Updated

Ghost hunters tell stories of gruesome crimes. Ex-guards remember an underground dungeon. So is the lore of the old Meriwether County jail.

It's a 119-year-old relic being renovated into a home and museum. Fifty-nine-year-old Mariea Gosdin says she was the sole bidder when the Board of Commissioners listed it for sale in 2009. She paid $5,000.

The jail, southwest of Atlanta, fell into disrepair after it closed in the mid-1980s. It has a network of narrow hallways and worn cells. Its living quarters were home to the sheriff and his family.

Gosdin plans to move into those quarters this summer. She says she wants to go back to a time when people made do with what they had.

She plans to later renovate the jail portion, then open it as a museum.