Fitzgerald Building

Though the Fitzgerald Building is probably most remembered as Rose’s 5, 10, and 25 Cent Store, its second floor was a notoriously popular dance hall throughout the 1930s. It’s said that because of the Dance Hall’s raucous reputation, no girl from Albemarle would dare be seen coming or leaving the place for fear of being recognized by one of the townspeople. Men attending a dance would instead bring girls from surrounding counties.



As far as ghosts go, however, there is no known evidence of anything supernatural occurring inside the building. However, that is not the case just outside the building’s front door. As dawn was breaking more than eighty years ago shop owners and townspeople began arriving into town for the day’s business. As they made their way along Main Street they were horrified to see a limp and lifeless body dangling from the top of an electric line in front of this building. It is believed that the dead man, an electric lineman, had climbed the pole late the previous afternoon to repair the line. During his work he was obviously electrocuted and killed. By the time workmen were able to cut the power to the line and bring the man’s body to the ground a large crowd had gathered at the intersection to watch the spectacle. Though it hasn’t been reported in years, it has been said that the gray silhouette of a man often wanders around the end of this block—at times staring blankly up into the air as if to inspect an electric line.



*Ghost Stories from Albemarle, collected and written by Jonathan Underwood and Christopher Lambert