Ghost Tours of Key West

Karl Kleese

Recently, my wife and myself took a short vacation to Key West, Florida. The weekend before her parents had gone down there and brought us back some brochures on things to do besides making your way up Duval Street and watching the Sunset Shows at Mallory Square. Browsing through all the ads for bars, hotels and swimwear, something caught my eye. A small ad for something called a “Ghost Tour.” I also noticed that there was a website listed with the ad (http://www.hauntedtours.com) and I proceeded to look up any information I could get on the tour.

Teasingly, the website gave little snippets of the tales that you would experience during the tour. It listed stories that were the basis for the tour itself with each one leaving the reader wanting for more. Of course the author of the book and tour founder and leader, David L. Sloan wants it to be just this way. Why reveal all your secrets when you can whet the readers’ appetites and lure them down to take the tour?

That Friday, we made the 200-mile trip down the Overseas Highway to Key West from our South Florida home. After checking into our hotel, we proceeded to make our way up Duval Street to the La Concha Hotel. What better a location, we would learn that evening, than to launch a tour from a hotel that had its very own ghost? We signed up for that night’s tour, paid our $15 and went out to see the other sites that Key West had to offer, but my mind was fixated on my watch the rest of the day.

After working for a cruise line in South Florida for three years, David L. Sloan decided he had had enough of the grind and quit his job in search of something he had experienced in Scotland several years before: on a tour of haunted castles. He was intrigued and decided to look around the eastern United States for a town to start his own tour. At first he thought of Charleston, South Carolina, but much to his dismay, there was already an established tour there and you just don’t hustle in on someone else’s gig. All through that Easter weekend, he wondered what he would do now that he had no job and no town in which to start his dream job. A friend happened to call and ask if he would like to come down to visit him in Key West and that visit ended up being the right twist of fate he needed.

During his visit, talk turned to ghosts and his idea of a tour of haunted places. His friend suggested that he look up something in the local county library because Key West was supposed to have its fair share of ghosts. Seeing that the island was a haven for pirates, wreckers, artists, poets and famous writers and the very fact that the original name of the island Cayo Hueso literally translated into Bone Island, there must be plenty of information from which he could draw material for a good tour.

Much to his disappointment, there wasn’t a book in the library about the ghosts inhabiting the island. But as if events were happening as if predetermined, David ran into an employee that pointed him in the direction he needed to go and brought out a stack of old newspaper clippings about an inch thick. These articles became the basis of his book, “The Ghosts of Key West.” From the book he founded a tour that goes out every night at 8pm from the La Concha Hotel, the tallest building in Key West.

We ate a small dinner at the hotel restaurant and walked over to the lobby to sign in and wait for the tour to begin. A crowd of people had already gathered so my original thought of this being a tour with a few people following someone around Old Town turned out to wrong. The tour is a rather popular attraction on the island. There were 70 people mulling around waiting to sign in and start the tour.

Our attention turned to a man and woman walking into the lobby. The man was dressed in a black cloak and pants, white shirt and was wearing a black top hat. He carried a lantern and a crooked, wooden walking stick. The woman was dressed as if attending a funeral, with black lace mesh covering her face, flowing from the hat she wore on her head. Her nineteenth-century styled dress was frilly but somber in color. The room buzzed with anticipation.

Since there was such a large number of people taking the tour that night, the group was split up into smaller groups, and taking my wife by the hand, I led us over to join David Sloan’s group. I wanted to get the tour straight from the founder and out we went with the twenty others who chose to go with David out into the night.

He warned us that this is a small island and since he had been doing this tour for about two years, the locals sometimes heckle the tour groups and asked if we wouldn’t mind helping him in getting back at the hecklers. If a heckler came by we were to all stop what we were doing, turn and point a finger and shout “You’re doomed!” at the heckler. It seemed like a set up, but it actually added to the fun of the tour, set up or not.

The tour is an hour and a half long, covering about a mile of territory in and around the oldest buildings in Key West’s Old Town district. David wove tales of ghosts and spooky events as well as the architectural history of the points of interest along the way. You could tell by the sparkle in his eye and the enthusiasm in his voice that he truly enjoys bringing to life these tales of lost and recovered love, revenge, and haunted dolls named Robert.

First stop was actually outside the hotel. It seems a hotel worker had met his doom by backing into an empty elevator shaft. Some tell stories of him still being there, walking the halls, others of being in their room or feeling an unseen presence. Next, the tour wanders down Eaton Street, the most haunted street in all of Key West. There the tour takes you through an old churchyard, which was once a cemetery. Years ago, a white goat used to sleep in the churchyard and the people passing by would startle it and the goat would rush off. All the people could see through the brush was a fast moving white object, which they mistook for a ghost. So far, no books have been written on the Goats of Key West.

Through storytelling and knowledge of the past, David Sloan recounts many stories and when possible, shows you actual photographs relating to the story he is telling. The setting at night adds to the atmosphere of the tour. Shadows dance and you wonder if you will actually see something at any of the sites the tour takes you to. At one point after reviewing my videotape, I did notice a vaporous cloud rising up in a quick frame when the video camera was in infrared mode. Whether this was a ghost or just temperature variance, I will probably never really know.

The tales were as varied as the past of Key West. There is the story of a Count’s love for a woman that lasted beyond the grave. Another tale tells of a beloved doll named Robert that supposedly moved from window to window and even had a room in the attic designed specifically for him, right down to the scaled furniture and clothes. Stories of a doctor still worried about his patients, pacing the halls of what was once his house and office. Revenge of old rivals from beyond the grave and suspicious fires. Tales of discovery of skeletal remains in what was the original Sloppy Joe’s bar. Stories of the children that succumbed to disease and their doll that once haunted the Audubon House then mysteriously disappeared.

We covered the ground and the time seemed to pass by entirely too fast. It was hard to believe that an hour and a half had passed by so quickly and before we knew it, it was over. Each person or couple walked off into the night, their minds swirling with the thoughts and stories. It left me wanting for more, which I suppose is the point of a good tour, to whet one’s appetite and bring them back for a second helping in the future.

So if you find yourself in Key West looking for something different to do, past the sunset rituals and festivals, past the bars and shops that line Duval Street, wander over to the La Concha and sign up for the Ghost Tour. It will be a fun experience that will stay with you for years to come. If you’re really daring, ask for a room on the fifth floor of the La Concha. Perhaps you will have a visit from an employee from the past. Oh, and if you happen to visit the East Martello Museum, stop by and visit Robert the doll. Just be sure to take your good camera. Rumor has it that something strange happens to cameras when pictures are taken of him.

Karl Kleese, married with two kids, two dogs and a cat and very little sanity lives in Hollywood, Florida, and works as a pc tech for a local dairy during the day. At night he toils over his weekly cartoon in which he hopes to be syndicated in the near future. Halloween and all things scary are a personal favorite for Karl. He can be reached via email at buddykarl@yahoo.com