Downtown Tampa Historic District · Old Tampa Theatre (1926) · Ybor City Historic District · Old Hillsborough County Courthouse / Le Meridien Tampa
US Ghost Adventures, the multi-city ghost-tour network, operates its Tampa program under the local consumer brand 'Tampa Terrors.' The Tides of Tethered Terror: Tampa Ghost Tours is a family-friendly, roughly 1-mile walking tour meeting nightly at 8pm and 9pm at the Old Tampa Theatre, 711 N Franklin St, a 1926 movie palace. The standard route visits eight downtown stops, including the Old Federal Courthouse, later renovated into the Le Meridien Tampa hotel, tying the building's history as the site of a 1950s organized-crime inquiry to reported hauntings; an extended version adds four more stops, including the Don Vicente Inn in the historic Ybor City cigar district.
The Spirits and Spirits Haunted Pub Crawl is a separate 21-and-up product covering four stops over up to two hours, including Bizou Brasserie inside the former Old Federal Courthouse building, the Tampa Theatre, and The Hub Bar, tying Tampa's Prohibition-era bootlegging and organized-crime history to its historic bar scene.
Sources
- https://usghostadventures.com/tampa-ghost-tour/
- https://usghostadventures.com/tampa-ghost-tour/tampa-terrors-spirits-and-spirits-haunted-pub-crawl/
- https://www.getyourguide.com/tampa-l1187/tides-of-tethered-terror-tampa-ghost-tours-t395474/
ApparitionsUnexplained SoundsCold Spots
According to US Ghost Adventures' own tour material, the Old Tampa Theatre is said to be haunted by Foster 'Fink' Finley, a projectionist described as having died in the lighting booth and never left, along with a ticket taker whose death is described elsewhere in the operator's pub-crawl material. The Old Federal Courthouse, later the Le Meridien Tampa, is tied by the operator to Charlie Wall, a Tampa gambling figure the operator describes as murdered after testifying before a 1950s federal organized-crime inquiry, with his apparition reportedly seen on the building's steps.
At the Don Vicente Inn in Ybor City, the operator's narration attributes a reported haunting to Jose Luis Avellanal Jr., described by the operator as a fraudster who lured and killed women at the property in the early 20th century. The Floridian Palace and The Hub Bar are described in the operator's marketing as sites of Tampa's Gilded Age tourism decline and organized-crime-era violence, respectively, each carrying its own reported hauntings.
All of this is the tour operator's own marketing material, not documented history independently verified for this listing; it is included here as a description of what the tours cover, not as an endorsement of any specific claim.
