Shadows of History at Potter’s Wax Museum

Late evening settles on St. Augustine’s ancient streets, and a hush falls inside the old wooden building at 31 Orange Street. In the stillness, wax figures stand frozen in lifelike poses, their glass eyes glinting in the low light. A single antique bulb swings gently on a chain, casting dancing shadows across rows of dusty apothecary bottles. The air is tinged with a peculiar sweetness of old medicines and melting wax. Floorboards that have felt the tread of thousands groan quietly, as if remembering each step. Here, in the dim after-hours silence of Potter’s Wax Museum, the past does not sleep. It lingers in portraits of wax, in motes of dust swirling through lantern glow, in the sensation that someone unseen is watching from just beyond the next darkened archway.

A History Carved in Wax and Wood

By day, Potter’s Wax Museum is a beloved attraction – America’s first wax museum, opened in 1948 – but its story begins long before the first sculpted figure arrived. The museum’s home is itself a relic of the haunted history of St. Augustine. The building was erected in 1887 as an apothecary and general store known as Speissegger’s Drug Store. For decades in the late Victorian era, locals creaked these very floors in search of tonics, tinctures, and remedies. The structure is a quaint two-story wooden pharmacy with a broad porch and shuttered windows – a classic piece of 19th-century Americana. Inside, high shelves once brimmed with patent medicines and peculiar elixirs. The proprietors, the Speissegger brothers, were learned pharmacists by day, compounding medicines behind the marble-topped counter. By night, rumor has it, they performed clandestine embalmings in the back rooms when undertakers were scarce. In those days, death walked hand-in-hand with life, and the little drugstore served as a final stop for some unfortunate souls. It’s little wonder that whispers of supernatural activity at the Old Drug Store date back to the very day its doors first opened. Visitors spoke in hushed tones of strange chills in the Florida heat, and of seeing a white-coated figure out of the corner of their eye when no living pharmacist was present.

Against this rich historical backdrop, a new kind of marvel took root mid-century. George Leonard Potter, an ambitious man with a fanciful dream, chose St. Augustine’s historic district as the stage for America’s first hall of wax. As a boy, Potter had wandered wide-eyed through Madame Tussaud’s famous wax museum in London, where lifeless figures felt poised to whisper their stories. That childhood encounter left an indelible mark. Years later, having made a small fortune in real estate, Potter returned to that dream of giving history a face and form. In 1948, he established what was then called Potter’s International Hall of Fame. He set up his collection near the old city gates, determined that the Nation’s Oldest City would be home to this new attraction. Potter spared no expense: he imported top-quality wax from France, commissioned expert sculptors from a renowned London studio, and acquired human hair from Italy to crown his figures. One by one, prominent figures of history and imagination took shape. By the time the museum officially opened its doors in 1949, visitors could gaze upon the likes of President Abraham Lincoln, Spanish explorer Ponce de León, and even mythical villains from literature. It was a gallery of heroes and horrors, saints and scoundrels, all under one roof. Guided tours in those early years felt like strolling through a living textbook – ghost stories of St. Augustine, tales of world leaders, and ancient legends were recounted beside each eerily lifelike statue. Potter’s Hall of Fame became a local institution, blending education with uncanny spectacle. Children pressed their noses to glass cases to stare into the waxy visage of Napoleon Bonaparte, while their parents shuddered at how the figures seemed to breathe in the flicker of kerosene lamps.

The museum thrived for decades as a family-run labor of love. But time is relentless, even for those who try to immortalize it. George Potter passed away in 1979, leaving behind an legacy in wax. Without his passionate guidance, the collection’s future wavered. His family did not share his peculiar devotion to waxworks; within a few years, many figures were sold off and the original location closed. For a moment it seemed that Potter’s creations might themselves become ghosts of St. Augustine’s past – scattered artifacts in private collections or lost to decay. But fate intervened in the form of a loyal curator named Dottie White. Refusing to let Potter’s dream melt away, White salvaged the heart of the collection – roughly 150 of the finest figures – and in 1987 she resurrected the museum in a new location on King Street. Locals welcomed the return of familiar faces in wax, and new generations once again strolled those halls, marveling at the uncanny assembly of historical greats and infamous characters. Over the ensuing years, the museum underwent careful restorations and updates. Old figures were repaired or replaced, new likenesses added, and the exhibits refreshed. Yet the soul of Potter’s vision remained: to give life to history’s echoes.

