On a quiet block just off Wright Square sits one of Savannah’s most unusual survivors: a locksmith shop that has been cutting keys, fixing the unfixable, and collecting curiosities for more than 140 years. Bradley Lock & Key is part working business, part living museum — and, this being Savannah, part ghost story.
Savannah in the Late 19th Century
By the early 1880s, Savannah was a bustling post-Civil War port experiencing renewed growth, with the cotton industry dominating its economy. The Savannah Cotton Exchange had been established in 1876 and would soon complete its grand headquarters on Bay Street in 1887. The city’s boundaries were expanding and new monuments were rising downtown — a monument to businessman William Washington Gordon was erected in Wright Square in 1883 — while streetcars and rail lines began linking the city to outlying areas, including a commuter rail to Tybee Island that opened in 1887. It was in this environment of growth and modernization that a young locksmith saw an opportunity, and in 1883 Bradley Lock & Key was born.
The Historic Patrick Duffy Building
The building that houses Bradley Lock & Key has a rich history of its own. Erected in 1855 for local businessman Patrick Duffy, it stands on the northeast tything block of Wright Square — a typical mid-19th-century Savannah commercial building of brick walls and simple antebellum styling. One charming detail nods to its trade: the shop’s threshold is inlaid with actual skeleton keys spelling out “BRADLEYS.”
Over the decades, 24 E. State Street saw various uses before the Bradleys arrived. In the mid-20th century it was the site of a segregated lunch counter operated by Levy’s department store — one of the locations where African American students, including local civil rights leader W.W. Law, staged sit-ins in 1960 to protest segregation. The shop today proudly displays the very bar stools used by those activists, tying the building to a pivotal chapter of Savannah’s Civil Rights era. In 1967 the Bradley business moved into the Patrick Duffy Building, relocating from its original site across the street (later demolished for a parking garage). Ever since, the venerable old building and the locksmith shop have been synonymous, aging gracefully together in the heart of downtown.
The Bradley Family and the Founding of the Business
Bradley Lock & Key’s story begins with its founder, Simon Bradley. According to family lore, one morning in 1883 Simon was riding a trolley through downtown when he noticed a fashion of the day: people wearing large, key-shaped necklaces. Those ornate keys sparked an idea, and he decided then and there to become a locksmith — opening a small shop that same year at the corner of State and Drayton Streets, just across Wright Square from the current store.
In the early years, Simon — and later his son Aaron — did far more than cut keys. The Bradley shop became a fix-it destination for all manner of goods, its hand-painted signs boasting that Bradley’s could sharpen tools, mend luggage and umbrellas, “fix anything but a broken heart,” and “make any key other than a whiskey key,” as a later proprietor joked. In an era when people repaired their possessions rather than replacing them, the Bradleys earned a reputation for craftsmanship and resourcefulness, and the business grew into a cornerstone of downtown life.
By the 1950s, the founder’s grandson, William Houdini “Dini” Bradley, had taken over as the third-generation owner — a colorful character many Savannahians came to associate with the shop itself. Under Dini, Bradley Lock & Key remained a beloved old-fashioned workshop where a key could be copied for pocket change or an antique lock fixed on the spot. Dini also expanded the store’s identity into that of a mini-museum, filling it with historical curiosities: an 18th-century cannon, a 1901 church bell, piles of dusty skeleton keys and iron locks, and countless historic photographs. The store became a living repository of Savannah’s past, with a surprise tucked into every nook and shelf.
A Magical Connection: Harry Houdini and Bradley’s
One of the most intriguing threads in the family history is a connection to the legendary escape artist Harry Houdini, through Aaron Bradley — son of founder Simon and father of Dini. Aaron apparently moonlighted as a stage hypnotist, and family stories say he was a friend of Houdini and even traveled doing shows with him. Dini Bradley’s middle name, “Houdini,” was given in honor of the famous magician. According to the Bradleys, Aaron served as a locksmith for Houdini, perhaps advising on the locks and restraints used in his escape acts, and a signed photograph of Houdini hangs in the shop to this day.
As with any century-old family tale, the details blur the line between fact and folklore. “That part of our history has its share of both facts and rumors, and even we cannot always tell which is which,” Andrew Bradley admitted with a laugh in an interview. What is certain is the family’s enduring fascination with Houdini — Dini hung vintage photos of the escape artist throughout the store and loved to share his father’s adventures with customers. That blend of history and legend adds a touch of magic to the shop’s heritage, making it more than just a locksmith’s: a place where showmanship and mystery are part of the family legacy.
