomasville |
| Setting | Downtown Thomasville |
| Season | Halloween season; culmination the Saturday before or after Halloween |
| Last verified dated edition | Saturday evening, October 15, 2022 |
| Organiser of record in newspaper layers | Arts Council of Thomasville |
| Signature elements | Hayrides with storytellers, 13 Ghosts tales, costume contest, haunted house |
| Admission record | One undated newspaper layer: hayrides five dollars per person, ten dollars per family |
| Street address | None published for the event |
History
The Ghost Walk cannot be separated from Kathryn Tucker Windham herself. She lived from June 2, 1918 to June 12, 2011, born in Selma and raised in Thomasville, in a house the local newspaper places across the railroad and up the hill from downtown. Storytelling was her trade from childhood: her first writing job, at age twelve, was reviewing movies for her cousin’s newspaper, The Thomasville Times, the paper that later chronicled the festival built on her books.
With Margaret Gillis Figh, Windham wrote 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey, published in 1969, the first of the 13 Ghosts book series from which the Ghost Walk draws its material. The Jeffrey of that title is the resident ghost said to have taken up residence in the Windham house in October 1966, and the family’s experiences with him became the foundation of her fame.
The Kathryn Tucker Windham Museum stands on the Thomasville campus of Coastal Alabama Community College; older layers name the same campus Alabama Southern Community College, both forms kept as their sources give them. Windham also founded the Alabama Tale Tellin’ Festival in Selma, held annually since 1978 according to biographical layers. That Selma festival is a different event in a different county, never to be confused with the Ghost Walk.
The edition history must be told in layers, because the sources never state a founding year. The Thomasville Times billed the 2005 edition as the Arts Council of Thomasville’s Ghost Walk 2005, and reported that hayride tours were to depart from Clay Park, described as the area downtown between the LP offices and the railroad tracks, every thirty minutes. Two undated early newspaper layers add texture: one report bills an October 28 edition as the third year for the event, with organisers expecting more than 1,000 people downtown for games and ghost stories, while another bills an October 27 edition as the fourth year for the event that draws hundreds from around the area, with hayrides rolling through town, storytellers entertaining riders between stops, and four stops. Those third-year and fourth-year billings are recorded here exactly as the newspaper framed them; they are not converted into any founding-year claim.
Ticket information survives only in one undated newspaper layer: hayrides rolling through downtown Thomasville on Saturday night from 7 p.m., at five dollars per person or ten dollars per family. With its year unpinned, that layer cannot be presented as current pricing.
The last dated edition on record came in 2022. On October 12, 2022, the Thomasville Times announced that the Kathryn Tucker Windham Ghost Walk was returning to downtown Thomasville that year, bigger and better than ever, and the event followed on Saturday evening, October 15, 2022. Its layers add vendors, a carnival, a haunted house, family hay rides and costume contests for children and dogs. No dated edition after 2022 appears in the verified record.
What to Expect
Based on the documented editions, a Ghost Walk evening in downtown Thomasville is built around the hayrides. Wagons carry riders through town while storytellers, in period dress, perform tales from the 13 Ghosts books between stops. The 2005 layer shows the logistics: tours departing every thirty minutes from Clay Park, the downtown ground between the LP offices and the railroad tracks.
The 2022 edition, the most fully described recent one, layered a street festival around those rides. Vendors set up downtown, a small carnival with a variety of rides operated, and a haunted house joined the programme. Costume contests ran in age bands: contests began at 5 p.m. for ages four and up, followed by ages five to seven, then ages eight to twelve and teenagers at 6:30 p.m., and a dog Halloween costume contest rounded out the competitions.
The encyclopedia’s summary across editions rounds out the picture with an antique car show, food and music, and the several-day shape culminating on the chosen Saturday.
Planning Your Visit
Plan from what is documented, and be candid about what is not. The Ghost Walk’s pattern is a Halloween-season event in downtown Thomasville culminating on either the Saturday before or the Saturday after Halloween, but the last dated edition verified for this article is October 15, 2022. Anyone hoping to attend should confirm through Thomasville’s own channels whether a new edition has been announced, since no post-2022 date is on record.
If a future edition follows the 2022 shape, an early-evening arrival makes sense: costume contests began at 5 p.m. in that edition, and the hayrides in the undated ticket layer started at 7 p.m. Families should note how the 2022 contest schedule was staggered by age rather than run all at once.
Money planning rests on thin evidence. The only price in the record is the undated newspaper layer’s five dollars per person or ten dollars per family for the hayrides, and it should be treated as historical colour, not as a current tariff. No street address is published, so downtown Thomasville itself, and Clay Park in the 2005 layer, are the landmarks offered.
Thomasville sits in Clarke County, whose seat is Grove Hill, so visitors should keep festival town and courthouse town distinct in their plans.
An Evening Shaped Like the 2022 Edition
This outline follows the documented shape of the 2022 Ghost Walk rather than any current schedule. Begin downtown in the late afternoon, when vendors and the small carnival are set up and the streets are filling. The costume contests opened the programme at 5 p.m. for the youngest entrants, ages four and up.
As the contest bands advance to ages five to seven, then eight to twelve and teenagers at 6:30 p.m., downtown comes alive around them: food stalls, the antique cars noted in the encyclopedia’s description, music, and the dog costume contest. When darkness settles, the hayrides take over, wagons rolling through town with storytellers performing Windham’s tales between stops.
Close the evening with the haunted house and a walk through downtown before the crowds thin. The rhythm of the documented editions runs from children’s contests at teatime to ghost stories after dark.
