Moment in Oddity - Mongolian Death Worm (Suggested by: Michael Rogers)
The Gobi Desert is located in Southern Mongolia and Northwestern China. The land is stony and is almost waterless, save for some salt marshes. It is an extreme desert with temperatures ranging from -40 F in the winter and climbing to 113 F in the summer. Various animals call the desert home, ranging from camels, gazelles, wolves and snow leopards just to name a few. There is a most unique creature however that also calls this desert home. The Mongolian Death Worm. The worms are said to look like a sausage and range from 2-5 feet in length. Mongolians say that the death worms are able to kill from a distance by spraying venom at its prey or by means of an electrical discharge. The locals call it olgoi-khorkhoi which roughly translates to, "large intestine worm". It is said that there is no discernable head or tail and that the creature lives underground most of the time with the exception of summer when the creatures rise out of the sand to attack and kill. Their diet consists of prey based upon the size of the death worm. Prey items range from lizards and Fennec Foxes all the way up to villagers and camels when the worms are full grown. The bright red worms are feared by Mongolians and in the region, everyone knows someone who has encountered the terrifying creatures. This deadly cryptid has been entrenched in Mongolian folklore for centuries. Whether a mythical creature or not, the Mongolian Death Worm certainly is odd.
This Month in History - Inventor of Basketball Born
In the month of November, on the 6th, in 1861, James Naismith, the inventor of the game of basketball was born. He was a Canadian-American physical educator, physician, Christian chaplain and sports coach. Prior to inventing the now beloved game, Naismith studied and taught physical education at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He moved to Springfield, Massachusetts in 1890 and in 1891 he invented the game of basketball. His brainchild came about due to the need to keep athletes in good shape during winter weather where outdoor winter exercise was more difficult. In 1894, he wrote the first "Basket Ball" rule book (so spelled at the time). Naismith then moved from Massachusetts to Denver where he received his medical degree. Later, he moved on to the University of Kansas to become the Jayhawks athletic director and coach. Due to James Naismith's passion in physical education and his invention of the game of basketball, the sport was introduced at the Olympic Games of 1936 and according to the International Basketball Federation, over 450 million people worldwide take part in the sport today.
Historic Tampa Bay Hotel (Suggested by: Kathy and Gavin Thomas)
The historic Tampa Bay Hotel is stunning and very different from its surroundings. Downtown Tampa Bay pierces the skyline with skyscrapers and other elements of the typical metropolis concrete jungle. The old hotel features Moorish and Turkish architecture. The minarets that grace several towers seem out of place on this coastal tourist destination. The hotel is now a part of a university campus and thus the interior has been altered greatly, but there is still enough of its past to call back to a bygone era of glitz and Victorian sensibilities. Including a few ghosts. Join us for the history and hauntings of the historic Tampa Bay Hotel!
Floridians know Plant City, Florida for its strawberries. The Strawberry Festival is held here for eleven days every February and March. A Native American village was once located here and it was called Ichepucksassa, but by 1860 the name had changed to Cork in honor of the postmaster's hometown. When the South Florida Railroad arrived in 1884, the town was incorporated and renamed to Plant City for Henry B. Plant. Plant brought so much growth and success to the state of Florida that he was called the "King of Florida." This was probably much to the chagrin of Henry Flagler who was a rival and friendly competitor to Plant. That rivalry was to the benefit of the state as the men competed regularly to better each other when it came to building railroad lines and hotels.
Henry Plant was born on a Connecticut farm in October of 1819. He grew up in a Puritan family, mostly raised by his mother and step-father as he lost his father at the age of six to typhus fever. The disease also killed his sister. His first job was as a captain's boy on a steamboat and the ships he worked aboard traveled from New Haven to New York. One can imagine that seeing the big city after spending his early life on a farm really left an impression on him. Plant was really good at this shipping business and he worked his way up the ranks. He married Ellen Blackstone in 1842 and the couple would have two children, with only one surviving to adulthood.
In 1854, the family moved to Augusta, Georgia because Plant was elevated to management over the Adams Express Company's southern division. This meant he oversaw shipping between South Carolina and Georgia. The company was flourishing, but talk of war in 1861 made the company uncomfortable having a stake in the south. Henry proposed an option to the company. He told them he would gather investors and purchase the company and Adams Express agreed to sell. This was Plant's first of many companies that he would own. And while getting the company was great for Plant, his personal life took a hit when his wife Ellen died of tuberculosis shortly after the sell. Plant managed to keep the company prosperous through the Civil War and then he returned to New York.
