Haunted Florida: Finding the creepiest places in the Sunshine State
Florida has been home to millions of people over the centuries — natives, explorers, sailors, hucksters, retirees and just plain Floridians — and more than a few of them died in the Sunshine State.
That means (if you believe in such things) that there are bound to be ghosts just about anywhere you turn. Spooky theaters, haunted highways, creepy lighthouses and restaurants with the occasional spectral visitor abound in Florida.
We asked around to find some of Florida's most-haunted locales, and here's what we found.
Ghost at Florida Theatre in Jacksonville has its own seat
The ghost that purportedly haunts the Florida Theatre in downtown Jacksonville isn’t malevolent, and the theater has gone out of its way to keep it that way. As part of a $10 million renovation project in 2020, the theater replaced every seat in the house, except for seats E1 and E2 in the balcony.
Those seats, where a local paranormal TV show captured ghostly movements, were instead sent off to be refurbished, then put back in place.
"We did not want our ghost to be homeless if his or her seat went away permanently," said Numa Saisselin, president of the theater.
Ghost hunters suspect that the apparition could be that of an organist who worked at the theater in the 1920s and later died from suicide. — Tom Szaroleta, Florida Times-Union
Believe in ghosts?: Here are the haunted places around Jacksonville where you might find them
St. Augustine Lighthouse one of state's most haunted sites
More than 450 years since its European founding, St. Augustine is home to many reportedly haunted sites, and the St. Augustine lighthouse is one of the city's most famous.
Among other paranormal investigations, ghost hunters from The Atlantic Paranormal Society visited the property in 2005. And the Syfy channel show "Ghost Hunters" included the lighthouse in several episodes ― the lighthouse property was described as “the Mona Lisa of paranormal sites.”
The Pittee sisters are among the people who some believe haunt the grounds today.
According to St. Augustine's tourism and convention bureau, they were the "daughters of Hezekiah Pittee, who oversaw the construction of the St. Augustine Lighthouse. Riding a construction cart down to the water was a favorite pastime of the Pittee children. Unfortunately, one summer day in 1873, the cart carrying the girls flipped into the water, trapping two of the daughters and a friend underneath.
"Since the accident, strange occurrences have been repeatedly attributed to the spirits of the girls including footsteps heard by a relief Lighthouse Keeper. There have always been sightings of a small girl standing by the bed of the Keeper’s house renter. And time and time again, there are apparitions of the girls playing hide and seek during tours and on the grounds."
The St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum, a nonprofit, offers ghost tours in addition to regular tours of the lighthouse and surrounding buildings. — Sheldon Gardner, Daytona Beach News-Journal
Koreshan State Park is repository of local legends and hauntings
The storied history of Koreshan State Park in Lee County dates back more than a century, to when Cyrus R. Teed moved to Estero and founded the Koreshan religious sect.
Through Teed’s religion, dubbed "Koreshanity” he intended to build a “New Jerusalem” when he relocated 200 followers from Chicago to Estero in 1894. The name comes from “Koresh,” the Hebrew translation of Cyrus, meaning shepherd. The communal group followed a celibate lifestyle and established a farm, a nursery and botanical gardens, according to the park’s website.
Teed taught a hollow-Earth theory, which posited the entire universe existed within a giant, hollow sphere. Koreshans believed in immortality through reincarnation and that Teed was their messiah.
Journalist and author Lyn Millner reported on the story of the Koreshans in her book, “The Allure of Immortality.” She tells the story of how, in 1908, Cyrus Teed’s body lay in a bathtub for five days while his followers waited for his resurrection, and how they watched hieroglyphics emerge on his skin and the formation of an apparent third arm and how his skin turned black.
The reality is more biological fact than horror fantasy, but Koreshan State Park remains a repository of local legends and hauntings. — Andrew Atkins, Naples Daily News
Gator Club in Sarasota rumored to be haunted
There are lots of great bars in Sarasota with decades of history, but none boast a past like the Gator Club, which can be seen in the 1998 film “Palmetto,” starring Woody Harrelson and Elisabeth Shue. For starters, the two-story structure originally called Worth’s Block dates back to 1913, making it the oldest brick building on Main Street and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Then there’s Gator Club’s more interesting history: Bootleg whiskey during Prohibition. Illegal gambling. An upstairs brothel. Ghosts!
Owner Larry Siegel’s first haunting happened shortly after he bought the place in 2005, and the lights he had turned off upstairs were back on. A few years later, Siegel was upstairs with a bartender having a pre-shift meeting when the cash register started to ring up drinks – dozens of them. No power surge. No explanation. More recently, he was at his upstairs desk, close to where the second-floor bordello operated, counting the drawer. “There was this cold air, like a fan, that just blew past me,” Siegel said. — Wade Tatangelo, Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Ghost tours at Tampa Theatre showcase decades-long haunted history
A movie palace dating back nearly a century to 1926, Tampa Theatre has become one of the area’s most popular cultural attractions thanks to its dazzling night sky-and-courtyard backdrop, where visitors can still see films or live performances by musicians and comedians. Come October, it also becomes one of Tampa Bay’s top spots to get into the Halloween season spirit thanks to its A Nightmare on Franklin Street series. Along with horror movie screenings, the theater hosts ghost tours that delve into the haunted happenings reported during its decades-long history.
