Mark Muncy - Creepy Florida

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC

www.historypress.com

Copyright 2019 by Mark Muncy and Kari Schultz

All rights reserved

Cover illustration by Kari Schultz

First published 2019

e-book edition 2019

ISBN 978.1.43966.809.2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019943378

Print edition ISBN 978.1.46714.200.7

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

CONTENTS

FloridaThe Sunshine State. 1959. Color postcard, fourteen by nine centimeters. Courtesy of State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory.

INTRODUCTION

Greetings, traveler.

You hold in your hands our third book from The History Press. Kari Schultz and I have worked on these three books for the last four years. Our previous books, Eerie Florida and Freaky Florida, explored the monsters, myths and legends that lurk on the dark side of the Sunshine State. From the UFO flaps in Gulf Breeze to Robert the Haunted Doll in Key West, we did our best to cover some famous and forgotten legends to give our readers the ultimate travel guide for something other than just beaches and theme parks.

While we were working on our previous books, we traveled more than seven thousand miles without leaving the state. Wed been Squatchin on Skunk Ape Hunts. Wed looked for sea and river monsters. Wed even spent some time in nearly every museum, historical archive and library in the state. At every stop in every town, we discovered more and more legends to explore. It seems that we will never be able to chase down every legend this amazing state has to offer. What really stood out to us in all of our adventures was one major point: nearly every place we went had a ghost story.

It was clear to us that a third volume would be in order. This one would be a little different for us. Kari and I decided this one had to cover one thing we had kept to a minimum in the other books. This book would be completely about hauntings.

When you speak of haunted Florida houses, there are a few names that seem to rise to the top of any most haunted list. While we certainly intend to touch on some of the most famous cases in this book, wed also like to focus on some of the lesser-known haunts. We visited the Cuban Club in our second book, Freaky Florida. The ghosts there supposedly number in the hundreds, and no one is really sure how many deaths are tied to the building. We also discussed many of the ghosts of St. Augustine for our first book, Eerie Florida. Im not saying weve saved the best for last, but we purposely held on to many ghost stories just in case this book came to fruition. Be sure to pick through those older books for some other great ghostly tales.

Something else we noticed when looking into the stories was that the ghosts in the stories were always the most famous people associated with the locations of the haunts. Im not sure if this was just a way to make the haunting less scary or to make the place seem more important. While there is some evidence of Al Capone frequently visiting Tampa Bay, how likely is it that he has decided to haunt a building he may have spent some nights in? Babe Ruth and Teddy Roosevelt are also common ghosts. Jack Kerouac, Ernest Hemingway and even some Hollywood celebrities supposedly have spectral apparitions here in the Sunshine State. We went into several places with celebrity ghosts with more than a little pinch of salt. While we were frequently told the celebrity story, we found other more likely candidates for the hauntings just as often.

If you followed our previous books, you know that we try to map them from north to south. That way you can use the book as a roadmap of sorts if you want to follow in our footsteps. This book is no different. While some locations are more famous or have a higher fear factor than others, we decided that people would want to use this as a travel guide to go with our other books. We love to see our dedicated fans on the Eerie Florida Fans Facebook page chronicle their own visits to the locations in our books.

Many of the haunted places detailed within the pages of this book are on private property. Even more have specific visitation hours. We would like to take a moment to remind legend-trippers and amateur ghost hunters to make sure you obey the law and do not trespass. Do not damage any private or public property you visit. Make sure you contact owners and caretakers ahead of time. Many are thrilled to talk to visitors about their own ghostly experiences. If you cant get into a closed location at three oclock in the morning on the day you want to, just dont go. You might get arrested or worseaccidentally wind up becoming a ghost yourself.

One tip is to try to team up with local amateur, professional or enthusiast paranormal investigation groups. Many of them have established relationships with the more famous locations nearby. A fair number of groups host public events for fundraising efforts, which can be a great way to get to know if a group has the right fit for you.

For those of you who read our previous books and know all about us, you can skip the next two paragraphs after we give you a hearty Thank you for supporting our work. For those of you just joining us, youve got a couple of options. You can go out and get Eerie Florida or Freaky Florida and read them. Well wait. Or, I can give you our credentials and a bit of our own history now. Still here? Then read on.

Im Mark Muncy, an actor and historian who owned and operated a charity haunted house attraction in St. Petersburg, Florida, called Hellview Cemetery, for twenty years. We based the attraction on local lore and legends to give the Halloween event its own spin. We collected stories and legends for years, and we turned those into spooky tales on our website. Eventually my co-author, Elizabeth Abbott, and I collected those tales into books of their own, including 31 Tales of Hellview Cemetery and Tales of Terror of Tampa Bay. After Hellview was closed by the city for being a little too successful, we were left with a load of legends that needed sharing.

I teamed up with illustrator and photographer Kari Schultz, and we hit the road. Some stories led to dead ends, but many led to unexpected conclusions. We tried to go straight to the source of all of the legends and ghost stories and tied them to the history of the area to give the stories a frame of reference. For those monsters or spirits that wouldnt pose for anything other than blurry photos, Kari brought them to life as detailed sketches.

Now that were all caught up, theres just a little more to let you know what you are in for in this book. While in the previous books we explained the areas and history in as much detail as we felt necessary to explain the context of the legend, ghostly tales tend to lend themselves to open interpretation. While the history is still included where needed, some of these tales are mired in mystery. We did our best to explain the details of each haunting as we heard it and pointed out multiple narratives of each event if we felt they were appropriate or even known. It seems that some of the ghostly tales tend to get even more twisted than some of our most twisted legends we researched in the past.