Henry married Margaret Loughman in 1873 and he proceeded to get very involved with the railroad. He made investments here and there as he learned the ropes and in 1879 he purchased his first railroad and renamed it the Savannah, Florida & Western Railway. Plant continued buying lines and linking them and he worked his way down through Florida, reaching Central Florida in 1882. Here he formed the Plant Investment Company, known as PICO, and he brought on investors that included Henry Flagler. Flagler was also a board member of the company. By 1884, Plant had connected Tampa to the rest of the eastern seaboard, laying more than 1200 miles of tracks.
Clearly shipping was a big thing for Plant, but with that also came travel and tourism. So his next focus would be on not only making travel by steamboats and railway more luxurious, but he wanted to build grand hotels. Tampa seemed like a good place to focus his attention. Plant dug out the channel to create Port Tampa and made it a major transportation hub. This travel would include the Gulf and the Caribbean and Plant even got the mail contract for the West Indies. This network came to be known as the Plant System and was more successful than Flagler's efforts. Lumber, citrus, celery and phosphate industries flourished and Plany wooed to cigar industry to come to Tampa. Ybor City became its headquarters.
When it came to hotels, there was no stopping Plant. He built eight luxurious hotels in western Florida, rivaling Flagler's hotels on the east coast in places like St. Augustine. The first hotel he built was the Inn at Port Tampa in 1888. His finest and most opulent hotel would be the Tampa Bay Hotel. Before building the Tampa Bay Hotel, Plant needed some concessions from the city with the main one being a bridge. In order for the hotel to be linked to the downtown area, a bridge needed to be built across the Hillsborough River. The city agreed to build the bridge and Plant also managed to get them to agree to property taxes that would be under $200 a year. Construction began in 1888. The hotel would take two years to complete and cost $3 million including all the furnishings inside. The hotel was 1/4 mile long and covered 6 acres. Poured concrete was used and floors were reinforced with rails and cables.
Architect John A. Wood was hired by Plant to design and build the hotel. Wood began his career in New York. The design he came up with for the hotel is hard to peg down. The hotel is clearly Romantic architecture, which liked to blend older architectural styles like Gothic Revival. But its the presence of onion domes and minarets gave it a Moorish and Turkish feel as it reflected elements found on places like the Taj Mahal. The structure catches the eye as Kelly and I explain as we share about the first time we saw the hotel. The hotel has six minarets, four cupolas, and three domes. The hotel is graced with long verandas and the front entrance is really interesting because Victorian gingerbreading decorates the front. The western veranda opens up into the music room and grand parlor. Giant windows are how the veranda is connected and they were all open when we were there. The ceilings are domed and the music room has a small hardwood stage with balconies on each side. An orchestra regularly performed in here. Directly north of the main building was a dining room that could hold 650 people and it was considered the most elaborate room in the hotel. The room is ringed with carved mahogany balcony box seating and the ceiling is painted like a clouded sky. Eight course meals were served in the dining room. There was a billiards room, barbershop, beauty shop, shoeshine service, flower shop and all guest rooms had electricity and telephones and most had private bathrooms. There were 511 rooms when it opened in 1891. Florida's first passenger elevators were at the Tampa Bay Hotel. There were two of them and one still works today.
The entire hotel, with its very long hallways, features Moorish archways in all openings. The interior was described as "a jewel casket into which has been gathered an infinite number of gems." There were Venetian mirrors, which still hang in the hallways and as Kathy pointed out, many dangerously face each other. At least dangerous in a hotel that is reputedly haunted because we know how those pesky mirrors can be portals and facing each other isn't great. The furnishings were as exotic as the exterior and sculptures were handpicked in Europe by the Plants. It always amazes us when we think about them shipping these things over from Europe.
The hotels vast grounds featured gardens and hosted croquet, tennis, shuffleboard and races. There was a golf course and the hotel offered diversions like fishing and wild game hunting. There were also carriages and bicycles for rent. Grand balls and concerts were hosted on the regular and tea parties crowded the vast verandas. The Tampa Bay Casino was also here and could seat 2,000 people for performances by John Philip Sousa and Sarah Bernhardt. The Casino had a spa and heated indoor swimming pool. The entire property boasted 21 buildings. It really must have been something to see and experience in its day.
During the Spanish-American War, the United States made plans to invade Cuba. Plant wanted Tampa to be utilized to carry this out and he sent his friend Franklin Q. Brown to Washington to show legislators how well Tampa would work as a port to launch the military campaign. This plan highlighted the Plant System, which was already running ships to and from Cuba and the port was linked to everywhere via the railroad. It really was a no-brainer and the Tampa Bay Hotel became the headquarters for the U.S. Army. Everyone connected to wars were brought here from war reporters to military officers to Red Cross personnel. Some of the military stationed here were Colonel Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders. The grounds were used for battle exercises and Teddy had one of the grand suites for his stay. The war was often referred to as the "Rocking Chair War" in Tampa because people could see all the officers sitting on the veranda in rocking chairs discussing strategy. The war lasted for 10 weeks.