In 2014, Potter’s Wax Museum found its fitting forever home by moving into St. Augustine’s Old Drug Store – the very 1887 building where phantoms of pharmacists still seemed to roam. The wax museum and the apothecary, two distinct pieces of the past, now intertwined under one roof. Walk into the lobby today and you step onto the same worn pine floorboards where Gilded Age customers once stood weighing medicinal tea on brass scales. Lining the walls are cabinets displaying antique medicine bottles and faded labels for “Cure-All Tonics” and “Spanish Herbal Remedies,” all original to the old pharmacy and left in place as historical exhibits. Overhead, a pressed-tin ceiling from the 19th century survives, its pattern gleaming softly above the modern visitors. This unique atmosphere blurs the line between museum attraction and historical site. By day, sunlight filters through the wavy glass windows, illuminating both the preserved apothecary artifacts and the waxen figures posed in their dioramas beyond. It’s as if two time periods coexist: the 1800s world of the druggist and the wax museum’s gallery of world history. The effect is transporting. You might watch a costumed sculptor in a side studio carefully painting the wax visage of a Victorian lady, while just steps away stands an actual Victorian-era pharmacist’s workbench with mortar and pestle at the ready. Haunted St. Augustine lives and breathes in these details. Every corner of the building holds a memory, whether of a real person who once passed through or a character immortalized in wax. The past here is a living thing—preserved in oak and wax, tincture and tale.

Ghosts and Legends in the Halls

As the twilight fades and the last daytime guests exit, a different kind of tour often arrives at Potter’s Wax Museum. With lanterns in hand, the guides of Destination Ghost Tours quietly lead small groups through the darkened corridors, seeking encounters with the unseen. It has become a staple stop on St. Augustine ghost tours, and for good reason. The museum at night brims with an uncanny energy. The silence is thick, broken only by the occasional distant drip of water or the buzz of an old electrical fixture. In the shadows, the wax figures themselves can play tricks on the eye – was that one moving, or was it just a flicker of light? More than a few guests have admitted their hearts skipped a beat when they caught a silhouette of a person only to realize it was one of the museum’s wax residents watching them impassively from a corner.

Yet many insist the ghosts of Potter’s Wax Museum are more than optical illusions. Staff and visitors alike have reported inexplicable happenings here after dark. Near the front of the building, where the apothecary’s counter and shelves stand frozen in time, there are tales of a spectral pharmacist making his rounds. Several night watchmen have sworn they saw a faint figure in a white coat drifting behind that counter, as if still tending to customers long after closing. One guide recounts how she set a lantern down on the counter, only for it to flicker wildly as an unseen shape passed between her and the light. The apparition is often described as an older gentleman in turn-of-the-century attire, with wire-rim glasses glinting and an intent, businesslike air – perhaps one of the Speissegger brothers still dutifully compounding prescriptions in the afterlife. Others have described hearing the soft clink of glass vials and the papery rustle of a pharmacist’s coat when no one is there. The haunted history of St. Augustine seems to come alive in these moments. One cannot help but imagine that the phantom chemist is utterly unaware of the passage of time, tending an ethereal store as thunder of horse-hooves and gaslight glow play out again in his memory.

Deeper inside, past rows of silent wax statesmen and a marble bust or two that appears to track your progress, lies the museum’s infamous Chamber of Horrors. By day, this section enthralls the brave with its tableaux of history’s more macabre chapters. By night, it holds an oppressive stillness that even skeptics find unnerving. It’s here that a ghostly figure is said to lurk among the waxworks. In the darkness, visitors have felt the weight of eyes upon them in the Chamber of Horrors – a prickling awareness that one of the figures might not be entirely inanimate. Tour guides sometimes pause their narration here, allowing the hush to speak. There are accounts of a lone shadow slipping between the life-sized figures of monsters and murderers. Once, a guest broke the silence with a yelp, insisting she saw a man standing at the back of the chamber dressed in old-fashioned garb, watching the group intently. As the lights were raised, they found only wax effigies of historic criminals staring back. Could it be that one of the real spirits of those villains wanders here, attracted by their own likeness in wax? Or perhaps some other restless soul finds refuge among the museum’s rogues’ gallery? The truth remains elusive, hidden in the folds of legend. What is clear is that haunted St. Augustine has left its mark on this room—people emerge pale and thoughtful, rubbing their arms as if a cold hand had briefly grasped them in the dark.

