Whether you spend a day or a week or longer on Cedar Key, the easygoing rhythms of the island will remain in your memory. This quaint village is one of the few places left where you can glimpse the Florida of another time. to capture the flavor of this timeless island, there is only one place you need to stay. Motels or cabins are fine for other places but in Cedar Key, the Island Hotel is an intergral part of Cedar Key.

The bar at Island Hotel  Photo credit Martin Walls

The building is drenched in history and lore. Dining in its restaurant will transport you back to the Victorian era. The huge underwater mural behind the bar dates back to the 1930s. The hotel is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. If there were a National Registry of Haunted Places, it would surely be on that, too. Since its construction in 1859, it has played host to many colorful characters: the kind of people who enjoyed life too much to leave it without a fight.

Originally used as a general store and post office, it collected its first ghost shortly before the end of the Civil War when the manager hired a nine-year-old black boy to help around the store. One day he saw the child put something in his pocket; believing the boy to be stealing, the manager chased him. When the manager could not find him and the boy never returned to his job, not too much thought was given the matter. About a year later workers relining the basement cistern made a grisly discovery; the skeleton of a child was found in the cistern. Perhaps as he ran to hide from the angry manager, the child fell into the cistern and drowned. To this day, the spirit of that scared child still hides in the dark basement.

During the Civil War, the hotel was used as quarters for both sides, at different times, of course. It is one of the Southern soldiers who stands guard just inside a door leading to a second-floor balcony. This is the most frequently sighted haunt in the hotel but definitely not the most interesting one.

Over the years the hotel has functioned as many things. It was a brothel and speakeasy during the prohibition years. A holdover from that period seems to be the wandering soul of a prostitute. She never does any harm, just sits on the side of a guest's bed and offers a gentle kiss.

The hotel's lobby

Some of the hotel's reputed 13 ghosts departed life due to foul play. One of these is the spirit of a former owner, Simon Feinberg. Word reached Mr. Feinberg that his manager, W. L. Markham, was operating an illegal whiskey still in the hotel. They met over dinner. Markham professed his innocence. Feinberg fell asleep that night and never awoke. He died of "food poisoning." It was commonly believed Markham was the poisoner. The question of Markham's innocence remained in limbo until 1999. The then owners found remains of circular copper piping that would have been used in a still hidden in the hotel.  Feinberg is believed to roam the hotel, perhaps in search of Markham, but he is quite harmless toward guests.

In 1946 Bessie and Loyal Gibbs bought the then-unlivable hotel and began to revitalize it. Bessie was a flamboyant hostess and drew a clientele of some of the time's most interesting guests. The Neptune Bar downstairs, so named for the mural of King Neptune, was a favorite of actor Jack Palance.  Pearl Buck, Vaughan Monroe, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Francis Langford, Myrna Loy, Richard Boone and John MacDonald were some of the other notables who frequented the hotel during the Gibbs' ownership. Bessie continued to operate the hotel after Loyal's death. After her death in 1975, her spirit appears in what was her quarters when she ran the hotel, room 29.

Today, the Island Hotel is owned and operated by Andy Bair and his wife Stanley. One of the most recent encounters with resident spirits occurred shortly after they bought it. They had been in residence since January of 2004 and naturally had heard stories of strange happenings. Stanley explained to me, "We didn't pay too much attention to them until my daughter had an unnerving experience."

It was in June 2004 when Stanley and Glen had gone to Atlanta for Andy's daughter's graduation. Stanley's 37-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, was minding the hotel for them.  Stanley recalls, "Elizabeth is very level-headed, not given to flights of fancy. She was sleeping in her room in the annex when her cat woke her by pacing over her. She pulled the cat closer to her and then looked up to see what had upset the cat. She saw a man staring down at her."

She pulled the cat close to her for mutual comfort and closed her eyes and somehow managed to fall back asleep. Naturally when she awoke next morning, she told one of the housekeepers. The woman led Elizabeth to a picture in the upstairs hall of the main building. Elizabeth recognized him at once as her nocturnal visitor. It was Mr. Markum, the former manager who may have dispatched his inquisitive employer so many years ago.

The Blairs, their daughter and presumably the cat as well are now firm believers in the hotel's spirit population.

For more information about the Island Hotel:

373 2nd Street • P.O. Box 460
Cedar Key, Florida 32625
Phone 352-543-5111 • Fax 352-543-6949 • Toll Free 800-432-4640

http://www.islandhotel-cedarkey.com/main.html

For more information about haunted places read Hosts With Ghosts: Haunted Historic Hotels in the Southeast.