Haunted Fort Taylor

Blog posting by Tom

With Fantasy Fest over and the wind keeping the boats in port I found myself with even more time on my hands and looking for something to do. With Halloween coming we figured something must be going on (as it always seems to be). Myrla was reading the paper when she saw an article about a group setting up a haunted house at an old military fort so she did some research (as only she can do) and found out they were looking for volunteers to help with construction and actors. After a few emails and phone calls I was at the fort helping with construction, mostly painting and organizing. It was interesting as to how the haunting scenes were put together since we were unable to attach anything directly to the fort due to it being historic.

As with most things here in Key West things don't happen as we expect due to 'island time'. A lot of people here work late into the night and even into the next morning so they are not in any hurry to get moving in the morning or even by noon. The first day I went to help I was told to be there about 11:30 am, I finally met someone there around 3:30 to find out what they needed done. Our schedules are very different because I am ready to work early and be finished by the time they just want to get started so I would find out what they wanted done the next day then I would not have to wait until 4:00 to get started. Even with all the volunteers and different schedules the work all got done in time for the first show on Sunday night.

On Monday night we went through the fort with a group of friends. It was fun and scary. All of the scenes that are portrayed are from actual fort history of how people died since there was a total of over 400 people who died there.

We all know that once you volunteer for one thing they get you into everything and this was no different. They talked me into working inside the fort as one of the actors after the construction tasks were finished. This is not something I am comfortable with doing but I did it for one night and it was fun scaring people but have 'retired' from the night time scary stuff.

At the fort they also show old horror movies on a large screen out in the courtyard area where people can watch before and after the haunted fort. As usual this whole thing is to raise money for the restoration of the fort.

In case you are interested in the fort here are a couple of sites with the history.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lotAZTC-Nts
http://www.forttaylor.org/