(Spirit Box) The “King” Who Lived Here: Vincent Chicco, Charleston’s Booze Wars, and Why My Blind Tiger 1/18 (1) EVP Finally Made Sense
- History, Haunts, & Hahas!
- Jan 28
- 6 min read
Updated: Jan 31
R [9:47:27 PM]: spirit king castle passed beware
R 19:47:38 PM]: five candle died hide save kill
R [9:47:50 PM]: longing mother where sad find father
R 19:48:00 PM]: mirror justice past cross over last incomplete
R [9:48:08 PM]: save trapped welcome thirteen see deceased
R [9:48:17 PM]: soul peaceful inquisition sage limbo door
R [9:48:28 PM]: thirteen worlds never joy cursed grief
R [9:48:40 PM]: where vampire man tell EVP basement
R [9:48:50 PM]: portal now there heart vortex night
R [9:49:06 PM]: corner man battle forget man evil
R [9:49:22 PM]: seven castle death thank you exorcism fairy
R [9:49:32 PM]: baby nine leave poisoned victim always
R [9:49:41 PM]: hallway death first greetings twelve gone
R [9:49:54 PM]: lost hate judgment guilty beware regret
R [9:50:03 PM]: war portal grave family find portal
R [9:50:12 PM]: hello now cold spot heaven revenant bitter
R [9:50:23 PM]: listen yearning window lie sorry help
R [9:50:33 PM]: home killed cold yes attached afraid
R [9:50:41 PM]: banshee execution hear heaven forgive go
R [9:50:42 PM]: careful room
The “King” Who Lived Here: Vincent Chicco, Charleston’s Booze Wars, and Why My Blind Tiger EVP Finally Made Sense
I love a good spirit box session the way Charleston loves a good loophole:
enthusiastically, respectfully, and with one eyebrow raised.
So here’s what happened.
I ran a spirit box session at Blind Tiger Pub and captured this little word-salad that immediately made my brain grab a corkboard and red string:
“castle spirit king passed beware”
And because I’m me, I did what any responsible haunted-history gremlin does: I tried to prove myself wrong three times before I let myself feel spooky about it.
Step One: My first thought… Alice Flagg?
When I first googled around, I kept seeing Alice Flagg pop up as a South Carolina “Lady in White” legend. Tragic love story. Wealthy family. Disapproved engagement. Lost ring. Grave ritual. The whole gothic buffet.
But the more I sat with my EVP phrase, the less it fit.
Alice’s legend (no matter which version you hear) is built around mourning, searching, loss, and heartbreak. My EVP wasn’t giving “heartbroken girl in white.” It was giving:
power
territory
status
warning
“King” and “beware” don’t feel like Alice’s vocabulary. And Blind Tiger Pub isn’t her story-ground geographically or historically. So I filed that under: great Carolina lore, wrong haunting lane.
Step Two: Then I thought… Castle Pinckney?
Next, I tried to treat the word “castle” literally. Charleston does have a real “castle” in the harbor: Castle Pinckney. Plenty of archives, plenty of history, and it’s absolutely the kind of place the word castle would point toward.
But… the more I tested it, the more it didn’t fit either.
Castle Pinckney is a military site—government-controlled, institutional, defensive. Blind Tiger Pub is a courtyard / former-residential / social space that built its reputation on secrecy and hospitality. Different kind of “castle.” Different kind of “king.”
So I threw out the idea that my EVP was sending me on a harbor scavenger hunt.
Step Three: The real shift—stop reading the words literally
This is the moment where the whole thing snapped into focus.
Spirit boxes don’t usually hand you a clean, labeled historical citation. They throw out fragments—short, sticky words—and we do the pattern recognition.
So instead of asking, “What castle is it talking about?” I asked:
What kind of place would be described as a “castle”?
What kind of person gets called a “king” in a place like this?
Why would a ‘warning’ show up in the same breath as ‘passed’?
