St. Augustine isn’t just the oldest city in America — it’s one of the few places where history still whispers from every coquina stone, every alleyway, and every windswept corner of the bay. And where the past refuses to stay quiet… the hauntings begin.

In Part 1 of the Hauntings of the Ancient City trilogy, we explore the origins of St. Augustine’s dark, beautiful, and deeply haunted legacy.

📌 In This Episode:

• The city’s foundations — from Spanish colonists to pirates, plagues, fires, and a centuries-old struggle for survival

• The Castillo de San Marcos — a fortress of war, imprisonment, and legends of ghostly soldiers still walking its ramparts

• The colonial streets of the Old City — where lantern light flickers and footsteps echo long after the tours go home

• The lingering spirits of early settlers, soldiers, and victims of yellow fever who shaped the city and, in many ways, never left

More than just ghost stories, Shadows of the Old City explores why St. Augustine is considered Florida’s most haunted city — a place where the line between past and present blurs, and where every haunting is tied to the people who built, defended, and suffered for America’s first city.

This opening chapter sets the stage for everything that follows in the trilogy:

the fear, the history, the beauty — and the spirits still drifting through the Ancient City.

🎙 Hosted, written, and produced by Joe Turino

🎵 Original theme music by Modern Mimes www.modernmimes.com

🎧 New episodes every other Tuesday

🌴 Photos, extras & links to listen: floweirdapod.com

👻 Stay weird, Florida.

In this final chapter of our Gibsonton trilogy, we leave the bright lights of the midway behind and step into the darkest corner of the carnival world — the story of Grady Stiles Jr., better known as Lobster Boy.

Born into a long line of performers with ectrodactyly — a condition that fused his fingers and toes into claw-like shapes — Grady spent his childhood on the road, earning applause under the big top while living under a very different reality at home. As the years went on, the fame faded, the drinking worsened, and the once-celebrated performer became the center of a violent, spiraling story that would end in one of Florida’s most shocking murder cases.

📌 In This Episode:

• Grady Stiles Jr.’s early life as a carnival child star

• His family’s deep roots in the sideshow tradition

• The years of addiction, domestic violence, and terror behind closed doors

• The murder that stunned the nation — and the bizarre trial that followed

• How this tragedy shook the close-knit community of Gibsonton

Part true crime, part folklore, and part Florida history, this is one of the most infamous stories ever told from the town where “show people” once ruled the winter months.

🔪 A cautionary tale from the darker side of carnival life.

📚 A chapter of Floweirda history you won’t forget.

🎧 If you're enjoying the show…

Follow, rate, review — it helps other weirdos discover Greetings from Floweirda.

🌴 Episode notes, photos & extras:

floweirdapod.com

Instagram: @floweirdapod

🖊️ Written, researched & narrated by Joe Turino

🎵 Original theme by Modern Mimes — modernmimes.com

In this episode, we continue our journey through the extraordinary town of Gibsonton — the legendary winter home of carnival and circus performers. This time, the spotlight narrows to a single man whose influence shaped an entire industry: Ward Hall, the undisputed King of the Sideshow.

For more than six decades, Ward Hall lived a life bigger than any tent he ever stood under. He toured the country with fire eaters, human oddities, illusionists, escape artists, and performers whose acts pushed the limits of belief. His voice became synonymous with the midway, and his knack for storytelling turned the sideshow into an American art form.

📌 In This Episode:

• The early life of Ward Hall and how he found his way into the world of sideshows

• The performers he championed — and the controversies he weathered

• How his showmanship shaped modern carnival culture

• What his legacy means to Gibsonton and the community of “show people”

• Why Ward Hall remains one of the most iconic figures ever to take the stage

It’s a chapter of Florida history filled with pageantry, grit, resilience, and characters you’ll never forget — told through the man who brought them all together.

🎧 If you’re enjoying the show…

Follow, rate, and leave a review — it helps more weirdos discover Greetings from Floweirda.

🌴 Links & Extras:

Photos, episode notes, and more → floweirdapod.com

Instagram → @floweirdapod

🖊️ Written, researched, and produced by Joe Turino

🎵 Original theme by Modern Mimes — modernmimes.com

On this episode, we’re heading down the Gulf Coast to a place unlike any other in America — the town of Gibsonton. Known to insiders as “Gibtown,” this quiet Florida community served as the winter haven and retirement home for circus and carnival performers from all over the world.

Here, giants lived beside alligator wrestlers. Human blockheads shopped at the same grocery store as sword swallowers. Lobster Boy mowed his lawn while the world’s smallest woman waved from the porch across the street. In Gibsonton, the extraordinary wasn’t unusual — it was the neighborhood.

