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1.
The
Myrtles Plantation
Saint Francisville is located in West
Feliciana Parish Louisiana. A small town
on the Mississippi River. Once the Capital
of the Republic of West Florida, it is
here that John James Audubon (Birds of
America Collection) created over 80 of
his beautiful watercolors. There are seven
Magnificent Plantation homes opened for
public tours. And The Myrtyles Plantation
is the one you would not want to miss.
And with all the recent investigations
by TAPS is now fast becoming the most
famous ghost filled haunted house in America.
Exploring the myrtles you will see grand
fine antiques and architectural treasures
of the old South and you personally might
discover why The Myrtles has been called
"America's Most Haunted Homes".
"The
actual haunting hour at the Myrtles Plantation
is said to be at three AM.
At
that exact hour each dark night, Chloe's
restless ghost roams the great dark haunted
plantation,
The
Myrtles isn't an ordinary plantation.
It's supposed to be one of the most haunted
houses in America. "
| "Whiskey
Dave" Bradford--former leader
of the whiskey rebellion-- built
the great haunted house on a Tunica
Indian burial ground in 1794.
He was actually the very first
to see a ghost at the Myrtles
Plantation, a naked Indian girl
wandering lost on the grounds
is what he is said to have observed.
But Many of the locals state it
is Bradford's' many ghostly children
and grandchildren that haunt the
Myrtles today. |
 |
Sara Matilda, Bradford's' daughter,
married Judge Woodruff. Woodruff was
said to have kept a slave mistress named
Chloe or so the haunted tale goes....
When Woodruff grew tired of Chloe,
and she was afraid she would be sent
to the fields she is said to have started
eavesdropping on him to learn of her
future fate.
When Woodruff caught her, he cut off
her left ear and sent her to work in
the kitchen. From then on, Chloe wore
a green turban to hide her disfigurement.
She devised a plan to regain the affection
of him and the family. She boiled poisonous
oleander leaves and baked them into
a cake.
Chloe believed the children would become
ill and need her to nurse them back
to health. But she used too much. Sara
Matilda and two of the children died
that night from the poison.
When the other slaves heard about Chloe's
actions, they hung her from a tree.
They then weighted her body with stones
and threw her into the Mississippi river.
Chloe still wanders the house and grounds
of the Myrtles Plantation. She sometimes
shows up in photos. The Woodruff children
are also heard playing and laughing
on the veranda on rainy nights.
The Chloe story is the most popular
haunting tale at the Myrtles, but many
more people met their untimely demise
on the premises and can be seen and
heard wandering.
A Civil War soldier died on the floor
near the front door from battle wounds.
He was an avid cigar smoker who stayed
at the house before his death. The smell
of cigars sometimes fills his room.
( And smoking isn't allowed at the Myrtles...)
William Winter was said to have died
on the 17th step of the staircase after
a mysterious man shot him through the
study window in 1871.
The steps heard on the stairs in the
middle of the night are attributed to
him. Those who count claim the footsteps
stop at the seventeenth step.
Another young girl died of yellow fever
in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Her
parents called on a voodoo priestess
to help her, after all traditional medicines
had failed. When the little girl died,
the parents hung the priestess from
the chandelier.
In 1927, the caretaker was murdered
during a robbery attempt. The owners
claim that he can sometimes be seen
at the plantation gates telling people
to leave.
The Myrtles is now a bed and breakfast,
so guests can stay in these rooms and
see if the ghosts come out and play.
The proprietors, John and Teeta Moss,
claim that the Best Western loves the
Myrtles, because so many guests get
spooked in the middle of the night and
run to the other hotel.
Whether you believe in ghosts or not,
it's fun to be scared. This house has
a creepy vibe. Bursts of cold air come
from nowhere. Former owners have had
church stained glass installed in the
front doors to keep out the evil spirits.
Also, the keyholes of every door have
a small cover over them. In the nineteenth
century, people thought ghosts came
into a house through its keyholes, and
these covers were designed to keep them
out.
People also believed that the ghosts
would hide in the corners until nighttime,
when they would come out to pester the
living. The Myrtles contains custom
plaster work nun and cherub charms specially
designed to keep the spirits away from
the corners. Every resident has painstakingly
tried to protect himself from wandering
spirits.
Ghosts or not, everyone who has owned
the property has either seen ghosts,
has turned into a ghost, or tried to
keep the ghosts away. Mysterious figures
and spheres often show up in ghost photos.
