Funk-N-Fiction

Happy Ten Things Tuesday! It’s getting to be spooky season — so let’s go on a 10 stop, virtual ghost tour around the country with awesome cozy paranormal mystery author, Beth Dolgner, shall we?

We’re going on a virtual ghost tour!

Before I began writing paranormal fiction, I wrote paranormal nonfiction. My first book, Georgia Spirits and Specters, is a collection of Georgia ghost stories. That book led to more spooky opportunities, including paranormal investigation and being a tour guide with the Roswell Ghost Tour.

So, today, I’m taking you to 10 of my favorite haunted spots. There’s no need for comfortable shoes or bug spray. Just sit back and enjoy!


1. Lillian Place 1884 Museum

Daytona Beach, Florida

If you’re heading to Coastal Magic Convention in Daytona Beach, make sure you stop by the town’s oldest beachside house. This 1884 Victorian home is haunted by a mysterious “woman in white.” Known as Lucy, she’s a gentle spirit, and perhaps she’s keeping an eye on some spectral children: visitors report hearing their laughter. Are they the ones turning the lights off and on?

Although the home was abandoned for a few years, it has been elegantly restored. Now, you can take a tour there, though there’s no guarantee your guide will be of the ghostly persuasion!


2. St. Augustine Lighthouse

St. Augustine, Florida

The beautifully maintained St. Augustine Lighthouse and adjacent lighthouse keeper’s home were built in 1874 and 1876, respectively. One of the most prevalent stories about this spot is the report from people hearing or even seeing phantom children out on the grounds. My own story, though, is downright funny.

There was a fairly large group of us the night I was there for some ghost hunting, so we were taking turns with the investigative aspects of the night. When we got to the basement of the keeper’s home, I sat on the floor, near the back of the group, to watch those who were doing the investigating at that time.

I leaned back slightly and felt my husband’s legs behind me, giving me a bit of a back rest. At one point, I craned my neck to look up at him, preparing to make a comment, and stopped short. He was standing about four feet away! No one was behind me, so I don’t know who or what I’d been leaning against! My facial expression was so shocked that everyone burst into laughter. It’s proof that, often, paranormal activity isn’t scary. Rather, it’s simply surprising.


3. 17Hundred90 Inn and Restaurant

Savannah, Georgia

When I set out to write my Betty Boo, Ghost Hunter paranormal cozy mysteries, I knew Savannah would be the setting. After all, the town claims to be the most haunted in the United States.

One of the earliest ghost stories I learned about Savannah even made it into book one, Ghost of a Threat. The 17Hundred90 Inn and Restaurant is a lovely place in the historic district. The 1790 building is allegedly haunted by the ghost of a woman named Anna who once lived there. Her love was a sailor, and she waited in vain for him to return from sea, until one day, she jumped out a window in her grief.

That’s one version of Anna’s story, at any rate. What we know for sure is that there’s a lot of paranormal activity attributed to her ghost, particularly in room 204. Guests will report having their clothing or jewelry moved from one spot to another, feeling movement on their bed in the middle of the night, or waking up to find the faucet in the bathroom running full blast. Would you want to spend a night with Anna’s ghost?



4. The Plaza Theatre

Atlanta, Georgia

Someone I couldn’t see brushed a hand along my leg while I sat in the upstairs screening room at The Plaza Theatre in Atlanta. After it opened in 1939, the Art Deco venue went through a lot of ups and downs. These days, it’s best known for showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show on the weekends and being a place that offbeat films can find an audience.

I investigated there many years ago, and while I don’t know what touched me that night, the entity responsible might have shown up on our video cameras! A camera set up at the back of the upstairs screening room showed nothing but hours of an empty theatre, except for one moment, when a human-shaped shadow leaned into view, then backed away. Not a single living person was in that room at the time. Did we catch my friendly ghost on film?



5. Hotel Villa Convento

New Orleans, LA

I would be remiss if I didn’t include a haunted tour stop in New Orleans! My favorite place to stay there is Hotel Villa Convento. This quirky, family-run hotel is in a home built around 1833. The land was purchased from the Ursuline nuns, whose convent still stands directly across the street.

In the years following the Civil War, the home was most likely a brothel. What would the nuns have thought? Later, it became apartments before turning into a hotel. While its most famous guest, Jimmy Buffet, doesn’t haunt the place, it does seem that a former brothel madame is still there. People hear knocking on their door, and some men have seen a woman in black standing next to the bed.

Add in people hearing flirtatious women’s voices and the sounds of, ahem, ladies of the night plying their trade, and it seems that the bordello days are still going strong, even in the afterlife!



6. The Bird Cage Theatre

Tombstone, Arizona

The former Wild West town of Tombstone, Arizona, inspired my Nightmare, Arizona paranormal cozy mysteries. Allen Street is the historic heart of the old silver mining town, and the buildings there all look like they’re from the late 1800s. However, most are from early 1900s (Tombstone caught on fire a lot), and they were given their Wild West overlay in the 1920s. Even a century ago, tourists wanted that “authentic” experience, even if it wasn’t quite real!

A building on Allen Street that is original is The Bird Cage Theatre, Tombstone’s most notoriously haunted spot. When the silver mines flooded in 1889, Tombstone turned into a ghost town almost overnight. The owners of the Bird Cage were optimistic that the mines would reopen, so they simply locked the doors and prepared to wait for that day.