Plant died in 1899. There is a really cool sculpture and fountain at the entrance to Plant Park. Margaret Plant commissioned the piece after her husband died and its called "Transportation." The design features trains and ships and an eagle holding a strongbox with The Southern Express Company's logo. This sculpture was crafted from solid stone by George Grey Barnard. The sculpture is the oldest public art in the city of Tampa. Plant's heirs sold the Tampa Bay Hotel to the city in 1905. The hotel ran through 1930 and hosted well known people like the Prince of Wales, the Queen, Winston Churchill, Clara Baton, Stephen Crane and Babe Ruth who hit his longest home run during a spirng training game at the adjacent Plant Field. He also signed his first baseball contract in the Grand Dining Room. The reason the hotel closed was that the Great depression hit it hard. The beautiful building just sat vacant for three years and then in 1933, the Tampa Bay Junior College moved in. Suites were turned into classrooms and laboratories. The junior college eventually became the University of Tampa. When the city signed the lease with the college in 1941, it designated that the southeast wing would be reserved as a museum. This became the Tampa Municipal Museum that is today the Henry B. Plant Museum. The entire building is known as Plant Hall. *Fun Fact: The first internationally recognized black fashion designer was Ann Lowe. She had a dressmaking salon in Tampa from 1915 to 1927. She crafted a number of formal dresses for things like the Gasparilla Court. They have three of her gowns at the museum.*
It's good that they opened the museum because the upper floors that we ventured to retained none of their historic value. Just industrial carpet and paint. We were at the hotel to take part in what was dubbed Eerie Eving at the Tampa Bay Hotel. There was period lighting and decor with displays featuring Victorian practices around death, including burial and seances, and there were stories featuring monsters, crime and we were even graced by the presence of Edgar Allen Poe. As we ventured from room to room, we got to see various artifacts from the hotel's past and we learned that the conductor of the orchestra was Giovanni Tallarico who emigrated from Calabria, Italy to the United States. You've probably never heard of him, but you have heard of his grandson, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. A prominent picture features Tallarico with his orchestra in 1909. The family is made of a long line of musicians as Steven's dad also became a conductor with his own orchestra and Tyler learned how to play the drums so he could play in that orchestra.
Our friends and Executive Producers Kathy and Gavin Thomas joined us and so, of course, we brought a few pieces of handheld equipment to do a little investigating because we had heard the hotel was haunted. The most prominent ghost here belongs to Henry Plant. He has been nicknamed "The Brown Man." People see his full bodied apparition and describe him as tall with long white hair and mustache and red eyes. He is in a brown suit, hence the name. A student was once rushing to her class when she turned the corner into one of those long hallways and she saw a tall man in a period brown suit at the end of the hallway. He was a bit shadowy and she couldn't make out the face because of a shadow cast by a wide brimmed hat he was wearing. She quickly realized that this was a spirit because she noticed that he was floating several inches off the ground. He raised his head and she swore that his eyes were glowing red. Then he disappeared. When she got to class late, she decided to tell the truth as to why she was late and the professor actually said that this wasn't the first time he had heard this excuse. And he believed it, so he excused her.
That woman was lucky as many stories claim that the spirit rushes people when it is acknowledged. He disappears just before he makes contact. Another student was studying one evening in an empty classroom and he heard the door creak open. He expected to see someone come in, but nobody entered and then he heard disembodied footsteps approaching him. The sound stopped just before he was reached. The student gathered his books and left quickly. People who work in the building don't make eye contact if they see the spirit to avoid having him rushing them and they tell visitors to do the same.
Another spirit here is said to belong to an actress named Bessie. And boy, have we heard this story before a few dozen times at different locations. Apparently she was staying at the hotel and caught her husband cheating with one of her castmates. When Bessie got back to her room, she killed herself, although some accounts claim she hanged herself at the Falk Theater and yet another says she took a swan dive to her death off the top of the ballroom. Now her spirit lingers in rooms at Plant Hall and is sometimes heard screaming. She is the lady in red because she is seen wearing a scarlet dress. There are also urban legends about students who have died and haunt the place. Tim and Terry were fraternity brothers who lived on the fourth floor of the hall when it was a dorm. They died within two years of each other. Their spirits are blamed for putting the Greek letters of their fraternity on one of the doors that is the employee entrance to the financial aid office.