The Myrtles has been featured in New
York Times, Forbes, Gourmet, Veranda,
Travel and Leisure, Country Inns, Colonial
Homes, Delta SKY, and on the Oprah Show,
A & E, The History Channel, The Travel
Channel, The Learning Channel, National
Geographic Explorer, and GOOD MORNING
AMERICA. It was also featured in The Hauntings
of Louisiana.
Historical tours are conducted daily
from 9am - 5pm.
Mystery tours are conducted on Friday
and Saturday evenings.
All bed and breakfast reservations include
a complimentary tour of this National
Historic Register home filled with hand
painted stained glass, open pierced plaster
frieze work, Aubusson tapestries, Baccarat
crystal chandeliers, Carrera marble mantles
and gold leafed French furnishings. Guided
tours include the history, the architectural
significance, and the enchanting stories
of mystery and intrigue.
Relax in the giant rockers on the 120-foot
verandah or stroll through the lush ten
acres filled with majestic live oaks.
The 5000 square foot old brick courtyard
is the perfect place to unwind before
enjoying a delicious candlelight dinner
at our Carriage House Restaurant.
Located in the Legendary Plantation Country
on U.S. Highway 61, 30 miles North of
Baton Rouge between New Orleans, Louisiana
and Natchez, Mississippi.
More Info
and links on the Myrtles Haunted Plantation
2.
LaLaurie House
The following is excerpted in its entirety
from Old New Orleans: Walking Tours of
the French Quarter, by Stanley Clisby
Arthur, © 1990 by Pelican Publishing
Company, Gretna, Louisiana, @ pages 96-99:
" 'THE HAUNTED HOUSE’ 1140 Royal
Street
The three-story building at the southeast
corner of Royal and Governor Nichols street,
to some the most famous private residence
in old New Orleans, gained its eerie title,
‘The Haunted House,’ from an
oft-repeated tale in which spirits of tortured
slaves clank their chains during the midnight
hours in remembrance of awful punishment
meted out to them by their mistress –
a high-bred lady of old New Orleans who
had been charged with finding an uncanny
delight in dealing inhumanly with her slaves.
Like all such tales, the story has grown
in ferocity through its countless retellings
and the probabilities are that even the
original story of over a century ago was
a gross exaggeration. It now appears that
the mistress of this home was the first
victim of yellow journalism in this country
and that she was far from being the ‘fiend’
tradition has labeled, or should we say,
libeled her. The facts of this ‘strange
true story’ are as follows:
The traditional tales of the Vieux Carre
have it that this house was built in 1780
by two brothers, Jean and Henri de Remarie,
and that such guests as Marshal Michel
Ney, Napoleon’s famous commander;
the duc d’Orleans, later, Louis
Philippe, king of France; and the Marquis
de Lafayette have slept in this mansion.
But we are compelled to make the pertinent
observations that Marshal Ney never came
to Louisiana, that Louis Philippe was
here in 1798, and that Lafayette visited
New Orleans in 1825 – yet the ‘Haunted
House’ was not built until 1832!
There are those who denounce historical
accuracy when it destroys fallacious tradition
… those who claim that a good story
must never be sacrificed and crucified on
the cross of truth. Much as one admires
the colorful tradition of old New Orleans,
our mission is to give a factual history
of the landmarks of the Vieux Carre. So,
to stick to fact, we must point out that
the lots upon which the ‘Haunted House’
stands were purchased by Mme Louis Lalaurie,
September 12, 1831, from Edmond Soniat du
Fossat, and the house then built was not
ready for occupancy until the spring of
1832. As it was part of the tract given
the Ursuline nuns, this was the first, and
only, house built on this particular site.
Mme Lalaurie was one of five children born
to Louis Barthelemy Chevalier de Macarty
and Marie Jeanne Lovable, two who stood
high in the social life of old New Orleans.
One of their daughters was christened Marie
Delphine Macarty. She first married, on
June 11, 1800, Don Ramon de Lopez y Angula,
the ceremony being performed at the St.
Louis Cathedral by Luis de Penalvery Cardenas,
the first bishop of the diocese of Louisiana,
and the marriage certificate was signed
by the celebrated Fray Antonio de Sedella.
The husband was described in this document
as Caballero de la Royal de Carlos, Intendent
of the Provinces, a native of the community
of Regno,Galicia, Spain, and the legitimate
son of his Lordship Don Jose Antonio de
Lopez y Angula and Dona Ana Fernande de
Angule, daughter of Dona Francisca Borja
Endecis.
