Over the weekend, I learned that the abandoned Cape Fear Meat Packing Co plant in Navassa, NC, was torn down. Months ago, even. It was kept out of the news so as not to draw a crowd. It's been there since 1919, closed since 1923. I heard about it years ago and only found it by playing around on Google Satellite until I found the most likely candidate. In September of 2012, my friend and I finally drove out to find it. It was one of the most beautiful and fascinating places I've ever been, peaceful, eerie, dead, verdant, sad, and lovely all at the same time. I was on the verge of tears when I learned it was gone. We took a lot of pictures that day--unfortunately, on two old smartphones, so not the highest quality ever, but they're all that's left now.

After decades of haunting the banks of the Cape Fear with grisly urban legends and ghost stories aplenty, the ruins of the Cape Fear Meat Packing Plant—a true Brunswick County haunt—has become a ghost itself, giving way to the path of the Wilmington Bypass.The century-old slaughterhouse, whose concrete skeleton loomed alongside the Cape Fear River in the woods of Navassa, has vanished—torn down discreetly several months ago to make way for the last leg of Interstate 140.“It is gone. It’s completely gone,” declared Jay Boyd, project manager for Balfour Beatty Infrastructure Inc., which is constructing the segment on behalf of the state and tore down the structure as part of its contract. Boyd said the demolition was kept quiet for a reason: to keep from drawing a crowd, paranormal or otherwise.