Kathy told us that she had felt weird in a far back room, so we headed there to see what we would feel. (Kathy Room) So I usually don't feel stuff, but I immediately went dizzy when I crossed the threshold. And Kathy is sensitive and she felt nauseous. Kelly felt pressure for sure. There are many artifacts that are personal to the Plant family. Kathy had a spirit box app opened on her phone and she was getting words like (Kathy Words - hiding, mummy, painful, damnation) One case had a lock of hair from Amy Plant and Kelly had her EMF outside the case and it kept pegging to yellow. Then we went down to a room with a bunch of instruments in it. Kelly's EMF went to yellow and stayed. We had an interesting interaction then. (Whats the Box)
We entered what had been a gentlemen's parlor and later became the writing and reading room and Edgar Allen Poe shared some information with us. (Edgar) Loved how the picture was a scandalously clad woman and she basically was wearing pants and a low cut shirt. We didn't get much other than the EMF pinging a few times and some of those interesting words, but we definitely would love a chance to do a real investigation in the place where we could break out all the equipment. So we couldn't say for sure that the place is haunted, but plenty of other people think so. Here are some more stories.
A student named Davis Owens said, "Late at night it’s eerie, like someone’s watching you, especially by the mailroom where that hallway narrows on the second floor." Another student named Patrick Tretola said, "When we were coming down from the fifth floor, we felt a push." Other students claim that the building gets unnaturally cold. Theater professor Michael Staczar claimed that he had a very weird encounter and shared, “This cloud of mist… fog, and it was obvious that there was some kind of physical shape to it. And as soon as I saw it, it literally sucked into the wall,” he told an online reporter. “It wasn’t a trick in the light. It was very obvious that it was some kind of shape, a physical shape. There was a presence there… a faint outline of a human body.”
Tour guides in the city share on ghost tours that a student was trying to turn in a paper late, so they figured they would slide it under the door of their professor's office, which was in Plant Hall. The student slid the paper under, stood up and turned around and there standing in the hall looking on with disapproval was Teddy Roosevelt. The student ran screaming. 2Stoned2Feel9 wrote on Reddit, "Plant Hall is extremely haunted. I was in a sorority and always hated being in Plant for recruitment because we had to be there late at night and weird stuff always happened. Doors slamming with no one around, footsteps when you know nobody is upstairs, that sort of thing. I don’t remember a lot of specifics because it was 5+ years ago now, but I know that place gives me the creeps after dark!"
L. Powell IV wrote on the Southern Spirit Guide website in 2018, "I received an anonymous comment telling a chilling story. This has been edited for clarity. Several years ago, my husband and I were vacationing and visiting my sister in Florida. On one afternoon we were looking for something to do and my sister suggested we check out the Plant Museum in Tampa. My husband knew I loved architecture and especially grand,old, buildings. I was very excited. We went in and began walking around. I could just imagine what it must have been like in its heyday. I saw the grand staircase and couldn’t help but walk up several flights ahead of my husband. Then I came to a strange hallway that seemed out of place and as I started walking down the hallway, I felt uncomfortable and I felt just a little bit cold (I thought probably because of all the windows). I felt I had gone to a part of the building that was off-limits to the public and decided to turn back. My husband was still on the first floor. As I headed toward the top of the stairway of the third-floor landing, I felt that there was a young girl in a long, white dress nearby. I think I sensed her on the way up too, but I thought I must have quite a vivid imagination and tossed it aside. Then I reached the top of the stairway and looked down the 3 flights and I heard a man whisper, 'Go ahead, why don’t you just jump?' I ignored it and heard it again. 'Why don’t you just jump?' This scared the hell out of me. The railing I was clutching now seemed so flimsy and low to my body that I could easily fall right over. I felt dizzy and very frightened. I held the railing deliberately and I kept my grip all the way down until I made my way back to my husband. I told him, 'I want to leave this place, now!' In the car, on the way back to my sister’s house, I explained what happened. This experience has stayed with me for years even though I have put it out of my mind. Recently I saw something on TV today that reminded me of it again. That’s when I decided to look up the history of the Plant Museum and found this web site with the two things I remembered most; the grand stairway and that cold corridor. Does anyone know if, in the history of the hotel, did a young girl, maybe 12-14 years old, fall to her death there? Or commit suicide?"
This hotel is simply magnificent for just the architecture alone, but one can image a time when officers sat on rocking chairs on the veranda or women gathered around tables for tea parties. In the distance, one might here the sounds of the racetrack or hear croquette balls being hit. The Gilded Age really enjoyed itself in Tampa and perhaps that is why spirits linger. Is the Tampa Bay Hotel haunted? That is for you to decide!