Shortly after the Louisiana Purchase, on
March 26, 1804, Delphine Macarty’s
husband was recalled to the court of Spain,
the letter carrying this royal command stating
that the young Spanish officer was ‘to
take his place at court as befitting his
new position.’ At this time Don Ramon
was consul general for Spain in this new
American territory. While in Havana, en
route to Madrid, Don Ramon suddenly died
and a few days later his daughter was born
in the Cuban city. This infant was baptized
Marie Delphine Borja Lopez y Angula de Candelaria,
but she became best known in later years
as ‘Borquita,’ meaning ‘little
Borja,’ from the fact that she was
named after her father’s grandmother.
Left a widow, Delphine Macarty and her baby
daughter returned to New Orleans. Four years
later, in 1808, she again married, choosing
for her husband a prominent banker, merchant,
lawyer, and legislator named Jean Blanque,
a native of Bearn who had come to Louisiana
with Prefect Laussat in 1803. At the time
of his marriage, June 16, 1808, Blanque
purchased the residence at 409 Royal Street
and in this home Delphine became the mother
of four other children: Marie Louise Pauline,
Louise Marie Laure, Marie Louise Jeanne,
and Jean Pierre Paulin Blanque. In that
stylish Royal Street home or in the ‘Villa
Blanque,’ a charming country place
fronting the Mississippi River just below
the city limits, Delphine Macarty Blanque
divided her time, both places frequented
by the socially elect.
Jean Blanque died in 1816, and Delphine
Macarty remained a widow until June 12,
1825, when she again married. Her third
husband was Dr. Leonard Louis Nicolas Lalaurie,
a native of Villeneuse-sur-Lot, France,
who came to New Orleans to establish a practice.
Borquita, the daughter by her mother’s
first marriage, became the wife of Placide
Forstall, member of a distinguished Louisiana
family, and Jeanne Blanque married Charles
Auguste de Lassus, only child of Don Carle
de Lassus, former governor of Upper Louisiana,
and later governor of the Baton Rouge post
of West Florida when they were under Spanish
rule.
The Lalaurie mansion was erected in 1832
and for the next two years was the scene
of many fashionable affairs, for the Lalauries
entertained on an elaborate plan. On the
afternoon of April 10, 1834, an aged cook
set fire to the house during the absence
of her mistress. When neighbors rushed into
the mansion to fight the fire and try to
save the furniture and other valuables,
slaves were found chained in their quarters.
Although the fire was extinguished, the
indignation of those who found the helpless
slaves blazed high and a newspaper editor,
Jerome Bayon of the Bee, published a heated
account of the happening and quoted those
who had investigated the Lalaurie slave
quarters. This newspaper account roused
public indignation to such a pitch that
on April 15 a mob, led by irresponsibles,
charged the house and began to wreck it.
The rowdies were finally dispersed by a
company of United States regulars who had
been called out by a helpless sheriff.
During the excitement Madame Lalaurie
and her husband took to their carriage
and, with their faithful Creole black
coachman Bastien on the box, swept through
the howling, cursing rabble and, with
the horses lashed to a the full gallop,
made her way out of the city. It is supposed
the carriage reached Bayou St. John where
a lake craft was secured, for on April
21, 1834, the Lalauries were in Mandeville,
across Lake Pontchartrain, at the home
of Louis Coquillon. There Madame Lalaurie
signed a power-of-attorney placing her
son-in-law Placide Forstall in charge
of her affairs, while her husband signed
a similar document in favor of his wife’s
other son-in-law, Auguste de Lassus. From
Mandeville the Lalauries made their way
to Mobile, where a ship took them to France.
Neither Delphine nor her husband ever returned
to New Orleans. She remained in Paris, living
there honored and respected in spite of
the lurid tales that lived after her in
New Orleans. Following her death on December
7, 1842, her body was secretly returned
to New Orleans and buried in St. Louis No.
1 Cemetery.
The Lalaurie mansion was sold to various
owners but the tale that it was ‘haunted’
and the midnight rendezvous for ghosts grew
in the telling as only such stories can
grow. The principal ‘ghost’
is, according to the most frequently quoted
tale, that of a little girl slave who, to
escape the whip of her mistress, climbed
to the roof and jumped to her death into
the courtyard below. Another tale, equally
untrue, was that the mistress of the mansion
buried all her victims in the courtyard
well. The general impression that the place
was haunted was sufficient to keep superstitious
blacks from passing the house after nightfall.