The Ghost Walk Beside Thomasville’s Other Celebrations
The Ghost Walk is Thomasville’s storytelling festival: literary in origin, tied to one author’s books, and concentrated into a Halloween evening downtown. Its nearest relative in Windham’s own life, the Alabama Tale Tellin’ Festival she founded in Selma, is a separate event in a different county, and setting the two side by side underlines the Ghost Walk’s distinctiveness rather than merging them.
Within the Ghost Walk’s own layers, editions differ in emphasis. The 2005 record centres on hayride logistics out of Clay Park, while the 2022 record describes a broader street festival with carnival, vendors and expanded contests. Read together, the layers suggest an event that grew from wagon tours into a downtown evening while keeping the storytelling ride at its core, though the sources never state that growth officially.
Planning Checklist
- Confirm through Thomasville’s own channels whether a new edition has been announced, since the last verified date is October 15, 2022
- Remember Thomasville hosts the walk while Grove Hill is the county seat
- Aim for downtown Thomasville; Clay Park is the documented 2005 hayride departure ground
- Arrive by early evening if a future edition follows the 2022 pattern of 5 p.m. contests
- Allow time for each age-banded costume contest rather than treating them as one event
- Bring a costume for the family dog if a future edition repeats the dog Halloween costume contest
- Treat the five-dollar and ten-dollar hayride figures as an undated historical layer, not a current price
- Read a 13 Ghosts story beforehand so the storytellers’ tales land fully
- Do not confuse the walk with Selma’s Tale Tellin’ Festival, a different event
Beyond the Festival
A Ghost Walk trip extends naturally to the Kathryn Tucker Windham Museum, which stands on the Thomasville campus of Coastal Alabama Community College, named Alabama Southern Community College in older layers. The museum anchors Windham’s memory in her childhood town, across the railroad and up the hill from the downtown streets the hayrides travel.
Downtown Thomasville itself is the other exhibit. The 2005 layer’s geography, Clay Park between the LP offices and the railroad tracks, and the newspaper’s description of the Windham house’s position above downtown, let a visitor read the festival’s setting off the town. Readers drawn to her wider world can seek out the Tale Tellin’ Festival in Selma, her other festival legacy, kept clearly separate from this one.
Why the Ghost Walk Matters
The Ghost Walk matters because it keeps a storyteller’s work alive in the place that produced it. Many literary festivals celebrate authors at a distance; Thomasville’s version tells Windham’s stories in her own streets, in period dress, within sight of the world her books describe.
It also matters as community craft. The documented layers show a town organising itself around the event: an arts council sponsoring and organising, a chamber of commerce behind the carnival, a Lion’s Club running a haunted hotel attraction, and crowds the early reports counted in the hundreds and expected above a thousand. Whether or not new editions are announced, the verified record through 2022 shows a small town turning its most famous daughter’s imagination into a civic ritual.
Frequently Asked Questions
Whose ghost stories do the storytellers actually perform?
The tales come from Kathryn Tucker Windham’s 13 Ghosts book series, beginning with 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey, which she wrote with Margaret Gillis Figh and published in 1969. Performers in period dress tell the stories, and the hayrides are structured around them, with storytellers entertaining riders between stops.
Did Kathryn Tucker Windham herself have a Thomasville connection?
Born in Selma in 1918, she grew up in Thomasville in a house described as across the railroad and up the hill from downtown, taking her first writing job at age twelve reviewing movies for her cousin’s newspaper, The Thomasville Times. The resident ghost Jeffrey was said to have taken up residence in her family’s Thomasville house in October 1966, and the Kathryn Tucker Windham Museum now stands there.
Is the Thomasville Ghost Walk the same as the Tale Tellin’ Festival?
No. Windham founded the Alabama Tale Tellin’ Festival in Selma, in Dallas County, held annually since 1978 per biographical layers. The Ghost Walk is a separate Thomasville event in Clarke County, built around her 13 Ghosts books; the two should never be merged.
When was the Ghost Walk most recently held, as far as the record shows?
The last dated edition researchers could verify is Saturday evening, October 15, 2022, announced by the Thomasville Times on October 12, 2022 as returning to downtown, bigger and better than ever. No dated edition after 2022 appears in the verified record.
What to Expect From the Next Clarke County Alabama Ghost Walk Festival
How often is Clarke County Alabama Ghost Walk Festival held?
In the documented record the Ghost Walk belongs to Thomasville’s Halloween season, a several-day gathering building toward one chosen Saturday on either side of Halloween itself; the dated layers from 2005 and 2022 both sit in October.
When is the next Clarke County Alabama Ghost Walk Festival?
No next date can be given honestly. The most recent dated edition verified is October 15, 2022, and no 2023, 2024, 2025 or 2026 edition appears in the sources checked. A future date would have to come from the Arts Council of Thomasville or the town’s own announcements, not from this record.
Will the dates change?
The pattern the sources describe allows movement by design: culmination on either the Saturday before or the Saturday after Halloween means the calendar date shifts with the year even when the tradition holds. What cannot be promised is a date at all, since no edition after 2022 is verified, so any future announcement should be read on its own terms.
The Ghost Walk’s verified story ends, for now, with wagons rolling through downtown Thomasville on an October Saturday in 2022 and a storyteller’s voice carrying a Jeffrey tale into the dark. It is a festival rooted in one woman’s books and one town’s willingness to perform them, and its record deserves to be kept exactly as straight as the sources leave it.
