Do You Believe In Ghosts? Historic Hillsborough Haunts

TAMPA, FL -- It's one thing to visit a staged haunted house during the Halloween season. But would you be brave enough to venture into a building where visitors have reported seeing real spectral figures?

There are a number of historic buildings in Hillsborough County where spooky happenings are reported year round.

Tampa Theatre

For 91 years, movie-goers have enjoyed cinematic wonders at the classic Tampa Theatre on Franklin Street in downtown Tampa. Each year around Halloween, the theater puts on a horror film series in honor of its spooky history.

According to locals, Tampa Theatre is haunted by a number of spirits seen backstage, on stage and in the balconies. In fact, the theater's reputation for ghost sightings prompted the theater to begin offering ghost tours to visitors eager for a chance to glimpse the infamous Fink Finley roaming the balcony, the Lady in White pacing backstage and the mysterious man who appears in seat 308.

Ghost tours will be offered from 3 to 10:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 26, 11:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and 3 to 10:30 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 29-30. The cost is $12 for adults and $10 for ages 2 to 12. The 75-minute tour kicks off in the lobby and includes climbing stairs and extended periods of standing.

In honor of the theater's haunted reputation, there will be a special Pause-O-Ween event on Wednesday, Oct. 31 at 6 p.m. featuring drink specials, free shots and tickets to win prizes including an annual theater membership and restaurant gift certificates. Then stick around for a 9:30 screening of, what else? "Halloween."

Ybor City

There's no place in Tampa Bay that has a more notorious reputation than historic Ybor City. Starting in 1885, the city was built on the backs of Cuban and Italian immigrants who came to America seeking a better life. Many ended up working for one of the city's famous cigar factories. And many perished in fires in the city's hastily constructed wood-frame buildings and during a yellow fever epidemic in the 1900s.

The largest fire in Tampa's history occurred on March 1, 1908, at 1914 12th Ave., according to Tampa Fire Rescue. The fire originated in the wood-shingled roof of a boarding house and quickly spread to more than 17 city blocks. An untold number of adults and children perished in the blaze. Today, Ybor City store owners claim to hear the laughter of children in empty buildings.

During Prohibition, Ybor City became a notorious hangout for gangsters. Gambling czar Charles Wall used political connections to set up a bolita gambling racket in Ybor City during the 1920s.

Bolita is a lottery game that uses 100 ivory balls marked with bold black numbers. The balls were placed in a velvet sack then each gambler picked a ball out of the sack until only one ball (the winner) remained.

Wall opened the lavishly decorated sporting parlor, the El Dorado Lounge at 8th Avenue and 14th Street in Ybor City. It soon became a notorious hangout for underworld figures and the scene of a few drive-by shootings at the hands of Wall’s rival, Salvatore Trafficante Sr.

The upper floors of the El Dorado were rumored to be the “largest house of ill-repute outside of New Orleans.”

Between 1930 and 1959, Tampa witnessed more than 25 gangland killings. Among them, on Nov. 10, 1936, George "Saturday" Zarate, a drug trafficker for New York gangster Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was gunned down in front of the El Dorado by two firing sawed-off shotguns from a passing car. A year later, Joe Vaglichi, whose brother was Al Capone's bodyguard, died in a hail of bullets from another passing car.

Visitors can now catch a glimpse of some restless spirits dressed in zoot suits and Fedoras during the Ybor City Ghost Tour, which takes place nightly at 8 p.m. with special hours during October.

The two-hour tour includes visits to a number of the city's historic venues including the Don Vincente Hotel.

Built in 1895, the structure served as a hotel, a meeting house (El Bien Publico) and a medical clinic. Today, it is considered one of the most haunted buildings in the United States, according to Haunted Rooms.

The 120-year-old property at 1915 Avenida Republica De Cuba witnessed a number of sudden deaths, and the spirits of the dead are reportedly trapped inside the building, which has been turned into apartments.

Room 305 in the Don Vincente Hotel, in particular, was a reported hot spot of paranormal activity. Many guests reported seeing the apparition of a man at the foot of the bed. Other common ghostly signs included flickering lights, creaky footsteps, doors opening and closing and faucets turning on and off.

There are also reports of a mad doctor who experimented on patients and then burned the bodies in the incinerator and a Spanish nurse who wanders the halls seeking phantom patients.

Also notoriously haunted is the The Cuban Club, built in 1917. The hauntings at the historic club are attributed to the ghosts of two people who died in the building during the 1920s. One is an actor who committed suicide on stage. The other is a board member who was murdered by a fellow board member during a heated argument.

Visitors have reported a piano playing by itself, the elevator moving up and down although no one pressed the button and entities dressed in period clothing.

The Ybor City Ghost Tour costs $25 for adults and $10 for children age 8 to 12. Click here to make reservations or call 813-386-3905.

Crown Colony House

A theme park is hardly a place you'd expect to find ghosts but, believe it or not, the Crown Colony House at Busch Gardens is said to be haunted.

The restaurant that looms over the Serengeti Overlook has a reputation for strange happenings like trays of food suddenly flipping over, dancing orbs, moving shadows and a mysterious waft of cigar smoke.

The ghost-hunting team, Haunted South, even recorded some of these spooky happenings when Busch Gardens allowed the paranormal researchers on its grounds in 2008 to investigate. Haunted South picked up electronic voice phenomenon and mysterious electromagnetic impulses in the restaurant.