Among the chilling exhibits is a scene that bridges straight into one of the city’s most famous legends. Tucked in a dim alcove stands a depiction of Andrew Ranson, a 17th-century English pirate whose fate is the stuff of folklore. In flickering candlelight you see Ranson rendered in wax, mid-scream, seated in a chair with iron bands around his neck – the brutal Spanish garrote. According to historical records, Ranson was captured near St. Augustine around 1684 and sentenced to die by garroting. The legend goes that when the executioner twisted the iron collar to silence him, it malfunctioned or miraculously failed to kill the pirate. Ranson survived the initial attempt, gasping amid astonished onlookers. Some say this was an act of divine providence; indeed, the governor spared his life, and Ranson went on to work for the Spanish as an interpreter, cheating death in a most dramatic fashion. The wax museum immortalizes that gruesome moment of the failed execution – a freeze-frame of agony and astonishment. It’s an arresting sight, one that makes many a visitor shiver. After all, here stands a man who lived when he should have become a ghost. The guides from Destination Ghost Tours often recount Ranson’s tale right here, their voices reverberating off stone walls as wide-eyed listeners huddle close. In the hush that follows, some claim to sense a presence lingering near the display. A few have reported an inexplicable tightness in their throat while standing by Ranson’s figure, as if feeling the echo of the garrote’s cruel grip. Of course, skeptics dismiss this as imagination. But when the wind rattles the eaves of the old building, it almost sounds like a strangled gasp. In a place filled with death’s likenesses, even a hardened pirate’s story gains a phantom life of its own.

The museum doesn’t only house the memories of well-documented history; it also embraces the ghost stories of St. Augustine that have been passed down through lore. In one corner, a pair of elegantly dressed wax figures represent a tragic local legend often titled The Missing Lovers. These figures, posed as if in a final embrace, allude to an 18th-century tale from the nearby Castillo de San Marcos. According to the story, a Spanish officer’s wife – a young woman named Dolores – fell in love with another man, a captain, behind her husband’s back. When the jealous husband discovered the affair, the lovers mysteriously vanished. Decades later, construction workers at the stone fortress broke through a hidden wall to discover two skeletal remains chained together in a secret cell. The harrowing discovery gave birth to whispers that Dolores and her beloved were sealed alive in the very walls by the vengeful husband. Though historians debate the veracity of this tale, it has persisted in local folklore for generations. Potter’s Wax Museum enshrined the legend in wax: the star-crossed lovers are shown in a tender moment, their period costumes draped in eternal stillness. Visitors sometimes find a single white rose petal inexplicably lying at the feet of the figures – a romantic gesture from some unknown admirer, or so the guides tease. Staff have even caught the faint scent of floral perfume in that area, despite no flowers present. It is said that the spirit of Dolores roams St. Augustine searching for peace, and that her perfumed presence has been sensed at the old fort and beyond. Whether one believes this or not, there is an undeniably melancholy aura around the display. The faces of the wax lovers appear particularly sorrowful in the half-light, and more than a few viewers have admitted to feeling a sudden wave of sadness or a chill of despair as they gaze at them. In these moments, history and myth meld seamlessly – the wax museum becomes not just a gallery of figures but a kind of sanctum for the city’s collective memory, both factual and fanciful.

Throughout the museum, the boundary between the living and the long-departed feels unusually thin. A tour through these winding halls at night can feel like a conversation with time itself. One moment you’re face to face with a lifelike sculpture of Thomas Edison, his wax eyes glinting with invention; the next you’re standing exactly where a 19th-century customer once stood buying laudanum cough syrup from a druggist who might just be standing behind you still, unseen. The effect is deeply atmospheric. Even those who come chasing a thrill find something more profound: a connection to layers of St. Augustine’s past. There is a story whispered that one after-hours custodian, while making her rounds, heard the unmistakable tap-tap of footsteps following her through the British Monarchs exhibit. She assumed a straggling guest had been left behind and turned to speak – only to find herself utterly alone, save for the row of silent kings and queens regarding her with painted smiles. She later remarked that it felt as if the wax figures themselves had invited older souls to come keep them company once the crowds were gone. It’s an image both eerie and enchanting: the museum’s inhabitants, wax and ghost alike, communing in the quiet dark, swapping stories of the ages.

