Located in the town of Thunderbolt just outside Savannah, Georgia, hauntingly beautiful Bonaventure Cemetery is one of America’s most recognizable graveyards. Scenes for Clint Eastwood’s 1997 film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil were shot against the backdrop of Bonaventure’s signature Gothic tombstones and Spanish moss-adorned live oaks. The cover of John Berendt’s 1994 true crime novel by the same name featured the Bird Girl, an internationally recognizable statue that was recently moved from the graveyard to the Telfair Academy in downtown Savannah.
Although Bonaventure lost its most popular monument, there’s another famous marker that attracts considerable attention: the burial of Little Gracie Watson. The grave of the youngster, who died from pneumonia in April 1889, is a short stroll from the area shown in my above video. Watson’s statue, which was exquisitely done and oversees her grave, is protected by a fence; it’s best visited in the early morning hours before the crowds gather and the sun washes out her monument’s detail.
Bonaventure Cemetery is open daily from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. It’s free to enter, and the best place to park your vehicle is in the gravel lot next to the Wilmington River. Guide services are available for a fee if you’re interested in doing a deep dive on the graveyard’s history.
Related Content
– Click to view my high-resolution photo collection featuring images from Bonaventure Cemetery.
– Click to browse my travel guides for the area of Savannah, Georgia.
– Click to read my feature article “Haunted South: Beyond the Grave” for a collection of my favorite ghost stories from the South.