Ghost Town developer dies

Nov. 29—The South Carolina developer who dazzled many in Maggie Valley with his plans to redevelop the western theme park Ghost Town has passed away in his hometown of Myrtle Beach.

Frankie L. Wood, was involved in a construction accident, said his Waynesville attorney, Russell McLean III.

A jack kicked out from the excavator he was working on and hit him in the face. He went through two brain surgeries and ended up dying at the home of his daughter after his hospital stay.

“It was a bad situation,” McLean said. “We haven’t gotten the autopsy yet, but that’s all I know about the accident.”

McLean most recently represented Wood in a N.C. Business Court action where Wood’s partner in the Ghost Town development, Jill McClure, petitioned the court to dissolve the corporation.

McClure became part of the business upon the death of her aunt, Alaska Presley, in 2022. Presley left a 50% stake in Ghost Town to her niece, Jill McClure, and 50% remained with an LLC managed by Wood.

McClure sought to dissolve the corporation, claiming she had been shut out of all management decisions and Wood failed to contribute anything into the corporation as was required by the operating agreement.

With Wood’s death, the corporation’s future, as well as any plans in the works for Ghost Town, are up in the air.

McLean said Wood has four children, and he’s been trying to reach out to them to at least find out the date of the funeral, so he can pay his respects. As for Wood’s estate, that will be handled through the South Carolina probate courts.

“We’ll be trying to determine who his will had as owner of the LLC partner in Ghost Town to have an idea of who takes over that part,” McLean said. “It’s up in the air until we can get a handle on it. We’ll have to get together with Jill (McClure). In fact, I think he and Jill buried the hatchet and were working together on it.”

Joint effort

McClure agreed she and Wood had been pursuing an effort to get water and sewer services up Buck Mountain, where Ghost Town was formerly located. During her tenure as sole owner of the more than 200 acres that were part of Ghost Town, Presley admitted getting working water and sewer services had all but drained her resources.

Even though McClure lost the lawsuit in business court, the judge said she did have grounds to pursue a derivative suit to establish her ownership of the land, something she decided to not do.

In the end, though, her ownership of the land was a reality Wood acknowledged a month ago, she said, when the duo drove up to the property via Rich Cove Road.

“He said he realized the land deeded into the LLC is mine,” she said. “He never put any money into the LLC and in his deposition, he said he had no investors or prospective buyers. He asked me if I had prospective buyers, and I said people had expressed interest, but had no buyers.”

Both McClure and Wood agreed they didn’t want to spend any more money on lawyers and McClure said Wood agreed to let her rent the houses on the property to help defray the cost of taxes.

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