📌 In This Episode:

• The rise of the traveling carnival and how it shaped life across Florida

• How Gibtown became the only U.S. town with special zoning laws for owning circus animals

• The sideshow legends who called it home — from the unforgettable to the infamous

• A deeper look at the humanity behind the “freak show” label, and why this town mattered

• The tight-knit culture of performers who built a refuge for people who didn’t fit anywhere else

Gibsonton isn’t just a footnote in carnival history — it’s a living archive of talent, resilience, and one-of-a-kind lives that shaped Florida’s identity in ways most people never knew.

🎧 If you’re enjoying the show…

Follow, rate, and leave a review — it helps more weirdos discover Greetings from Floweirda.

🌴 Links & Extras:

Photos, episode notes, and more → floweirdapod.com

Instagram → @floweirdapod

🖊️ Written, researched, and produced by Joe Turino

🎵 Original theme by Modern Mimes — modernmimes.com

On this episode, we’re heading to the quiet riverside town of Rockledge, Florida — a place with deep roots, old stories, and one building that locals whisper about more than any other.

Ashley’s Restaurant and Bar looks like a charming, historic pub… until you hear what’s said to linger inside. For decades, staff and guests have reported footsteps in empty hallways, icy touches in the dining room, and a woman’s apparition drifting through the mirrors. Her name is said to be Ethel — and her story is as tragic as it is unforgettable.

📌 In This Episode:

• A brief history of Rockledge — Florida’s oldest planned community

• The chilling backstory behind Ashley’s most famous spirit

• Firsthand accounts from employees and diners who swear the haunting is real

• The residual echoes, intelligent activity, and unexplained events that earned Ashley’s a reputation as the most haunted restaurant in the state

• Why this quiet corner of the Space Coast holds so much lingering energy

Whether you believe in ghosts or just love a good story with your dinner, Ashley’s is a place where the past refuses to stay silent.

🎧 If you’re enjoying the show…

Follow, rate, and leave a review — it helps more weirdos discover Greetings from Floweirda.

🌴 Links & Extras:

Photos, episode notes, and more → floweirdapod.com

Instagram → @floweirdapod

🖊️ Written, researched, and produced by Joe Turino

🎵 Original theme by Modern Mimes — modernmimes.com

On this episode, we’re checking into one of the most iconic — and most haunted — hotels in all of Florida: the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables.

Built during the Jazz Age boom and infused with the grand vision of city founder George Merrick, the Biltmore was once the crown jewel of South Florida luxury. Celebrities, politicians, gangsters, and socialites all passed under its elegant arches. But behind its glamorous façade lies a history shaped by tragedy, violence, and spirits that, according to many, never left the building.

📌 In This Episode:

• The story of George Merrick and the rise of Coral Gables

• How the Biltmore became a symbol of opulence — and eventually, a hotspot for ghost stories

• The infamous murder said to have sparked one of the Biltmore’s most active hauntings

• Paranormal encounters from guests, staff, and investigators

• Why the hotel is still considered one of Florida’s most haunted landmarks

From spectral figures appearing in locked rooms to phantom footsteps in quiet hallways, the Biltmore’s past lingers in ways that are impossible to ignore.

🎧 If you’re enjoying the show…

Follow, rate, and leave a review — it helps other weirdos find Greetings from Floweirda.

🌴 Links & Extras:

Photo galleries, behind-the-scenes notes, and more → floweirdapod.com

Instagram → @floweirdapod

🖊️ Written, researched, and produced by Joe Turino

🎵 Original theme by Modern Mimes — modernmimes.com

On this episode, we’re heading to the edge of the Gulf — to one of the oldest, most storied, and most famously haunted lighthouses in Florida.

The Pensacola Lighthouse has watched over the entrance to Pensacola Bay since 1859. It’s stood through wars, hurricanes, shipwrecks, and generations of keepers who kept its light burning through some of the darkest nights on the Gulf Coast.

But with its history came something else.

Visitors and staff have reported footsteps on empty stairwells… figures at the top of the tower… voices in the keeper’s quarters… and a woman whose presence is still felt long after her death. Some call her the Blue Lady — a spirit tied to one of the lighthouse’s most tragic chapters.

📌 In This Episode:

• The dramatic history of the Pensacola Lighthouse

• The story of the keepers who lived — and died — inside its walls

• The legend of the Blue Lady and the violence that birthed it

• Modern encounters, investigations, and unexplained activity reported today

• Why this site stands as one of Florida’s most active and compelling hauntings

Whether you’re into history, hauntings, or the strange stories Florida loves to keep tucked away, this is one to listen to with the lights off.