In the days of Reconstruction following
the Civil War, the old Lalaurie mansion
became the Lower Girls’ School. During
the government of the carpetbaggers, whites
and blacks were taught in the same rooms
until the formation of ‘The White
League’ in 1874, when the white element
marched on the house and expelled the black
pupils. In the 1880’s the mansion
became a conservatory of music. No matter
who has lived in it since, or the manner
of business that was carried on in the ground-floor
stores, the name ‘haunted’ has
clung to it in spite of the testimony of
those inhabiting the place that ghosts have
never disturbed their slumbers.
Tradition has it that the handsome entrance
door ‘was hammered out of iron by
the slaves Madame Lalaurie kept shackled
to the anvil.’ This must be taken
with several generous pinches of salt, for
the doors is not of iron but wood and the
decorations on it were not cared but put
on by appliqué, a sort of plastic
wood applied and formed as a sculptor would
lay on modeling clay. These ornamentations
show, in the lower oblong panel, Phoebus
in his chariot, lashing his griffins. Scattered
over the door are urns, flowers, trumpet-blowing
angels, a beribboned lyre, an American eagle
bearing on its breast the shield of the
Union, leaves, scrolls, and whatnots –
a marvelous example of some unknown craftsman’s
art. To save the door from the knives of
souvenir-hunters, one owner painted it a
dingy brown-black.
George W. Cable’s Strange Stories
of Louisiana, and Judge Henry C. Castellanos’
New Orleans As It Was, contain full accounts
of the Lalaurie episode. My account, differing
in many respects from those of these earlier
writers, is based on recently found documents,
notarial acts, and family documents.”
Delphine
LaLaurie and her third husband, Leonard
LaLaurie, took up residence in the house
at 1140 Royal Street sometime in the 1830's.
The pair immediately became the darlings
of the gay New Orleans social scene that
at the time was experiencing the birth of
ragtime, the slave dances and rituals of
Congo Square, the reign of the Mighty Marie
Laveau, and the advent of the bittersweet
Creole Balls. Madame LaLaurie hosted fantastic
events in her beautiful home that were talked
about months afterward. She was described
as sweet and endearing in her ways, and
her husband was nothing if not highly respected
within the community.
At the same time, it is said, Madame’s
friendship with infamous Voodoo Queen,
Marie Laveau, began to grow. Laveau
lived not far from LaLaurie’s
Royal Street home and the two women
became acquainted when Laveau did Madame’s
hair occasionally. It is said that under
Laveau’s tutelage, Madame LaLaurie
began to act upon her latent interest
in the occult, learning the secrets
of voodoo and witchcraft at the hands
of a might mistress of the craft.
There are reported incidents of people
seeing, feeling and hearing the ghosts
of tormented slaves in the LaLaurie home,
and there are even reports of the Madame
herself being seen there. The docile house
servants who entreated the assistance
of outsiders when the house was about
to burn to the ground are said to often
return to their task - running and slamming
doors and shouts are heard repeatedly.
Nor are the spirits of the restless dead
quiet: the reports of moans and weeping
outnumber all others. Furniture moves
about by itself, people feel the touch
of unseen hands, and there are several
who have seen the ghostly faces of the
dead peering from the upper windows and
the chamber of horrors that became the
crucible of their miserable lives.
New Orleans
is one of the oldest and most multi-faceted
cities in the United States, and there are
other tales, similar to those of the LaLaurie
home that, sadly, have made their way into
our history. But the gruesome horror of
this particular event was so ghastly that
it stains the city's memory to this very
day.
More Info and links on New Orleans Most
Haunted House , the Lalaurie House, New
Orleans Louisiana "One of the Most
Haunted Cities in America" .
Located in San Diego, California, the
Whaley House has earned the title of "the
most haunted house in the U.S. Built in
1857 by Thomas Whaley on land that was
partially once a cemetery, the house has
since been the locus of dozens of ghost
sightings.
Author deTraci Regula relates her experiences
with the house: "Over the years,
while dining across the street at the
Old Town Mexican Cafe, I became accustomed
to noticing that the shutters of the
second-story windows [of the Whaley
House] would sometimes open while we
ate dinner, long after the house was
closed for the day.
On a recent visit, I could feel the
energy in several spots in the house,
particularly in the courtroom, where
I also smelled the faint scent of a
cigar, supposedly Whaley's calling-card.
