Est. 1933 · Great Depression Era Commerce · Florida Literary History · Independent Bookstore History
Haslam's Book Store opened in 1933 at the depths of the Great Depression. Mary Haslam began selling handcrafts alongside used magazines, a pragmatic combination for a period when disposable income was scarce but the appetite for affordable reading material was not. What started as a Depression-era hustle grew, over nine decades, into the largest independent bookstore in Florida — more than 30,000 square feet of new and used books in the Grand Central District of St. Petersburg.
The store's literary connections included Jack Kerouac, who spent the final years of his life in St. Petersburg and frequented Haslam's. Staff accounts describe him rearranging his own books on the shelves so they would sit at eye level — a gesture of low-key self-promotion consistent with his public persona. He died in St. Petersburg in 1969.
On March 22, 2020, the owners closed the store citing public safety concerns, a closure initially framed as temporary. It was not. By 2021 the business had been designated permanently closed in online listings. As of October 2025, a Tampa Bay Times report noted that the building's exterior mural had been painted over and signage removed — effectively erasing the store's public identity from the streetscape. The building's future use had not been publicly announced.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haslam's_Book_Store
- https://www.tampabay.com/news/st-petersburg/2024/03/21/haslams-book-store-st-petersburg-closed-sold-history-what-happened/
- https://www.haslams.com/history.shtml
Object movementPoltergeist activity
The paranormal tradition at Haslam's was bookish in character, which is fitting. Books flew off shelves — particularly those in the metaphysical section and those authored by Jack Kerouac. The activity was concentrated enough in those two areas that staff began to distinguish between random shelf disturbances and what they considered intentional displacement.
The Kerouac connection is the most discussed aspect. He was a regular visitor to Haslam's in his St. Petersburg years, and staff accounts describe him physically rearranging his own titles on the shelves. After his 1969 death, the flying-book phenomenon in that section of the store became associated with his continued presence. Whether this represents genuine paranormal activity or the kind of narrative that naturally attaches itself to a famous regular customer is a question the store never had to answer definitively.
The metaphysical section's activity was reported independently of the Kerouac lore — books shifting, reorganizing, or falling without clear cause. No specific historical death or traumatic event was identified as the source of this activity. The Great Depression-era origins of the business provide historical context but not a specific supernatural anchor.
The store closed before any organized paranormal investigation could produce publishable results.