Jill Witecki, Tampa Theatre’s director of marketing and community relations who's also hosted the ghost tours, said the tour starts with the story of Robert Lanier, a ticket-taker at the theater in the 1950s who was found dead in the lobby under mysterious and unexplained circumstances. Another former employee, projectionist Foster “Fink” Finley, is said to be among the spirits that still frequent the theater. — Jimmy Geurts, Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Ashley's Restaurant in Rockledge said to be haunted after 1934 murder
Ashley's Restaurant & Bar in Rockledge is a Tudor-style wood and stucco building with stained-glass windows and lots of old pictures on dark wood walls. It's also the setting of a ghostly tale.
According to the Ashley's legend, on Nov. 21, 1934, the body of 19-year-old Ethel Allen was found in Eau Gallie on the bank of the Indian River, mutilated and burned. Her skull was crushed, and her throat had been cut. Ethel was last seen at Jack's Tavern, which would become Ashley's Restaurant.
It's thought Ethel's murder is the main source of the ghostly activity. Lights flicker during the night, alarms go off without explanation and dishes fall and break without cause. Many feel the ghost's presence in the women's restroom. One Ashley's employee claims she saw the feet of a woman wearing 1930s-era shoes in a stall, only to find the stall empty. Patrons have reported seeing apparitions of a young woman in the bathroom mirror, or hearing a toilet mysteriously flush.
Others claim to have been pushed by an invisible force while on the stairs to the second-floor dining area, including a certain newspaper reporter who found herself tumbling tail over teakettle down to the first-floor landing after making jokes about the ghost. — Florida Today archives
More: 6 places on the Space Coast guaranteed to scare you on Halloween
St. Augustine's Old Jail is home to paranormal activity
One of the darkest parts of St. Augustine's history is a tourist attraction where many reports of hauntings have been made.
St. Augustine's jail used to be part of downtown's core. But developer Henry Flagler paid to have a jail built on the outskirts of town and away from his hotel guests instead.
That old jail was in operation until the '50s, and it still exists today as the Old Jail tourist attraction.
Located at 167 San Marco Ave. in St. Augustine, the attraction offers tours that show people what life was like for male and female inmates, and some of the horrors they faced. The jail was the site of executions by hanging and abuse of inmates.
Over the years, staff and visitors have reported paranormal activity in the jail building, a history teller for the Old Jail told The St. Augustine Record in 2015. People have reported being touched or grabbed. Some have also reported seeing a figure crawling on the floor of the main cell block and following people.
The Travel Channel's "Kindred Spirits," which investigates paranormal activity, aired an episode featuring The Old Jail in January 2020.
The crew set up equipment in June of 2019 such as electronic voice phenomena recorders and cameras after tours ended each night, and they had psychic Chip Coffey try to make contact with spirits.
Amy Bruni, who co-hosted the show, spoke with The Record at the time about the experience. “There’s a lot of sadness, unsettled spirits, in that building," she said. — Sheldon Gardner, Daytona Beach News-Journal
Ghost traveled from London to Blue Anchor Pub in Delray Beach
This Delray Beach pub is said to be haunted by the ghost of Bertha Starkey, a British woman gruesomely stabbed to death by a jealous husband at a pub in 19th-century London.
Her ghost haunted the original pub, built on Chancery Lane in 1865, until the owners tore it down. The facade and interior of the bar were moved to Delray Beach from London in the 1990s.
Over the years, longtime employees have seen and heard strange and unexplainable things. — Palm Beach Post staff
More: Be afraid. Be very afraid: The most haunted places around Palm Beach County
The legend behind the Interstate 4 'Dead Zone'
It’s a stretch of highway traversed by thousands daily. But many may not know the history behind the Interstate 4 approach to the St. Johns River Bridge in Seminole County.
Legend has it that a family of four immigrants died of yellow fever in 1886 and were buried in a spot that is now beneath the I-4 southern approach. When government officials in the 1950s discussed building an interstate, they bought the land and decided to build over the graves. Ever since, some believe the area has been haunted where the eastbound lanes approach the bridge because the gravesite is underneath.
Author Charlie Carlson — who has written about Florida’s weird and strange places — coined the term “Dead Zone” for the phenomenon in his books on the subject. "It's good we have a legend — a culture without legends and mysteries is not a culture," Carlson told the Orlando Sentinel in 2014. "There's history embedded in this legend. There's history to be learned."
Anyone who’s traversed I-4 knows it’s a dangerous highway, but the St. Johns River Veterans Memorial Bridge has had more than its share of wrecks, including many fatal ones. And hurricanes have passed over the site, including Hurricanes Donna in 1960 and Charley in 2004 — both of which made landfall in Southwest Florida before heading across the state. — Dave Osborn, Naples Daily News
Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion has plenty of (fake) spirits
Disney's Imagineers do a heck of a job making the Haunted Mansion ride look haunted, with creepy changing portraits, ride-along ghosts, an otherworldly bride and a seance.
But is the place really haunted? No deaths have been reported on the ride, which marked its 50th anniversary in the Magic Kingdom's Liberty Square area in 2021, but there have been reports of people being injured on the ride.
If there are real ghosts to be found in the Haunted Mansion, it's not Disney's doing. Ever since the ride opened, there have been rumors of people sprinkling the ashes of departed loved ones on the tracks. But don't do it — it's against the law and Disney regulations and the ashes will just get swept up by maintenance workers. — Tom Szaroleta, Florida Times-Union
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Halloween things to do in Florida: The 10 most haunted places
