Spook Hill — Attraction in Lake Wales

Driving east to west and back and forth on State Road 60, I’ve had the opportunity to drive through Lake Wales, Florida, on occasion. When doing so, I’ve frequently stopped at Spook Hill, a popular gravity hill located on a significant range of sand and limestone hills. When parked in neutral “on the white line,” your car will appear to “roll up” the spooky hill while actually moving in reverse.

More about the story than the actual experience, my kids and their friends enjoy it. Not something I would drive out of my way to visit, Spook Hills is a fun 30 or so minute distraction while driving through Lake Wales. An off-beat and fun attraction, it’s free, you can take a few photos, and the kids will talk about it for hours. I often find myself riding the white line 3 or 4 times for the benefit of the kids.

Spook Hill is located directly across the street from Spook Hill Elementary School, which conveniently adopted “Casper the Friendly Ghost” as their school mascot. In this day and age of “political correctness,” I’m surprised no one has forced a name change of this attraction.

/s/ William E. Lewis Jr. Vero...

Found out about this place while visiting Bok Tower nearby.

Apparently, it is one of the many "gravity hills" that have become part of the roadside Americana culture. I have been to a few and some of them do have weird things that happen or weird feelings (one in Indiana actually caused the gauges in my car to go haywire and static on the radio and another in California actually made me dizzy), others are basically a waste of time. This is kind of between the two types.

In order for the "optical illusion" to work, you bring your car up to the white line marked on the road, put the car in neutral and let it roll back. There's no funky magnetic weirdness happening and I didn't get any odd heebeejeebees, but if you stand at the bottom w/the right angle of view, it looks like the car is kinda going up vs rolling down. That's it.

There's a whole "legend" that's on the sign marker and if this is your cup of tea or you are mildly curious, than by all means, follow your GPS here (it is actually easier to find it via the elementary school directions) and have a go, but other than that, not worth making it a...

For all those who expect to go up the hill in front of the line, that is not the hill that is being referred to. When you read the sign, look ahead and notice that the line is at lower level, that my friends is the hill that is being called spoke hill. This barely noticeable incline. I pulled up thinking I was suppose to roll up the hill but I rolled backwards, I left disappointed after multiple tries not understanding what the big deal was. Turns out your supposed to roll backwards, but it didn't feel as if I was rolling backwards up a hill, it felt I was rolling backwards down the end of a hill. The signs mentions going backwards, but at the time I thought it was sarcasm, as I was expecting to roll up the hill. Spoke Hill is something you hear about and see for yourself if you are ever in the area, it should never be the main attraction in your trip, to the central Florida area. It's like one of those things a child does and says, "hey look what I can do," and then they do nothing...