In the hallway, I smelled perfume, initially
attributing that to the young woman
acting as docent, but some later surreptitious
sniffing in her direction as I talked
to her about the house revealed her
to be scent-free."
The Whaley
House is a two-story Greek Revival style
brick residence in San Diego's Old Town,
was designed by Thomas Whaley and completed
in 1857. The home, acclaimed as the "finest
new brick block in Southern California"
by the San Diego Herald, contained mahogany
and rosewood furniture, damask drapes,
and Brussels carpets. Whaley established
his general store in this residence, and
solicited cash customers only. The Whaleys
moved to San Francisco but returned to
San Diego in 1868. Whaley family members
would live in the house for nearly a century.
From October 1868 to January 1869,
the Tanner Troupe Theatre operated out
of the front upstairs bedroom. The San
Diego County Courthouse utilized the
former granary in August 1869 and rented
three upstairs rooms for records storage.
After the establishment of New Town
San Diego by Alonzo Horton in 1868,
the town focus changed to present day
downtown San Diego. During a March 1871
raid, courthouse documents were removed
from the Whaley House and taken to Horton’s
Hall on 6th and F in San Diego. After
the County’s exit, Whaley connected
the former granary and courtroom to
the residence, changed windows and doors,
and altered the front portico.
On October 31, 1956, the County of
San Diego purchased the historic Whaley
House, and undertook a major renovation
of the property, which is still evident
today. In September of 2000 Save Our
Heritage Organization assumed the stewardship
of the property for the County of San
Diego and is in the progress of restoring
the house to its original appearance.
Some of the other ghostly encounters
include: the spirit of a young girl
who was accidentally hanged on the property;
the ghost of Yankee Jim Robinson, a
thief who was clubbed to death and who
can be heard on the house's stairway
where he died, and has sometimes been
seen during tours of the old house;
the red-haired daughter of the Whaley's
sometimes appears in such a realistic
form, she is sometimes mistaken for
a live child. Famed psychic Sybil Leek
claimed to have sensed several spirits
there, and renowned ghost hunter Hanz
Holzer considered the Whaley to be one
of the most reliably haunted structures
in the United States.
Group
Tour Fee Schedule & Procedures
Daytime Groups:
Includes School Groups, Senior Groups,
Prearranged Groups of Children, Disadvantaged
or Disabled Groups.
Minimum 15 people: $2.50 per person.
Call (619) 297-9327 for reservations.
Nighttime
1-Hour Private Tour with Ghost Tour Docent
$75 per person, minimum 2 people, maximum
15 people
Larger groups must submit proposal via
email to group@whaleyhouse.org
After 1 hour: $100/hour per couple. Call
(619) 297-9327 for reservations
More
info on the haunted Whaley House and links
There have
been a number of strange events reported
at the totally unique Winchester House for
many years and they still continue to be
reported today. This Haunting makes the
top ten in the USA , Number 4 Haunted House
in America.
In 1884,
a wealthy widow named Sarah L. Winchester
began a construction project of such magnitude
that it was to occupy the lives of carpenters
and craftsmen until her death thirty-eight
years later. The Victorian mansion, designed
and built by the Winchester Rifle heiress,
is filled with so many unexplained oddities,
that it has come to be known as the Winchester
Mystery House.
Sarah Winchester
built a home that is an architectural marvel.
Unlike most homes of its era, this 160-room
Victorian mansion had modern heating and
sewer systems, gas lights that operated
by pressing a button, three working elevators,
and 47 fireplaces. From rambling roofs and
exquisite hand inlaid parquet floors to
the gold and silver chandeliers and Tiffany
art glass windows, you will be impressed
by the staggering amount of creativity,
energy, and expense poured into each and
every detail.
Many many
psychics have visited the Haunted house,
most have come away actually convinced,
that Sarah Winchester and many other tormented
spirits still wander the Great maze of rooms.
In the years
that the house has been open to the public,
employees and visitors alike have had one
to many unusual encounters with ghost. There
have been the sounds of haunted footsteps;
etheral music and many a banging doors;
too often one hears mysterious echoing ghostly
voices; several unexplainable cold spots;
strange moving lights and orbs in ghost
photos; witnesses have seen doorknobs that
turn by themselves... and don’t forget
the scores of people who have their own
claims of phenomena to report but just are
to afraid to do it.
