They then hung three pairs of shoes on the wire to encourage guests to throw their own. Those posts are still standing.Īt Lynn’s request, Bobby reattached the original wire between the posts in 2015.
If you get a chance, make a visit to Spectre part of your story.īy the way, I totally recommend the camping.Spectre featured two light posts in the movie with a line attached between them that held the shoes of the town’s citizens. Making memories, weaving those memories into stories, knowing that those stories we shared, will live on past us. We all love stories, and for many of us, that is why we take road trips.
“ A man tells his stories so many times that he becomes the stories. In the final line of Big Fish is Will Bloom says You can also inquire about the costs of fishing and camping, by calling 33. It will be the best three dollars that you can spend. If you go, know that the access to Spectre is through a locked gate, but the owners will grant you access for the tiny sum of $3. If members of your group are unsure about visiting a ghost town, never fear because Spectre shares space with Jackson Lake Island which in itself is a destination featuring camping, fishing, and kayaking among other activities.
So, be sure to bring a pair of old shoes to throw over the line. That line is still there, and visitors to the site over the years have added their own shoes, almost as a rite of passage. In the movie, there was a line stretched between two poles where the Spectre residents hung their shoes. I am able to replay the scene from both the book and the movie and feel the same sense of wonder the character did.
There are two trees remaining from the scary forest constructed for the film, and visitors love to step between them for photo opportunities and a unique view of the town. While the description above may make Spectre sound like a less-than-desirable destination, it is truly a magical place. Over the years, many of the buildings have taken a great deal of wear and tear, some have been completely destroyed, and many are near collapse. It is in this state that the buildings were left when the movie was finished.Īccording to the owners of Spectre, the film crew offered to tear down the buildings, but the family wanted to keep them. If you have seen the movie or read the book, you know that luminous town of Spectre turns dark and decrepit later in the film so crews had to distress the buildings, which were actually just shells of homes and stores. It is filled with colorful characters and at times flirts with being a character itself. In both the book and the movie, protagonist Edward Bloom wanders into the town, a mystical place no one ever wants to leave. While Burton may have commissioned the building of the set, the town was the brainchild of Alabama author Daniel Wallace who wrote the novel on which the film is based. Sitting on an island in Lake Jackson near Millbrook, the town was built by Hollywood director Tim Burton for the movie “Big Fish.” While our most famous ghost town may be Cahaba (the site of Alabama’s first capital city), it is not the most interesting – that title goes to tiny fictitious-yet-real town of Spectre.Īs luck would have it, it is only a short road trip away. In reality, ghost towns can be found throughout the world ,even right here in Alabama. When someone says “ghost town,” our imaginations tend to turn to the ghost towns Hollywood assures us are littering the landscape west of the Mississippi River.