There are a few stories about the Putnam Hotel in Deland, Florida, but all have to do with one thing: ghosts. The hotel is said to be haunted by two ghosts: a man and woman who have been claimed to be seen by a number of people. At 225 West New York Avenue strange things can happen not only to the visitors, but to the staff as well.
In 1917 the original Putnam Hotel burned to the ground, but was rebuilt and opened again in 1923. Supposedly the hotel is haunted by a man who visited there and then murdered his wife and killed himself. Some say that you can feel the sadness emanating throughout the empty and aged corridors of the old hotel; there is definitely a lot of history within the walls. There have been numerous reports of people claiming to have seen a shadowy figure at the other end of the hallway or even footsteps or whistling coming from empty corridors.
When I first arrived in the hotel I asked the check-in lady if she has seen anything spooky while she has been working there and she told me that she had also seen the shadow person who can only be seen out of the corner of your eye, and she had also heard footsteps behind her when going up to the 6’th floor and turned around to find no one behind her. I asked her more about the sixth floor and she informed me that it was off limits and was for storage. Well after telling the members of my band this a few of us decided to go check it out anyways. The stairs to the sixth floor were steep and unlike the stairs on the lower floors and to make things more foreboding, we were in complete darkness when both doors to the stairwell were shut. With our lighters burning our fingers we ascended the steps into the top of the building to find lots of old stuff sitting there like an antique shop. A few of my band members stayed behind to investigate after I decided to go roaming the other stairwells to get pictures; they all felt a presence but no one saw anything of the paranormal.
During my trip there I believe that I experienced a few things that could have been encounters of the paranormal kind. One event occurred when me and my band were on stage in the bar playing our set I thought I saw the sound guy out of the corner of my eye over against the wall beside the drums twice, but when I looked to see what he was doing to my sound there was no one there both times, but I was sure that someone was standing there watching me. And while I was alone in my apartment suite just on the other side of the kitchen turning off the air conditioner I heard a sound in the tiny bathroom that was tucked away in the bedroom free from any air vents and drafts. I went to investigate and found that the plastic cup with my boyfriend’s toothbrush in it was in the sink still rattling around. This struck me as strange and a bit frightening because I couldn’t explain how the cup had been knocked off of the shelf. I backed out of the bedroom and walked as fast as I could into the hallway to wander around and take some more pictures and try to put my mind at ease.
There is a lot of energy inside the historic Putnam Hotel in Deland, but it will only make itself know to those that are open to it. If you’re taking a tour of haunted Florida be sure to put Deland and its historic hotels on the top of your list, you will not be disappointed.
