Visitors to Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport might not realize they’re walking—or flying—over history. Beneath runway 10 lie the graves of Richard and Catherine Dotson, a farming couple buried on their land in the 1800s. When the U.S. military took over the area in 1942 to build a bomber base, nearly all the graves from the Dotson family cemetery were moved. But the couple, along with two relatives, stayed put.
Today, flat markers on the tarmac honor the Dotsons, whose descendants refused to let them be relocated. “They would have wanted to stay on the land they loved,” says historian Shannon Scott. The airport has embraced its unusual residents, even calling them part of the “airport family.” Pilots swapping ghost stories about the runway only add to Savannah’s reputation as one of America’s most haunted cities—where the past is never fully buried.
