Wakulla Springs Lodge

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This 1930’s hacienda-style lodge was built in the swamplands of southern Florida to preserve the natural environment, and to allow society to interact with it in the way the builder and former owner intended. The establishment is rumoured to be haunted, and witnesses have reported seeing a giant stuffed crocodile moving around in its glass case in the entrance hall. Other spooky activity in the building appears to be confined to Room #023, where various strange occurrences have taken place.

(Submitted by Callum Swift)

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Geographic Information

Address:
550 Wakulla Park Drive
Wakulla Springs, FL
United States

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GPS:
30.2337393, -84.3018434
County:
Wakulla County, Florida
Nearest Towns:
Crawfordville, FL (5.9 mi.)
Woodville, FL (6.4 mi.)
Saint Marks, FL (7.6 mi.)
Tallahassee, FL (14.2 mi.)
Panacea, FL (14.5 mi.)
Sopchoppy, FL (16.4 mi.)
Midway, FL (20.2 mi.)
Wacissa, FL (20.7 mi.)
Lloyd, FL (23.7 mi.)
Waukeenah, FL (24.2 mi.)

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Comments (14)

  1. when i was a kid a stayed here and it was haunted, i got touched in the foot and heard a phantom party going on. its has a super weird vibe and i was freaked out by the place.

  2. Tates Hell near Eastpoint, Fla. People have gone in but never come out. It is eary and people that move in from other countries dont understand how Florida works from the past. It is guarded by the past.

  3. My wife and 4 young children (ages 3 to 16) arrived late to check in one night in 2004 on our way to Disney World. It was after midnight, and we were all very tired. After checking in, I lead my family upstairs and down the long hallway to our room. Almost to the room, I looked back to check on my wife and kids as they sluggishly trailed along with their rolling luggage. Past them, back about 40ft and at the hall corner, I saw a 30ish year old man jogging. As he made the corner and headed our way, I alerted my family to move to the side. “What? Why?” they asked. “Stand aside to let this man by y’all, c’mon.” We all watched as the man, dressed in 70’s era jogging gear, complete with sweat bands and knee-high socks, ran past completely oblivious to us and running straight up to the hall door leading to exterior stairs. He stopped there, facing the door, and ran in place as I shuffled my kids into the room.

    My oldest, 16 at the time, was the most disturbed by the incident and sat in the bed, knees tucked into her chest, and bordering tears asked “Can we leave and go somewhere else? Please!”. Just as I finished calming her and explaining that was not possible, after all it was 1:00am, we heard a steady thumping sound outside the door. “WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?!?” my kids yelled. “Shhhh!, It’s just the old pipes I’m sure. C’mon guys! Calm down!” Then after quickly regaining calm from chaos, I offered to open the door and investigate since the steady, rhythmic thumping continued. They agreed, and we all quietly stared at the door as I slowly turned the knob expecting to find nothing and twist back with a “told ya, now let’s go to bed”. Instead, I opened the door and found a young boy, age 6ish, also in 70’s style attire and bouncing an old-time rubber ball – right there in the hallway! “It’s after 1am in the morning! How rude! And where are the parents for God’s sake?!!” I thought to myself. Unaffected by me standing in the doorway just 3 feet and nearly facing him, he just continued to stare down and bounce his ball. Unsure what to think, I turned back to my family inside, and to their terror-struck faces said “ya see, it’s just this boy bouncing his ball.” My oldest let out a shriek, I quickly shut the door, and the bouncing stopped. I opened the door to check on the boy, and he was gone.

  4. My wife and I stayed at this hotel a few years back. When we first entered the room everything looked normal. I began to read the rooms (for lack of a better word) diary that guests could write in. A few of the past guest stated that the room was haunted, but I didn’t think a whole lot of it. We decided to check out the bathroom and spent a couple of minutes in there. As we walked out, I was surprised to see that a chair was moved to the center of the room, right in the line between the entrance door and the bathroom door. There was no way that I would not have noticed or tripped over it in the first look at the room. I also heard what sounded like families walking the halls later that evening, as if going to the springs. The only problem with that is that the hotel was relatively empty. I wanted to leave, but my wife made me stick it out. After an uneasy nights sleep, I was glad to get out of that hotel.

  5. I worked at the Springs a couple of years ago, mostly nights. Almost every time I had to walk by the stairs going up to the second floor, I would stop and look at the landing because I thought someone was standing there. No one ever was.

    • Same thing happened every time I closed down the restaurant. I would Never walk up those stairs at night! In fact I walked on the other side of the lobby to get my distance when I had to walk by them. During the day I always felt like someone was behind me and and was going to push me down the stairs. But I believe I was made aware of this threat by someone warning me not to go upstairs…. someone who had passed.