🎧 Enjoying the show?

Follow, rate, and leave a review — it helps new listeners find Greetings from Floweirda.

🌴 Links & Extras:

Episode photos, notes, and more → floweirdapod.com

Instagram → @floweirdapod

🖊️ Written, researched, and produced by Joe Turino

🎵 Original theme by Modern Mimes — modernmimes.com

On this episode, we’re heading to the quiet little village of Estero on Florida’s southwest coast — once home to one of the strangest communities in American history.

Before it was a state park, Estero was the headquarters of the Koreshan Unity, a utopian cult led by Cyrus Teed — a self-proclaimed messiah, alchemist, physician, and believer in the Hollow Earth. According to Teed, humanity wasn’t living on the world… we were living inside it.

Under his guidance, hundreds followed him to the swamps of Estero to build a new society: communal living, celibacy, illuminated laboratories, and preparations for a coming apocalypse. Their vision was bold, bizarre, and deeply Florida.

📌 In This Episode:

• The rise of Cyrus Teed — from doctor to prophet

• The Hollow Earth doctrine (and how the Koreshans “proved” it)

• Daily life inside the Koreshan commune

• Their grand attempt to reshape society — and Florida

• The downfall of the movement… and the legacy they left behind

• What remains today in Estero, where the cult’s ghost still lingers in the pines

If you love forgotten history, fringe belief systems, cults, or the Florida stories too strange for textbooks, this is a journey you won’t forget.

🎧 Love the show?

Follow, rate, and review — it helps new listeners discover Floweirda.

🌴 Links & Extras:

Show notes, photos, and bonus content → floweirdapod.com

Instagram → @floweirdapod

🖊️ Written, researched, and produced by Joe Turino

🎵 Original theme music by Modern Mimes — modernmimes.com

Every year since 1904, Tampa explodes into pirate chaos for Gasparilla, the biggest and oldest pirate festival in the world. Cannons fire. Beads fly. And the mythical pirate José Gaspar—the so-called “Last of the Buccaneers”—is celebrated as if he truly stalked Florida’s Gulf Coast.

But here’s the strange part:

Did Gaspar even exist?

In this episode, Joe digs into the tangled history of Tampa’s most beloved legend — a story stitched together with treasure tales, marketing schemes, forgotten folklore, and a whole lot of Florida weirdness.

📌 In This Episode:

• The origins of Gasparilla and why Tampa embraced a pirate that no historian can fully confirm

• The supposed exploits of José Gaspar — raids, kidnappings, and buried treasure

• How a marketing brochure may have shaped a century of Florida myth

• Treasure hunters, island lore, and the places said to hide Gaspar’s gold

• The truth hiding beneath a mountain of pirate pageantry

If you love pirates, Florida folklore, lost treasure, or stories where history and legend blur into something stranger, this is your episode.

🎧 Love the show?

Follow, rate, and review — it helps new listeners discover Floweirda.

🌴 Links & Extras:

Show notes, photos, and bonus content → floweirdapod.com

Instagram → @floweirdapod

🖊️ Written, researched, and produced by Joe Turino

🎵 Original music by Modern Mimes — modernmimes.com

One of Florida’s strangest love stories didn’t happen in a novel — it happened in Key West.

In this episode, Joe travels to the southernmost city in the continental U.S. to unravel the eerie, unsettling, and infamous tale of Carl Tanzler and Elena “Helen” Hoyos — a story that has fascinated and disturbed Floridians for nearly a century.

It’s a tale of obsession, delusion, and the lengths one man went to in the name of “love”… even long after death.

Part Florida history, part gothic tragedy, part true crime, this is one of the Sunshine State’s most bizarre chapters — and it’s one you won’t forget.

📌 In This Episode:

• The real history behind Carl Tanzler

• How a radiology technician became consumed by a vision

• Elena Hoyos, her life, and her tragic early death

• The break-in that shocked Key West

• The aftermath, the trial, and the lingering questions

This is Florida at its strangest — beautifully atmospheric, deeply human, and undeniably unsettling.

🎧 Love the show?

Follow, rate, and review — it helps new listeners discover Floweirda.

🌴 Links & Extras:

Show notes, photos, and bonus content → floweirdapod.com

Instagram → @floweirdapod

🖊️ Written, researched, and produced by Joe Turino

🎵 Original music by Modern Mimes — modernmimes.com