This week I will visit Haunted Houses, it is Howl-O-Ween Week, isn’t it?
Today it will be The Stranahan House in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Seems there are ghosts galore haunting this house. Frank Stranahan was a founding father in Fort Lauderdale. A man of great wealth and prominence, he committed suicide in 1929 after losing his fortune in the stock market crash in 1927 and being held in the grips of the Great Depression that followed.
Stranahan was the first Postmaster in Fort Lauderdale and he established the first banking institution there too. He was on of the largest landowners in the city at the time and donated land for Stranahan Park and for a hospital The Stranahan House began as a Trading Post on the New River and then became home to Frank & Ivy after their 1900 wedding. Ivy continued to reside at Stranahan House until her death in 1971.
It is not just Frank Stranahan who remains an unseen resident at this historic haunted home. As many as six family members have died in the house. The ghost of Ivy Cromartie Stranahan, who died in an upstairs bedroom in 1971, is reported to appear accompanied by the strong scent of an antique fragrance. The uneasy ghost of her father, Augustus Cromartie, who died in that same bedroom years before, is reported to make his presence known on occasion; other ghostly residents include Ivy’s brother and sister and the apparition of an Indian servant girl seen outside the rear of the building.
Tours of the Stranahan House, (which is now a Museum, restored to 1913) are available, so the next time you visit Fort Lauderdale and are in the mood for “haunting” a nice place, come by and meet Frank, Ivy and the rest of the ghostly gang at the Stranahan House.
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