Hauntings at the CVS | Downtown Savannah

It’s one of Savannah’s favorite bits of ghost-tour irony: a brightly lit CVS pharmacy, facing the live oaks of Wright Square, that guides swear is haunted. But the building at 119 Bull Street has a history far longer and stranger than its modern storefront suggests.

Early History of the Site

The site at 119 Bull Street has roots in Savannah’s earliest years. In the 1730s, Savannah’s first courthouse and jail — simple wooden structures — stood at the northwest corner of Wright Square, roughly where the building sits today. Public executions were carried out at the north end of Wright Square, earning it the grim nickname “Hanging Square” in local lore.

One infamous case was Alice Riley, an indentured servant convicted of murder in 1735 and, by most accounts, the first woman ever hanged in the Georgia colony. According to legend, her restless spirit still wanders the square, searching for the infant child who was taken from her before her execution. Such ghost stories endure, but they belong to folklore; the real historical basis is that the square hosted colonial-era executions, which is exactly why tales of hauntings later clustered around this corner.

After the colonial period, the old wooden courthouse and jail were removed, and by the 19th century the lots around Wright Square held other buildings (one nearby structure from 1824 still survives on West State Street). These older buildings were eventually cleared to make way for new development at the turn of the 20th century.

Construction and Original Use (1907)

The present building at 111–119 Bull Street was constructed in 1907 as a three-story brick commercial building spanning several storefronts, directly facing Wright Square. (Today’s address “119 Bull Street” refers to this property, which actually combines multiple lots and storefronts.) The original structure likely featured retail space on the ground floor with offices or residences above, as was common in that era. Contemporary records indicate it was a substantial new building for the downtown, though the specific architect or builder isn’t readily documented.

In the early 20th century, the building hosted a variety of businesses, with shops and offices coming and going as downtown Savannah evolved. The ground-floor retail spaces saw continuous use, while the upper floors, overlooking the square and the government buildings clustered around it, likely served as professional offices or apartments. (Local lore sometimes links the early jeweler Levy Jewelers to this address; the firm’s documented flagship was established elsewhere, so any presence here would have been an early or branch location.)

Mid-20th-Century Tenants and Changes

By the mid-1900s, the building remained a downtown fixture and saw some changes in appearance and use. In the 1960s, a portion of the structure along West State Street was rebuilt or significantly remodeled, resulting in a more modern “non-historic” extension adjacent to the original 1907 building.

Through the 1960s and ’70s, the property housed a mix of retail and dining. A longtime tenant was Debi’s Restaurant (originally Debbie’s Diner), a beloved local institution that served comfort food for decades — and earned a permanent place in film history. In the 1994 movie Forrest Gump, the character Jenny is shown working as a waitress in this very diner on Wright Square, watching a news broadcast of Forrest running across America. Fans still recall the scene, and it gave the building a genuine pop-culture moment.

A colonial gallows, a Gump filming location, and a haunted pharmacy — all on one corner.

Another long-term occupant was a pharmacy, which opened in the building around the late 1970s or early 1980s and eventually became the CVS that anchors the property today — a drugstore has operated at this location for over forty years. As downtown Savannah’s fortunes ebbed and flowed, 119 Bull Street stayed in continuous use, its ground-floor shops — jewelers, diners, pharmacies and more — serving residents and visitors in the heart of the city.

Recent Renovations and Current Use

In 2019, the property sold to a development firm for $4.8 million as part of a plan to revitalize the aging structure. A major renovation followed, carefully overseen by Savannah’s historic preservation authorities since the Bull Street façade is protected within the Historic District. The project added a new fourth story with loft-style residential units and a mezzanine level, remodeled the interior, and gave the 1960s State Street section a new façade more in keeping with the historic character. Notably, the CVS stayed open and undisturbed throughout construction.

By 2020–2021, the refurbished building was complete, offering 33 residential units and three updated retail spaces in a blend of old and new. In early 2023, the property changed hands again, acquired by a Chicago-based investor. Today the building stands fully active: a CVS anchors the Bull Street frontage, other retail tenants occupy the remaining shopfronts, and residents live in the loft apartments above. Across from the live oaks and monuments of Wright Square, the 1907 structure continues its life as a centerpiece of downtown — more than a century after it first rose on that storied corner.

Local Legends and Paranormal Claims

Like many old buildings in Savannah, 119 Bull Street comes with its share of ghost lore — and given the site’s history as the city’s colonial hanging ground, that’s perhaps no surprise. Tour guides regularly point out the CVS on Wright Square during nightly walks, and it’s become one of the city’s most beloved “haunted” stops precisely because of the contrast: even a fluorescent-lit modern pharmacy, the story goes, can house a spirit or two. Some employees have reportedly described unexplained phenomena — flickering lights, or items found moved after hours — though such anecdotes are, by their nature, impossible to verify.

The legend most often retold here is Alice Riley’s. As the first woman hanged in Georgia, executed at Wright Square in 1735, many say her spirit never left the square, still drawn to pregnant women and mothers with infants as she searches for her own lost child. Other tales imagine an 18th-century jailer lingering where the old jail once stood, or the souls of those executed beneath the oaks now “walking the aisles” of the CVS after dark.

Whether or not you believe a word of it, that’s the enduring magic of this corner: layered beneath an ordinary errand-runner’s pharmacy lie nearly three centuries of Savannah history — courthouse and gallows, diner and drugstore — and the stories that history leaves behind.