Moon River Brewing Company

Savannah's first hotel (1821) turned brewery turned ghost magnet, this building at 21 West Bay Street hosted the 1832 barroom killing of James Stark, served as a yellow fever hospital where hundreds of children died, and racked up investigations from Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures, and BuzzFeed Unsolved. The basement ghost "Toby" shoves visitors, and a foreman's wife was pushed down the third-floor stairs during 1990s renovations. Moon River closed in June 2024, but the building's next chapter is coming.

During renovations in the 1990s, a foreman's wife was pushed down the third-floor stairs by something no one could see. She wasn't tripped. She was shoved. The building at 21 West Bay Street had been sitting vacant for nearly twenty years at that point, and whatever was inside didn't appreciate the company.

Eleazer Early built this place in 1821 as the City Hotel, Savannah's first. It housed the city's first U.S. Post Office branch and a Bank of the United States location. The guest list reads like an American history textbook: Marquis de Lafayette, War of 1812 hero Winfield Scott, the first three U.S. Navy commodores. John James Audubon stayed for six months trying to sell books of his wildlife sketches. In 1851, new owner Peter Wiltberger put a live lion and lioness on display in the lobby to drum up business.

The most violent moment in the hotel's history came on August 10, 1832. James Jones Stark, a state legislator from Glynn County, had been calling Dr. Philip Minis a "damned Jew" who "ought to be pissed upon" in the hotel's barroom. Minis showed up, called Stark a coward, and when Stark reached for a pistol, Minis shot him through the chest. The jury deliberated for two hours and returned a verdict of not guilty.

The upper floors saw a different kind of death. During Savannah's yellow fever epidemics, the City Hotel became a makeshift hospital. Hundreds of people died on the third and fourth floors, many of them children. The hotel closed in 1864 as Sherman's march reached Savannah, and the building cycled through uses as a lumber warehouse, a coal depot, and an office supply store before Hurricane David damaged it in 1979.

Moon River Brewing Company opened in 1999 after a full renovation. The brewery won awards for years, including a gold medal for its Rosemary IPA in 2010 and "Best Mid-size Brewpub" in 2017. But it was always the ghosts that brought people in.

Staff named the basement ghost Toby. He lurks in the billiard room, moving through the shadows, brushing against visitors and occasionally shoving people out of his path. James Stark's spirit takes the main floor and second floor, where bottles fly off shelves and female diners report being locked in bathroom stalls. On the third floor, where the yellow fever children died, people hear kids playing. The Woman in White, identified by some accounts as a Mrs. Johnson, appears as a full-body figure on the same floor.

Ghost Hunters filmed their 2005 Halloween special here. Ghost Adventures came in 2009 and called it one of the most aggressively haunted locations they'd ever investigated. BuzzFeed Unsolved visited in 2018. Three separate TV crews, three separate conclusions that something was off.

Moon River closed its doors in June 2024 after 25 years, citing financial troubles. Renovation plans for the building have been announced, though the future tenant hasn't been confirmed. The ghosts, presumably, are staying. They've outlasted the City Hotel, the warehouses, the hurricane, and now the brewery. Whatever opens next at 21 West Bay Street will inherit Toby in the basement, Stark on the main floor, and a shove on the third-floor stairs that nobody asked for.