On the South Florida Fairgrounds sets a village that transports visitors back in time. A collection of relocated and reassembled buildings make up Yesteryear Village, offering a glimpse of what life looked like prior to 1940. But it may not only be the buildings that were transported to this outdoor history museum. Stories of the spirits of those who used to call those buildings home have been reported since the first building was put in place in 1990. This episode of Phantom History dives into the history of some of those buildings and we hear about paranormal encounters directly from the lead investigator at War Party Paranormal.

YESTERYEAR VILLAGE

What better way to look at history than to bring a bunch of historic buildings together?

That’s exactly how Yesteryear Village was formed. This literal village is a conglomerate of historic structures that have been relocated and preserved to represent life in Florida’s east coast in the 1800s. I admit that I have not yet been to this location myself. I conducted the interviews during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and was still sequestered to my home.

But this is the very first episode to feature an interview with a bona fide ghost hunter, and I feel honored that War Party Paranormal took the time out of their schedule to speak with me.

But it wasn’t just the ghost hunters who had stories of hauntings here. The staff members of Yesteryear Village have had encounters with spirits, and many of those spirits appear to be children!

I don’t know what it is about child spirits, but that always seems to add a level of sadness and eeriness to a location. And when I heard the details about those encounters it made me want to add this unique village to my bucket list.

How did I learn about Yesteryear Village? Well, the War Party Paranormal team suggested it as an episode. This is when I realized that the people who do these investigations are an amazing resource for this podcast and for finding the right people to discuss historical locations. Since this episode I’ve had the opportunity to work with this team again, and they never fail to provide incredible insight to increasingly interesting historic locations.