That day never came, and it wasn’t until 1934 that the Bird Cage’s doors opened again. Inside was a time capsule: everything had been left just as it was in 1889! Today, the theatre is a museum, but those original touches are still there: the wallpaper, the stage curtains, the posters for the last show ever performed there, and even some bullet holes in the walls!

When the TV show Ghost Hunters went to Tombstone, the hosts—Jason and Grant—saw the full-body apparition of a woman in period clothing walking down the stairs into the basement. Known as The White Lady, she’s most often seen on the stairs or backstage. A man in suspenders and a dark visor is often seen walking through the building, too.

Not surprisingly, the energy of the place lingers in the form of sounds and smells. People report hearing music, laughter, and yelling, or they’ll catch a whiff of cigar smoke or whiskey. There are even the sounds of clinking glasses or what sounds like a round of poker being played.


7. The Surly Wench Pub

Tucson, Arizona

The Surly Wench Pub is one of my favorite places in Tucson. Located on historic 4^th Avenue, the bar is an offbeat place with friendly staff and plenty of ghosts. The building originally housed a Piggly Wiggly supermarket, but in the 1970s, it became a nightclub. Among the names it had back in those days was the delightful “Choo-Choos.”

The women’s bathroom is one of the most haunted spots. Some people smell smoke and report it to the staff, worried something is on fire. However, it appears to be a phantom smell, left over from a fire that ripped through the basement decades ago. If you go into the basement, you can still see the charred support beams today.

The mother of one of the owners also had an unsettling experience in the bathroom: while she was inside a stall, she heard a girl’s voice whisper right into her ear! Needless to say, she quickly wrapped up her business and hightailed it out of there.

One of my favorite stories about The Surly Wench comes from one of the owners. She’s often there by herself, before the place opens, and she repeatedly hears heavy footsteps walking from the back door, right past the kitchen door and the bar. The first time it happened, she thought it was a delivery person bringing a package, but when she looked, no one was there. Eventually, she realized it’s what’s known as a residual haunting: the same thing happening, over and over, on a loop. Perhaps it’s a former Piggly Wiggly manager, still coming to work each day?



8. Acadia Ranch

Oracle, Arizona

Acadia Ranch originally opened in 1885 as a place for travelers to stay as they were passing through the tiny town of Oracle, located in the foothills 35 miles north of Tucson. However, as the tuberculosis epidemic grew throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s, Acadia Ranch was converted to a tuberculosis sanitorium.

Many of those suffering from the disease headed west, seeking a drier climate that might ease their lungs. In fact, Arizona was able to apply for statehood because the number of tuberculosis patients moving there finally gave the territory a big enough population for statehood eligibility.

I had the opportunity to sit down with two investigators from AZ Ghost Adventures, who have visited Acadia Ranch many times. One touching moment came when they were inside a detached shed, which used to house pregnant tuberculosis patients. The group had an EVP session, where a tape recorder is used while asking questions of the ghosts. You may not hear an answer to the questions with your own ears, but the tape recorder can often pick up things we can’t hear ourselves. That was the case in the maternity shed. An investigator asked, “Where are your babies?” On the tape recorder, a clear voice answers, “I am with them.”

There’s also a ghost, called Charlie, who is, to be frank, a bit of a dirty old man. He used to touch one of the female investigators inappropriately, like grabbing the inside of her thigh. Now, that investigator shows up armed with a cigar and some rum as a peace offering for Charlie. Since then, he’s left her alone!



9. The Winchester Mystery House

San Jose, California

I absolutely love the Winchester Mystery House. Construction started on this sprawling mansion in 1886 and continued until the widowed owner’s death in 1922. According to the stories, a medium told Sarah Winchester that she would be haunted by the ghosts of those who were killed with her husband’s legacy, the Winchester rifle. The medium suggested that only by continuing construction on her new home could she keep the restless spirits at bay.

Was the medium sincere, or did she have a relative in the construction business? Or, was Sarah Winchester a woman who loved architecture and had a lot of money to spend? Whatever the truth may be, the house really was under construction for years, creating a confusing yet stunningly elegant home.

The paranormal activity is a lot more subtle than the architecture: phantom footsteps, cold spots, and doors opening and closing by themselves are the most prevalent reports. Some people have also reported glimpsing shadow figures throughout the sprawling mansion.



10. Edinburgh Vaults

Edinburgh, Scotland

That’s right, this is an international ghost tour! In 1788, living conditions in Edinburgh were dismal. Narrow streets, no sanitation, lots of diseases with no cure… you get the idea. Now, picture facing all of those things while living inside an enclosed stone bridge, and it’s no wonder the Edinburgh Vaults are haunted.

The vaults are really the interior of a tall bridge, whose stone support arches were enclosed, allowing vaults to be built within. Originally designed for storage, the vaults became home to thousands of people who lived in the dark labyrinth.

Stories of apparitions inside the Edinburgh Vaults abound. They range from an aristocratic gentleman to a cobbler, who is still plying his trade in the afterlife. The most notorious spirit is known simply as “Mr. Boots” because of the tall leather boots he wears. That ghost is known to be aggressive, so you might feel like Mr. Boots is breathing down your neck if you stray into his territory!



Thanks for coming along on this virtual ghost tour! Stay spirited, my friends!