The Haunting of Florida

Florida the "Sunshine State". The place to go for a big dose of Disney and to warm up when the cold winds begin to blow.Villa Paula is located on North Miami Avenue, in the heart of Little Haiti, in Miami, Florida. It is a neo-classical 1920 mansion with a Cuban flavor in design. The mansion has ten rooms, two baths, 18 foot high ceilings, hand-painted floor tiles and Tuscan columns.

Villa Paula was built for the first Cuban Consulate in Miami, Senior Don Domingo Milord and his wife Paula in 1925. Six years after moving into the mansion Paula died from complications caused by a leg amputation. The next resident was Muriel Reardon who lived here for over 30 years. After some years it became a home to senior citizens. By 1974 the Villa Paula had become a home to drifters. Along came a man called Cliff who bought the mansion from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and restored it to its original greatness.

Cliff soon discovered that the house had come with company. A steady knocking was heard at the front door but no one was ever there. Unfortunately there was someone who also really hated cats and all three of Cliff’s pet cats were killed. Some unknown force would wait until a cat would go through the gate and then slam the gate in the cat like a trap. Former owner Muriel was known to have hated cats. Cliff’s bedroom door would keep shutting by itself. Finally an elderly neighbor explained that Paula would shut the bedroom door so that she wouldn’t have a draft on her shoulders as she played the piano.

There were times when Cliff would smell the strong aroma of Cuban coffee coming from the kitchen and a fragrant smell of roses in the dining room at a time when roses weren’t in bloom. There came a time when Cliff did see a shadowy form but it quickly disappeared until he finally did see a Cuban woman whose hair was pulled back in a bun and who was swishing down the hall wearing a full-length gown. He did notice she had only one leg before the entity vanished.

He has heard the clumping of high heels on the stone paths in the mansion’s back yard. Once there was a loud clatter in the kitchen and it appeared that a ghost with a very bad temper had thrown dishes and silverware all over the kitchen. A front porch chandelier happened to come loose and crash with a bang to the ground below.

A séance was held in 1976 by a spiritual minister and it was revealed that besides Paula there were four other spirits as well all keeping Cliff company. Being too shy to say who she was, Paula did say she loved to grind Columbian coffee, play music from Carmen on the piano and put roses around the mansion as she liked the smell. Another entity was a thin man in a top hat, there was a heavy-set lady in a red dress, a crying woman who had lost a medal in the back yard and a very unhappy young woman looking for the burial place of her illegitimate baby, who lies somewhere on or near the grounds of Villa Paula.

After the séance for a while all was quiet and Cliff finally sold the mansion. The in the 80’s the ghosts started up again giving a full repertoire right down to cats being bumped off again by the gates or perhaps they’re the jaws of Hell? By 1989 The Miami Herald named Villa Paula the most haunted house in Miami. By the early 90s it became a doctor’s medical office leaving the ghosts to fend for themselves at night in the dark and quiet.

The Polk County Courthouse is a lovely building located in the downtown section of Bartow, Florida directly across the street from the new Courthouse. Two courthouses were built on this piece of land. One in 1883 and the current building in 1909. The present building houses museums, courtrooms and a genealogical library. The courtrooms are used for ceremonial events, including formal installation of county office holders and are also available for court purposes.

The Polk County Historic Courthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 7, 1989. It has a central dome which is topped with an orb, spire, and cupola, contains ribbon windows and four clocks.

There are five to six entities making the courthouse their home. The ones that are known are as follows:

In 1886 the Mann brothers who were accused of killing Marshall Silas Campbell outside the courthouse in 1883 were lynched by a mob before they could be tried in a court of law. After dying from this hanging due to mob action their bodies were on display in the courtroom in the courthouse that once stood where the 1909 – 1987 Historical Courthouse now stands.

There was a Boiler room accident. A boiler in one of the four basements exploded burning and killing a worker.

No one knows why she is here but a lady in white also haunts the building.

After a Judge and his wife were killed in West Palm Beach the mobsters who killed them were tried in the main courtroom.

One of the haunted areas of the building is the basement area which is accessed only by elevator. Here employees and visitors have heard the hair raising screams of pain and agony coming from the soul who died a long time ago in a boiler explosion.

In the Old Courtroom (1909-1987) which is located on the first floor cold spots can be felt by the living and sometimes people have felt someone brush against them. Also on the first floor in the room where Indian Artifacts are now displayed manifestations have been felt and seen from cold spots to malfunctioning lights.

On the second floor women’s restroom and on the third floor an apparition of a lady dressed in white has been seen. In the Rotunda area where the bodies of the Mann brothers were on display there is a feeling of sadness and there have been apparitions of the brothers themselves. The spirits in the Polk County Courthouse are restless perhaps waiting for a fairer trail.

In the Orlando area there is a small, rural cemetery on Rouse Road – the Rouse Road Cemetery. It and the nearby woods are haunted by a spirit from the 1840s Benjamin Miles whose presence in the night is signaled by an owl screeching. He’s often in tan-colored work clothes and is a hostile ghost buried in an unmarked grave. During the day there is a strong unsettling presence in the cemetery. A huge tree in the center of the cemetery seems to hold some strange energy. This is a hostile area and should be avoided by those who scare easy.

Not even Orlando theme parks have escaped ghosts. At Universal Studios theme park there are reports of a small, hooded spirit with glowing red eyes and supposedly it’s for real. At Disney’s Magic Kingdom a for real spirit has been spotted in the Haunted Mansion and a ghost in slightly-dated clothing has been seen strolling in front of the castle at the end of Main Street. The fluttering movements of spirits have been seen at the Tower of Terror at Disney/MGM Studios. Why shouldn’t they enjoy themselves too?

And then there’s the I-4 "Dead Zone" an overpass in Orlando that’s supposed to be very haunted and where more than an average number of accidents have occurred. It’s just north of Orlando, at the St. John’s River in Seminole County. Legend has it that the highway was built over the graves of Yellow Fever victims who lived and died at St. Joseph’s Colony which was established on this site in 1887. During the day there is some strange energy here and it is not recommended to investigate this area on your own at night. In other words don’t contribute yourself to the "Dead Zone". By Rasma Raisters