Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Home, St. Augustine

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Home, also known as Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum, is located in the historic Castle Warden in St. Augustine. The Castle Warden was built in 1887 by William G. Warden of Philadelphia as a winter escape for his family. Warden was partners with Henry Flagler and John D. Rockefeller of the Standard Oil Company. Later, the home was purchased by Norton Baskin, a wealthy hotelier, and his wife, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. They converted the home into upscale hotel accommodations, which later became the site of a tragic fire that claimed the lives of two women.

The mysterious events surrounding the fire have made the Castle Warden a popular destination for paranormal investigators and ghost hunters. Visitors to Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum can take a guided tour of the attics and backrooms of the Castle Warden, armed with EMF meters and laser light pointers, designed to detect energy around them. A 3D movie introduces guests to the story of the Castle Warden Hotel and the suspicious fire. The movie features a paranormal team called Anomaly, who set up devices to detect evidence of voices and apparitions in the museum.

The tour guides explain the story of the fire, who the two women were, and the man that is believed to have set the whole thing in motion, Mr. X. Visitors can experience paranormal events in the hotel rooms that were once occupied by the victims. Castle Warden is a four-story Moorish castle that was later purchased by the estate of Robert Ripley and turned into the first Ripley's Believe It or Not museum. The museum features a variety of odd and unusual items from around the world, including a mummified cat, a 1⁄12 scale model of the original Ferris wheel made out of erector sets, life and death masks of famous celebrities, and shamanistic apparati from cultures around the world.

Despite its strange and spooky history, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Home/Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum is a popular tourist destination in St. Augustine. It is the oldest Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum and has been the site of many paranormal investigations.