Old Polk County Courthouse

Florida · USA · Execution site

A boiler explosion in one of the four basements at Bartow, Florida killed a worker. Screams are still reported from the level you can only reach by lift.

The old courthouse at Bartow, Florida was completed in 1909 and now holds the Polk County Historical Museum and Genealogical Library, with the modern courthouse standing across the street. It was the third building to serve as the county courthouse, but only the second raised on this particular plot, the previous one having gone up in 1883.

The building has four basements. One of them can only be reached by lift, and that is where the boiler room is. Many years ago a boiler explosion there killed a male worker.

Staff, cleaning crews and visitors have reported hearing screaming from that level since. It is the kind of report that tends to be dismissed until you learn how the building is laid out: the basement in question is not somewhere anyone wanders into, and the people describing the sound are usually working elsewhere in the building when they hear it. The courthouse now stores the county's own records, which means the documentation of what happened down there is held in the same building as the haunting.

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Wo befindet sich Old Polk County Courthouse?

Old Polk County Courthouse liegt in Florida, USA.