Florida Myths and Legends

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Devil's Millhopper Geological State Park in Gainesville

Photo Credit: Jane Dominguez

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The Monticello Opera House

Photo Credit: Monticello Opera House

Take a peek inside Florida's mysteries, myths and legends galore.

A shadowy figure walks to the shoreline of Coquina Beach and vanishes into thin air. A spiritualist camp in Cassadaga is home to dozens of psychic mediums. In Estero, the Koreshan Unity Settlement State Historic Site marks a failed cult that believed the Earth was inside out and the sun was powered by batteries.

Florida is full of bizarre myths, haunted legends and alien lore (Gulf Breeze is the site of a world-famous UFO sighting). I’ll let you judge for yourself ...

The Florida Skunk Ape

The Pacific Northwest has Sasquatch. Florida has the Skunk Ape. Named because of its telltale odor, the Skunk Ape is a hirsute (that’s hairy) biped most frequently spotted in the Big Cypress National Preserve area of the Everglades.

According to Dave Shealy, an expert at the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters in Ochopee, there are between seven and nine Skunk Apes in existence. Shealy has spent 40 years documenting the Skunk Apes’ existence.

A Date with You-Know-Who

Where everything in Florida seems flat, there’s a 120-foot cavity called Devil’s Millhopper Geological State Park in Gainesville. Water trickles into the crater, creating a verdant rain forest.

So how did such a gorgeous place get such a dismal name? The site has attracted curious travelers since the 1880s. The sinkhole is funnel-shaped, 500 feet across and 120 feet deep, resembling the hopper of a mill that farmers used. The animal bones, shark teeth and fossils at the bottom led explorers to believe that this was the mouth of h-e-double-hockey-sticks – hence, Devil’s Millhopper.

Ironically, the air grows cooler and the water flows freely as you descend the 236 wooden steps to the entrance of the netherworld.

The South’s Most Haunted Town

A small town without a single stoplight, Monticello is the picture of rural charm, but its haunted history belies that facade. In 2003, ABC-TV named Monticello “The South’s Most Haunted Small Town.”

Big Bend Ghost Trackers offers tours of the town’s spookiest spots. The Palmer House is considered Monticello’s most haunted. It’s said that Dr. Dabne Palmer, a mortician and physician, can be seen still hanging around his old office.

The Monticello Opera House is reportedly haunted by its founder, John Perkins. Credible witnesses and video evidence have captured him around the theater.

Stay at the John Denham House Bed and Breakfast, named one of the “Top 10 Places to Sleep with a Ghost” by USA Today.

The Legend of Spook Hill

Lake Wales is home to the beautiful Bok Tower Gardens, but for those with a penchant for the peculiar, the city’s most interesting landmark is Spook Hill.

According to legend, a ferocious gator was terrorizing the residents of a Native American village located at the site. The village chief killed the beast in an epic battle. Many years later, carriage drivers named it “Spook Hill” when they noticed their horses struggling to go downhill. Today, motorists claim that their vehicles coast uphill when in neutral. Perhaps this oddity is caused by a certain gator exacting his revenge...

Though gravity hills exist elsewhere, Spook Hill is unique in that the city recognizes it with a road marker and a white line on the pavement, so you can experience the phenomenon for yourself.