Welcome to Key West, where great writers like Ernest Hemingway used to mingle with the lord of the criminal underworld, like Al Capone. It’s here that 300-year-old Spanish forts stand right alongside shiny and new coffee shops. And where, when the tide is just so and the moon full, it’s where the spirits of the dead mingle with the living.
If you’re ready to see a different side of Sunny Florida, join US Ghost Adventures on a haunted tour of the Crowne Plaza at La Concha Hotel in Key West. This historic, 100-year-old building is home to more stories than you can imagine. And it’s waiting to tell you.
Do you have the guts to listen?
Luxury and Vengeance
In the beginning, Key West was designed to be a lap of luxury on the Florida panhandle. By the late 19th century, it was the wealthiest city in the whole state, becoming a Mecca for tourism in the US South.
It hosted a major naval base, and the cigar-making and salt mining industries kept the city floating on a raft of cash. But not all was sweet and sunny, especially at La Concha Hotel.
An architect named Carl Aubuchon began to build La Concha in the 1920s. It was the jazz age, gin was flowing, and the intelligentsia set like Tennessee Williams and Dorothy Parker started coming to Key West. Aubuchon wanted to give them somewhere to go.
La Concha became the first luxury hotel in the city when it opened in 1926. All was happy and well until the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, which swept across the city with a vengeance.
Hundreds of Key Westers perished in the wind and rain, and the storm destroyed the railway, which brought people in and out of the city.
The event slashed La Concha’s guest list, and it began to fall into disrepair. This time was around when rumors of strange activity began.