Tour through
110 of the 160 rooms and look for the bizarre
phenomena that gave the mansion its name;
a window built into the floor, staircases
leading to nowhere, a chimney that rises
four floors, doors that open onto blank
walls, and upside down posts! No one has
been able to explain the mysteries that
exist within the Winchester Mansion, or
why Sarah Winchester kept the carpenters'
hammers pounding 24 hours a day for 38 years.
It is believed that after the untimely deaths
of her baby daughter and husband, son of
the Winchester Rifle manufacturer, Mrs.
Winchester was convinced by a medium that
continuous building would appease the evil
spirits of those killed by the famous "Gun
that Won the West" and help her attain
eternal life. Certainly her $20,000,000
inheritance was sufficient to support her
obsession until her death at 82!
The Behind-the-Scenes
Tour is a guided tour which takes guests
into areas which had been unexplored for
over 75 years. On tour you will learn how
Mrs. Winchester's 160-acre estate functioned.
You will go into the stables, dehydrator,
Plumber's workshop, the unfinished Ballroom,
and one of the basements.
You will
also learn about Victorian architecture
as your guide points out the many features
used in the building of the Winchester mansion.
Safety hats will be worn on the tour. The
Behind-the-Scenes Tour is limited to those
10 and older. Sorry, due to safety concerns,
children 9 and under and babies are not
permitted.
The Winchester
Firearms Museum
The "Gun
that Won the West" is the main attraction
in the Firearms Museum, one of the largest
Winchester Rifle collections on the West
Coast. See the collection of guns that preceded
the famous Winchester Rifle, including B.
Tyler Henry's 1860 repeating rifle that
Oliver Winchester adapted and improved upon
to produce his first repeating rifle, the
Winchester Model 1866. Learn about the Model
1873 which came to be called the "Gun
that Won the West." See a collection
of the Limited Edition Winchester Commemorative
Rifles including the Centennial '66, the
Theodore Roosevelt, and the renowned John
Wayne.
The Winchester
Antique Products Museum
This museum
contains a rare collection of antique products
once manufactured by the Winchester Products
Company, a subsidiary of the Winchester
Repeating Arms Company. In the years following
World War I, the parent company launched
a Post-war Program, aimed at expanding the
manufacture of new products in order to
fill the factory space previously used for
military production. At one time there were
6,300 individually owned Winchester stores
carrying these products, which made it the
largest hardware chain store organization
in the world! The museum now displays items
produced in the 1920's ranging from Winchester
cutlery, flashlights, lawn-mowers, boy's
wagons, fishing tackle and roller skates,
to food choppers, electric irons, and farm
and garden tools.
For more
information about the Mystery House, see
the rather longer review of it in my magazine,
Emerald City. There is also a review
of Tim Powers's excellent book, Earthquake
Weather, which uses the Mystery House and
various other spooky Bay Area buildings
for settings.
More info
and links on the Winchester Mystery House
525 South Winchester Boulevard
San Jose, California
http://www.hauntedamericatours.com/hauntedhouses/winchesterhouse/
http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/
5.The
Stranahan House
The Stranahan
House, Built in 1906, for Pioneer Floridian
Frank Stranahan, This is one of Haunted
Fort Lauderdale's most haunted houses. Built
in 1906, for Pioneer Floridian Frank Stranahan.
Experts have analyzed the unexplained events
at the Stranahan House and have determined
they are "Unexplainable"!
Stranahan
House, located in downtown Fort Lauderdale
on the New River, has been the site most
closely associated with both the founding
of the City and its economic and social
development. Frank Stranahan originally
selected the site because it was where he
operated his barge ferry across the river
as part of the new road from Lantana to
what is now North Miami. Today, Stranahan
House is the eastern anchor of River Walk,
a linear waterfront park connecting Fort
Lauderdale's historic district with the
soon to be created cultural district anchored
by the Performing Arts Center and the Museum
of Discovery and Science.
The Haunted
Stranahan House has served as a trading
post, post office, bank and town hall. Restored
to its 1913, it's a "must see"
in Haunted South Florida.
Frank Stranahan
was born in Vienna, Ohio August 21, 1864.
In 1890, he relocated to South Florida for
health reasons, settling first in Melbourne.
Moving again in 1893, Stranahan relocated
to Fort Lauderdale to assume management
of the overland mail route from Lantana
to Coconut Grove.
Stranahan
established the first post office in Fort
Lauderdale, and the location also became
a popular trading post and ferry service.
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