Pomeroy, Ohio

Pomeroy is unlike any town on the Ohio. Boxed onto a narrow strip of ground between the river and a steep hillside, the town had nowhere to go but up and down the bank, with nearly a mile of 19th-century storefronts pressed shoulder to shoulder, with the water lapping at the doorsteps across the way. Coal built it, starting in 1819. Fire tore through the old wooden buildings again and again in 1851, 1856, 1884, 1927, and flood took its turn in 1884, 1913, and 1937. Each time, the town simply rebuilt on top of itself. And when a place holds that much memory in so narrow a space, some of it refuses to leave. Up on the wooded hilltop at Beech Grove Cemetery, visitors have long reported a woman in a brown dress moving among the stones, and shadowy figures said to linger at the edge of the trees.