Echoes After Midnight

In the small hours, when the last lantern of the night tour has vanished down St. George Street and the heavy door of the Old Drug Store swings shut, Potter’s Wax Museum lies in pregnant silence. Moonlight falls in slats through the upper windows, illuminating motes of dust and the faint outlines of figures that stand vigil in the empty rooms. This is when the past truly breathes. Listen closely and you might hear a wooden floorboard give a slight creak in an empty hallway, as if someone invisible is taking one careful step. The old building itself seems alive – timbers settling with soft knocks, the lingering aroma of old medicines mixing with the coastal night air that seeps through the cracks. St. Augustine is a city where history is never truly past, and within these walls that truth feels tangible. The ghost stories of St. Augustine are not merely tales to entertain tourists; they are part of the city’s soul, ever-present just beneath the surface. Here, in this former pharmacy turned wax tableau, those stories find a uniquely haunting expression.

As you stand in the silence, you can sense all the layers of time that Potter’s has witnessed. The colonial era settlers who once walked this ground, the Gilded Age residents who entrusted their ailments to the apothecary’s care, the mid-century travelers enthralled by George Potter’s waxen hall of fame – their echoes are all around. The wax figures themselves embody this layering: each one a meticulous recreation of someone long gone or imagined, each one effectively a ghost given form. In a way, Potter’s Wax Museum is a gallery of ghosts – not the frightening phantoms of nightmares, but the echoes of people who shaped history and legend. The statues of explorers and presidents, pirates and lovers are all attempts to cheat oblivion, to hold onto a fragment of life’s essence. And perhaps that very act – preserving likenesses against the march of time – is what draws the supernatural so strongly here. It is as if the real spirits recognize a refuge, a place where memory reigns over forgetfulness.

Outside, the ancient city sleeps under a veil of Atlantic mist. A horse-drawn carriage clatters faintly in the distance on deserted cobblestone lanes. From the nearby old city gates, one might imagine the soft giggle of little Elizabeth (the ghostly gatekeeper’s child) or the rustle of a soldier’s phantom boots – St. Augustine has no shortage of haunts. But inside the wax museum, the ghosts are quieter. They do not announce themselves with slamming doors or violent screams. Instead, they linger in a perfume trace that has no source, or a fleeting reflection in a mirror of someone dressed in anachronistic clothes. They seep into your thoughts as you recall the tragedies and triumphs told here. A visit to Potter’s Wax Museum becomes more than a tour; it feels like an encounter with the past’s living shadows. Each figure and each phantom in the building seems to say: we were here, and we have stories to tell.

By the time morning light begins to gray the sky over the Matanzas Bay, the uncanny stirrings subside. The museum’s still figures remain exactly where they were, of course – yet something intangible changes back. The presences that claim the night recede with the dawn, like mist off the water. When the doors open again for the day’s visitors, the rooms return to being merely exhibits in a charming old wax museum. Laughter and chatter will replace the midnight whispers. Children will marvel at the presidents and pirates, never sensing the unseen audience that may have surrounded them hours before. The cycle of life in the museum continues: daylight history and nighttime mystery.

Potter’s Wax Museum stands as a testament to St. Augustine’s layered narrative – a place where fact and folklore, the seen and unseen, converge. It maintains an haunted legacy that is felt in the scuff of every floorboard and the gaze of every waxen eye. For those who walk its halls, by sun or by moon, there is a realization that the past is not truly past here. The figures in wax are conduits to memory, and perhaps the spirits are the memories that refuse to fade. As you leave the museum and step back onto the old streets, you carry with you a sense of wonder and a slight chill. You might catch yourself glancing back at the wooden facade of the Old Drug Store – at a second-story window where a curtain seems to fall back into place as if someone has just been watching. In St. Augustine’s eternal twilight of history, Potter’s Wax Museum ensures that the boundary between life and afterlife remains artfully, eerily blurred. The echoes of what has gone before follow you out into the night, lingering like a final whisper: in this city of ghosts, even wax and wood are imbued with restless souls.