Motel Monday: The Spook Hill Motel

With Halloween season upon us, we thought we’d start the month with a spooky story about a motel that’s just a ghost of what it once was.

Spook Hill

The Spook Hill Motel took its name from a local gravity hill attraction in Lake Wales, Florida. You see, long before Elon Musk started promising that self-driving cars were coming soon to a neighborhood near you, people would take road trips to the Lake Wales neighborhood known as Spook Hill to watch their car drive itself uphill – and in reverse!

Local legend has it that years ago there was a Native American village located along the town’s eponymous lake. Apparently, there was also a huge alligator that lived in the lake that soon began to terrorize this local Native American community. After noticing a lot of his tribesmen and women were disappearing, the chief decided enough was enough.

Taking matters into his own hands, the chief and the alligator battled it out so hard that they created the nearby North Lake Wales (which today seems more like a swampy mudhole rather than a lake). Nevertheless, both the alligator and the chief ended up dying in the end.

Later, as early pioneers were traveling along the old army trail that is now 5^th Street, they noticed that their horses were struggling to walk at the base of the ridge where the chief and the alligator fought to their deaths. Subsequently, they called the place “Spook Hill”.

Sometime around the mid-20^th century, somebody parked their car in the same area and noticed that the car started moving backwards, and even more amazing, it was also moving uphill. Soon after, other people were also trying it and experiencing the same weirdness. Thus, the Spook Hill roadside attraction was born.

As for the cause of this phenomenon, the sign at the foot Spook Hill asks, “Is it the Gator seeking revenge or the chief protecting his land?” We’ll let you decide.

(Sure, there’s also a scientific explanation for it, but we’re not ones to ruin all the fun.)

The Spook Hill Motel

Capitalizing on the newfound tourist attraction, Lola B. Widdon opened the Spook Hill Motel in the 1960s, complete with a sign sporting Casper the Friendly Ghost’s “Tuff Little Ghost” cousin, Spooky (sans bowler hat) out front.  (Casper, however, is the mascot of the local Spook Hill Elementary School.)

Along with free parking for your self-driving car, amenities included tiled showers, kitchenettes, color television, air-conditioning and a swimming pool.

Unfortunately, today the Spooky sign and its really cool ghostly retro font are gone. While the motel building still stands, it doesn’t look like it’s been opened for business for awhile. And like most swimming pools of mid-century modern motels, the Spook Hill Motel’s swimming pool has been filled in. It now seems to be some sort of area where you can sit and keep lookout over the North Lake Wales mudhole watching for ghosts of alligators and Indian chiefs.

You can still see the remnants of the hotel today, then make your way up 5^th Street past the Spook Hill Elementary School (seriously, how cool would that name look on your résumé under “Education”) to the Spook Hill sign and watch your car mysteriously move uphill and backwards all by itself.

—

Be the life of the Halloween Party this year with the Stuckey’s Shot Glass Fun Box. Each box comes with its own unique set of different shot glasses and a bag of gummies. Just fill each glass with your favorite adult beverage, drop a gummy in there, too, and swallow it down. You might be shooting back peach gummies out of a NASCAR shot glass or a sour gummy out of a “Show Me State” souvenir shot glass. Life is full of chances. Take yours today with the Stuckey’s Shot Glass Fun Box. (Please remember to drink responsibly, and no, an alligator or Indian chief that can move your car backwards uphill does not count as a designated driver.)

And don’t forget that, whether it’s our iconic Stuckey’s pecan log rolls or pecan pralines, Stuckey’s candies also make extra-special treats for your trick-or-treaters this Halloween. For all of this and more, browse our webpage and place your order today only at stuckeys.com.

Stuckey’s – We’re Making Road Trips Fun Again!