Broward County's oldest school building, opened in 1918 at the edge of the drained Everglades, where staff still hear footsteps on an empty second floor
6650 Griffin Rd, Davie, FL 33314
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Museum tours available; see olddavieschool.org for current admission pricing
Access
Limited Access
Two-story historic school; original interior staircase; second floor not wheelchair accessible
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1918 · Broward County's oldest existing school building · National Register of Historic Places (1988) · First permanent school in Florida Everglades drainage area · Designed by architect August Geiger
When Broward County drainage engineers began opening the eastern Everglades to agriculture in the early twentieth century, the settlements that appeared along the new canals needed schools. The Old Davie School, designed by Miami architect August Geiger and completed in 1918, was built to serve this frontier community — children of the farmers and laborers who were transforming marshland into the tomato fields and horse country that still define central Broward.
Geiger was among the more significant architects working in early South Florida; his commissions included several Miami buildings and projects connected to the early development of the region. The two-story school he designed for Davie was functional and durable — the first permanent school structure in this particular section of the drained Everglades, and one that would outlast the community institutions around it by more than a century.
The building served as an active school through 1980. Over the following two decades, it functioned as a town hall and community meeting space, was designated as a hurricane shelter during storm seasons, and housed Broward County School Board administrative offices. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. The Town of Davie purchased the property in 1998, and after a decade of preparation and restoration, reopened it as the Old Davie School Historical Museum in 2008.
Sources
The Old Davie School Historical Museum has attracted paranormal investigators because its staff witnesses are unusually specific about what they experience. Education Director Kim Weismantle describes a recurring pattern: working downstairs, she hears footsteps moving across the second floor above her. When she checks, nobody is there. Security camera footage from those same periods shows an empty floor.
War Party Paranormal has conducted recurring investigations at the museum, arriving every couple of months according to the group's arrangement with museum staff. Their equipment toolkit includes electromagnetic frequency detectors, proximity sensors, audio recorders, spirit boxes, and the Estes Method — in which a blindfolded investigator listens to spirit box output through headphones and reports what they hear without being prompted by the team. During one investigation, an audio recording captured what the team interpreted as a spirit voice. They described the content as a vulgar insult, and speculated it was the kind of humor a former student might have carried into the afterlife. The recording was not fully transcribed in available coverage.
NPR affiliate WLRN covered the investigations in a February 2025 feature, noting that Weismantle herself has never felt malevolent or threatening presences in the building, and continues working there confidently. The general interpretive frame — that the building is haunted by the personalities of children who attended school there — gives the ghost narrative a distinctly benign character compared to most dark tourism sites.
Media Appearances
Tours of Broward County's oldest existing school building, open Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The two-story structure was built in 1918 as the first permanent school in the Florida Everglades and later served as a town hall, hurricane shelter, and school board office before reopening as a museum in 2008.
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