Tragedy Strikes: The I-95 Killer and the Bradley Family
In the 1990s, the Bradley family was shaken by a tragic brush with a notorious serial killer. Milton Bradley — a 72-year-old World War II veteran and a member of the family — was murdered in May 1994 by Gary Ray Bowles, an ex-convict drifter who preyed on older men along the Interstate 95 corridor, earning him the moniker “The I-95 Killer.” Passing through Savannah, Bowles encountered the sociable Milton at a local bar and killed him; his body was discovered the following day near a golf course on the city’s southside.
The murder shocked Savannah, where the Bradleys were a well-known family, and at the time authorities did not immediately link it to a serial killer. Bowles fled the state and continued his crime spree for months before being caught in Florida in November 1994. He later confessed to Milton Bradley’s killing as one of six murders he committed that year. Never formally tried in Georgia for Milton’s death, Bowles was convicted of other killings, sentenced to death in Florida, and executed by lethal injection in August 2019, closing a painful chapter for the family and the other victims’ loved ones. It is a somber footnote in the shop’s long history — a reminder that even Savannah’s most respected families are not immune to broader events — but the business endured, and the family pulled together in the aftermath to carry on.
Ghost Stories and Legends
Savannah often proclaims itself “America’s Most Haunted City,” and the old Bradley Lock & Key shop has not escaped the local ghost lore — the building’s age and the sheer volume of antique objects inside make it prime fodder for legend. Visitors and staff have occasionally reported strange occurrences after hours: shadowy figures seeming to move between the dusty aisles of keys and tools, unexplained noises, and odd cold spots or scents that arise without explanation, especially noted by those who lived in the apartment above the shop. With thousands of old keys, vintage locks, and historic artifacts filling the store, believers suggest that spirits may have attached themselves to some of these items, replaying residual echoes of the past.
One popular legend even claims that the ghost of Harry Houdini himself visits the shop — a romantic idea, the world’s greatest escape artist returning in spirit to a store full of locks and keys. Ghost-tour guides sometimes point to the Houdini photographs on the walls and speculate that he still looks in on his old friends’ establishment.
The surrounding area lends its own haunted reputation. Wright Square, just steps from the shop’s door, is said to be one of Savannah’s most haunted. According to legend, the ghost of Alice Riley — who in 1735 became the first woman executed in the Georgia colony — wanders the square where she was hanged, searching for her lost infant. There are also tales of Tomochichi, the Yamacraw leader honored with a monument in the square, whose presence some claim to sense nearby. With its dimly lit interior and historic quirks, the Bradley building fits right into this supernatural lore.
Bradley Lock & Key Today: Five Generations and Counting
The oldest continuously operating business in Savannah — part modern shop, part 19th-century time capsule.
Today, Bradley Lock & Key stands as a living link between Savannah’s past and present. In 2019, ownership passed to Andrew Bradley, the founder’s great-great-grandson and the fifth generation to run the shop. He took over from his grandfather, Dini, who retired in his mid-80s after a lifetime in the trade. Just 24 at the time, Andrew had grown up in the store and was determined to carry the legacy forward — modernizing certain aspects, such as high-tech programming for car transponder keys and digital locks, while carefully preserving the nostalgic character that makes the shop unique. As he likes to say, Bradley’s can still “make every key,” whether it’s a 150-year-old skeleton key or the fob for a brand-new smart car.
Walking in today, one finds little changed since Dini’s time: walls adorned with vintage photographs and curios, and Dini’s beloved collections still on display — the old cannon, the church bell, the Civil Rights-era stools — alongside countless drawers of key blanks. The shop keeps its old-fashioned traditions, too, still charging about a dollar for a basic key copy and handing free keys to children as good-luck tokens. Yet this is no mere curiosity: in peak season the store handles around 100 customers a day, from downtown homeowners with antique locks to businesses needing master-key systems to history buffs who drop in just to look around.
Its endurance through nearly a century and a half has made Bradley Lock & Key the oldest continuously operating business in Savannah — a point of real community pride, recognized by the City of Savannah on the shop’s 140th anniversary in 2023. Through economic ups and downs, social change, and brushes with both fame and infamy, the little locksmith shop has persevered. It remains family-run, with the sixth generation of Bradleys already learning the trade as children. In a city famous for its history, this unassuming shop on State Street is itself a piece of Savannah’s story — a place where keys, locks, and legends have been passed down from one generation to the next.
Discover Haunted Wright Square
Bradley Lock & Key and the ghostly legends of Wright Square are favorite stops on our walk through haunted Savannah. Come hear them after dark with Destination Ghost Tours.