  6. I went there one evening, en route to Destin I had always at least wanted to see the it. It was booked up that night, so I just walked down to the beach of the spring to see that area. It was dusky and the water was lovely and clear. As it got dark, they had some lights one, not too bright but enough. I pictured the old days as it got a bit darker and as I stood about 10 feet from the edge of the water, suddenly a dark shadow about 3-4 feet tall appeared right at the edge of the water and rushed at me. It all happened so suddenly, I only had time to raise my hands and yell, “No!” The shadow hit me and all the hair on my body stood up, total goosebumps and it jolted me. It really scared me, as I felt like something tried to get ‘inside’ of me. I said a prayer as I backed quickly away from the area, looking over my shoulder to navigate my way back to the lodge. Drove away immediately! Still want to go back somehow, in the daytime, and reflect on my experiences. That was in 2007…….very mysterious place! Now, Ginnie Springs was magical too, but not so spooky!

  7. Our family stayed there in 2014. My daughter and I woke up and we told each other that we both felt like someone had been staring at us all night. We definitely fell a very strange presence the whole night. In many cultures it is believed that disturbing graves is bad, well the spribg was a sacred burial place for Indians and they built the lodge in top of it, so go figure that is how the place became haunted. Beautiful architecture and grounds.

  8. I was sleeping & something pulled my blankets down, like yanked them. They did it twice. Then my spirit popped out of my body and I was frantically…I don’t know how to describe it…I was in a million pieces trying to dance around this spirit. I woke up disturbed but went back to sleep eventually. I dreamed of a little girl drowning. I jumped in the water to save her & I did save her. I held her and told her I used to hold my daughter like I was holding her. I asked her is she was alright or tired & she said, ‘no, I’m not tired’ but she wanted me to hold her. Many dreams about ghosts & packages from the mail that were contaminated & had bad spirits in them. Felt watched constantly…like the people who work there are actually dead.

  9. We just booked in for one night – 3 of us and two rooms. My husband and I went to room 23 oblivious, my daughter had room 36. Her room felt much more welcoming ours was cold and I felt uneasy as I also did along the corridor between our rooms. I looked in the comment book and someone had out friendly ghosts – I thought it was bad handwriting.
    At dinner my other daughter in UK messaged to say hope no one in room 23! We said we were and she told us to ask for a new room. The hotel was fully booked. I couldn’t finish my meal for worry but reception said we could all move into daughters room and they would refund room 23 and apologised which makes me think they must know what goes on in that room. We all moved into room 36 but I have never had such a bad nights sleep and couldn’t wait to leave the lodge.

  10. I woke up and felt like someone came in the room and was staring at us while we were sleeping. Later that night I again was awakened by a presence standing by the bed and putting their hands on my chest. Definitely did not like being by the stairs at night or in the early morning hours.

  11. Christina Gibson  |  

    Your introduction references a giant crocodile moving in it’s glass case in the lobby. That’s Old Joe, killed by a poacher many years ago. He is an alligator, one of an abundance of gators living at Wakulla Springs. Crocodiles are not native to Florida!

    P.S. I was married at the Lodge in 1982. Everyone I’ve met who married there got divorced, myself included.

  12. I just stayed here. A few weird things happened during our stay. When we were walking to our room (no one else was in the hall), we had been talking about how we didn’t believe the creepy stories but RIGHT after we said that we heard two glass bottles (like the older soda bottles) clink together and it sounded as if it was right next to us. Again, no one else was in the halls. When we got to our room I kept seeing something out of the corner of my eye but couldn’t ever see it when I turned my head. When we went to sleep that night I felt a bit anxious and slept with a dim light on. I felt someone staring at me ALL night long. A couple of times when I looked towards the door I saw what appeared to be a man in a top hat staring at me. After a second or two he disappeared. I did not sleep at all!! Also, I was not in room 23 but in a room in the 40s hall. One of the people in house keeping said that the conference room, room 23 and the 40s hall experience a lot of activity. I will go back again but it was truly a restless night.

  13. Stayed there as a kid and after arriving at night it was instantly very spooky to me like being in a twilight zone episode or classic horror film. It was fun and creepy in the best way so I always assumed it had to be haunted without ever hearing anything specific before.

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Disclaimer: The stories posted here are user-submitted and are, in the nature of "ghost stories," largely unverifiable. HauntedPlaces.org makes no claims that any of the statements posted here are factually accurate. The vast majority of information provided on this web site is anecdotal, and as such, should be viewed in the same light as local folklore and urban legends.