Savannah's oldest continuously operating business, founded 1883 — its longtime third-generation owner was middle-named for Houdini, whose photographs still line the walls of the cluttered Wright Square shop.
24 East State Street, Savannah, GA 31401
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free to look in from the sidewalk; locksmith service requires actual business transaction.
Access
Limited Access
Small historic storefront with step at entry; narrow interior aisles.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1883 · Oldest continuously operating business in Savannah (founded 1883) · One of the oldest locksmith shops in the United States · Five-generation family operation from Simon Bradley to grandson Andrew · Williams 'Dini' Bradley named in honor of Harry Houdini · Located in the Patrick Duffy Building on Wright Square since 1967
Bradley Lock & Key was established in Savannah in 1883 by Simon Bradley and remains, by local and Wikipedia consensus, the city's oldest continuously operating business and one of the oldest locksmith shops in the United States. The shop has occupied its current home in the Patrick Duffy Building at 24 East State Street on the northeast tything block of Wright Square since 1967, where it became a Savannah landmark anchored by its hand-painted signage and overflowing front-window display.
The Bradley family operated the shop across five generations. Simon's descendant Aaron Bradley moonlighted as a stage hypnotist in the early 20th century and, according to family lore, traveled performing shows with Harry Houdini. Aaron named his son William 'Houdini' Bradley in honor of the magician — and William, known to all of Savannah as 'Dini,' operated the shop from the 1950s until he retired in 2019 at age 85. The shop's interior is famously cluttered with Houdini photographs and memorabilia, antique locks, and decades of accumulated family ephemera. The shop also displays the W. W. Law stools from a former Civil Rights-era Levy lunch counter site, reflecting the building's wider community history.
Dini's retirement passed the business to his grandson Andrew Bradley, then 24, making Bradley Lock & Key a five-generation family enterprise. The Bradley family has acknowledged in interviews that their Houdini family tradition mixes documented fact with the embroidered storytelling that surrounds any century-old family business — but the middle name 'Houdini' on William's birth records is verifiable, and the magician's photographs that line the shop's walls were collected by the family across generations.
Sources
Bradley Lock & Key's haunted reputation rests on two intertwined threads: the storefront's place on Savannah's busiest ghost-walk corridor around Wright Square, and a family story that links the shop to Harry Houdini through Aaron Bradley's stage-hypnotist career. According to Ghost City Tours and Savannah Ghost Tours, former tenants of the upstairs apartment above the shop have reported objects being moved overnight, unusual sounds in empty rooms, intermittent smells of cigar smoke, and brief figures glimpsed moving through walls or down hallways.
The tour-circuit identification of a 'Houdini ghost' visiting the shop is folkloric rather than documented — Harry Houdini died in 1926, and there is no contemporary record of him visiting Savannah, let alone this specific storefront (which was not the Bradley family's location until 1967). The lore is best understood as a tribute to the Bradleys' multi-generational connection to the magician through Aaron's vaudeville-era stage work. HauntBound treats the Houdini-visits-the-shop claim as Savannah ghost-walk folklore.
Wright Square itself is one of Savannah's most lore-rich squares — it sits over a colonial-era burial ground and is associated with multiple separate haunted-Savannah stories — so paranormal reports near the shop sometimes shade into broader Wright Square lore rather than being specifically tied to the Bradley property. The shop remains an active business and is not a tour destination per se.
Notable Entities
Walking visit past or briefly inside Savannah's oldest continuously operating business — a working locksmith shop crowded with Houdini memorabilia, antique locks, and family ephemera. Several Wright Square ghost walks pass the storefront.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Athens, GA
Candler Hall was built in 1901 as a UGA men's residence hall and was named for Allen D. Candler, then governor of Georgia. The building, which could house up to 84 students at opening, has been adapted for academic and administrative use.
Athens, GA
Demosthenian Hall, built in 1824, is the fourth-oldest building at the University of Georgia and is home to the Demosthenian Literary Society, founded in 1803 — the longest continuously running student organization in the country. The two-story tan stucco building served as headquarters for occupying Union troops during the Civil War.
Athens, GA
Joe Brown Hall, built in 1932, was originally a men's dormitory and is now an academic and administrative building at the University of Georgia. The hall is named for Joseph E. Brown, the 42nd governor of Georgia and a proponent of secession during the Civil War.