The restaurant was built in 1964 as a Valentine's gift for the third wife of Anheuser-Busch founder August Busch. It closed in 1982 for remodeling and reopened in 1990. That's when employees and diners began reporting strange happenings -- cold spots, a phantom playing the piano and the ethereal appearance of an 8-year-old girl named Wendy.

Plant Hall

Plant Hall with its distinctive Moorish minarets is now part of the University of Tampa. But from 1891 to 1933, it was a luxurious 511-room hotel that served as a grand winter resort for the rich and famous including Teddy Roosevelt, Babe Ruth, the Queen of England, Booker T. Washington and Stephen Crane.

Apparently, some of these guests refused to check out and continue to haunt the halls today. People have reported hearing the disembodied voices of long-dead servants and the sounds of rolling dice in the hotels former gambling casino. Students report an eerie feeling of being watched and doors opening and closing on their own.

The best-known specter is the entity known simply as "The Brown Man." He's described as a man wearing a brown suit with glowing red eyes. He appears and vanishes on staircases throughout Plant Hall.

There is also a phantom couple who have been seen dancing the night away in the hotel's former ballroom.

James McCabe Theatre

James McCabe Theater, 506 5th St., Valrico, was built in 1915. The theater started out as the Valrico Civic Center and later became home to the Village Players community theater troupe.

It has long been a notorious haunt for a male spirit who responds to questions and a little girl who plays tricks and hums.

In 2007, Plant City Paranormal Research, in cooperation with United Paranormal International's Historic Preservation Society, investigated the claims of spirits and claimed to leave with evidence that the old building really is haunted.

Fort Brooke Municipal Parking Garage

The last place you'd expect to find ghosts is in a municipal parking garage. But there are those who swear that the Fort Brooke parking garage is haunted.

That may be because the parking garage was built on top of a long-forgotten cemetery.

In 1823, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun ordered the establishment of a military post on the east bank of the Hillsborough River in Tampa near Hillsborough Bay. The post was named Fort Brooke after its commander, Col. George Mercer Brooke, and became a vital outpost during the two Seminole Indian wars.

The massacre of Francis Dade and 108 of his men by Seminole Indians began as a march from Fort Brooke to Fort Dade in Ocala. The main fort sat on the site of today's Tampa Convention Center. Two cannons from the fort were relocated to the University of Tampa campus.

When the city of Tampa began building the Fort Brook parking garage in 1980, workers accidentally unearthed a cemetery that contained the remains of soldiers and Seminole Indians. The soldiers were reburied in military fashion and the remains of the Seminole Indians were relocated to the grounds of the Seminole Indian Reservation off Hillsborough Avenue in East Tampa.

Preservationist were careful to treat the remains with respect. But it's possible they didn't recover all of the bones. Parking patrons say they have heard the ghostly sounds of Native Americans drumming and chanting, and have seen strange shadow figures.

Sulphur Springs Water Tower

As evidenced by today's Gasparilla Festival, a big part of Tampa's history featured pirates and privateers who would hide their booty-filled galleons in the shelter of the Hillsborough River. The Sulphur Springs Water Tower is reported to have been one of the places pirate ships landed.

The water tower was built atop an artesian well in 1927 by Grover Poole to supply adequate water pressure to the Sulphur Springs Hotel and Mave's Arcade that developer Josiah S. Richardson built next to the therapeutic sulphur springs. But before the tower was constructed, the site was supposedly home to a lighthouse that served as a marker on many pirate treasure maps.

According to local legend, it is now haunted by the spirits of long-dead pirates who are still searching for the treasure that was never found. Over the years, there have been sightings of a ghost ship flying a flag emblazoned with skull and bones. There have also been sightings of a terrible sea creature dragging the spectral figure of a little girl into the waters of the Hillsborough River.

Two years after the existing tower was constructed, the Sulphur Springs Tower, then one of the tallest structures in Tampa, became the preferred jumping point for suicidal investors who lost everything in the 1929 stock market crash.

One psychic who explored the area reported seeing misty apparitions walking around the top of the tower and then leaping off. Backyard Films explored the myths surrounding the tower.

The Old Federal Courthouse

The Old Federal Courthouse plays prominently in Tampa's haunted history.

Completed in 1905, the Old Federal Courthouse building at 601 N.. Florida Ave. was designed by James Knox Taylor, the supervising architect of the United States Treasury in Washington, D.C. The Beaux Arts-style building was originally designed for the United States Post Office but also served as a courthouse and customhouse.

Today, it's Le Meridien Hotel. However, despite extensive renovations, the building hasn't been able to escape its notorious past.

Gangster Charlie Wall, who founded the El Dorado Lounge casino in Ybor City, reportedly spent a great deal of time in the courthouse dodging charges of racketeering and prostitution in the 1930s and '40s.

He became best known for testifying before a federal committee investigating organized crime in 1950. Apparently, Wall spilled it all, detailing a multitude of rimes and underworld secrets for the committee. Three days later, he was gruesomely murdered. His ghost has reportedly been seen hanging out on the courthouse steps. His murder remains unsolved so, perhaps, he's still seeking justice.

Britton 8 Movie Theater

Another unlikely haunt is the Britton 8 Movie Theater at 3938 S. Dale Mabry Highway. Although the movie theater is hardly a fount of history, movie-goers and employees have reported toilets flushing on their own, doors opening and closing, the apparition of a woman on the balcony of auditorium #3, ghostly voices outside auditorium #5 and shadowy figures walking through the lobby.

It's a mystery because, as far as anyone knows, there's never been a tragic event in the building.

Images via Tampa Bay History Center, Historic Ybor City, Tampa Theatre