And suddenly, my EVP wasn’t a sentence. It was an archetype:
A powerful man, in a controlled place, whose rule is over… but whose presence still lingers as a boundary.
In Charleston terms: not a crowned king—an uncrowned one.
Enter Vincent Chicco: Charleston’s “Blind Tiger King”
And that’s when I remembered the name that actually belongs in this building’s orbit:
Vincent Chicco (you’ll also see spellings vary in historic print, but “Chicco” is widely used in period sources).
If you know Charleston’s drinking-history rabbit holes, you know this man wasn’t just “around” during the city’s booze wars—he became a headline magnet because of them.
Charleston Magazine summarizes him as an Italian-born immigrant who built a business on Market Street, became a cause célèbre, and repeatedly clashed with the state’s liquor enforcement after South Carolina adopted a system that restricted alcohol sales to state-run dispensaries in the early 1890s. (Charleston, SC | Charleston Magazine)
To understand why that matters, you need one key piece of context:
What the Dispensary System was (and why Charleston fought it)
South Carolina’s Dispensary system (adopted in 1892) gave the state a monopoly on liquor sales and created a special liquor constabulary to enforce it. It was pitched as a compromise between free private sales and full prohibition—and it sparked resistance, corruption allegations, and even riots and martial law in parts of the state. (South Carolina Encyclopedia)
That’s the legal atmosphere that grows the “blind tiger” phenomenon: illicit drinking operations that pop up in defiance of the system.
Blind Tiger Pub’s own “About” page explicitly frames the term “Blind Tiger” as tied to late-1800s illicit establishments and says South Carolina “blind tigers” sprang up in 1893 as a rebuttal to Dispensary laws. (That’s the venue’s narrative—useful as a lens, but not the same thing as a court record.) (Blind Tiger)
Now here’s the part that made me sit up straight:
“Uncrowned blind tiger king of Charleston”
A 1906 article in the Historical Newspapers of South Carolina archive (University of South Carolina) describes Vincent Chicco as:
“the uncrowned blind tiger king of Charleston”
…in plain print. (Historic Newspapers)
Not metaphor. Not modern marketing. Not ghost-tour copy.
A real historical label, attached to a real person, in a real contemporaneous source.
And if you want more proof that “Chicco + illicit liquor” wasn’t a one-time rumor, a 1916 piece in that same USC-hosted newspaper archive lists him among defendants charged with violating South Carolina’s prohibition law, while describing enforcement tactics and “blind tiger” operations in Charleston. (Historic Newspapers)
So when my EVP spit out: “spirit king passed beware,” I wasn’t looking at a random word “king” anymore.
I was looking at a Charleston man who was literally branded in print as a “blind tiger king.” (Historic Newspapers)
Re-reading the EVP with the history in place
Here’s the interpretation I landed on—clearly labeled as interpretation, not proof.
🏰 “Castle”
Not a literal castle—more like a controlled domain. Courtyard spaces, private rooms, layered history, and the kind of environment where who’s in charge matters.
👻 “Spirit”
Not necessarily “a ghost introduced himself.” Sometimes “spirit” functions as what remains: memory, residue, atmosphere, legacy.
👑 “King”
In Charleston’s illicit liquor history, “king” doesn’t have to mean royalty. It can mean a man who ruled a network—an operator, a gatekeeper, a figure with reputation.
And Vincent Chicco’s “blind tiger king” label is not a modern invention; it’s documented. (Historic Newspapers)
⚰️ “Passed”
Past tense. Finished. Over. The rule ended. The man is gone.
⚠️ “Beware”
This is the word that spooks people the most, but it doesn’t have to mean “danger.” In a place defined by secrecy, enforcement pressure, and social rules, “beware” can read as:
“Mind your manners.”
“Respect the boundary.”
“Watch what you say.”
“This place had rules long before you got here.”
Which… honestly? That’s the most Charleston sentence I’ve ever heard.
My conclusion
Archival truth: Vincent Chicco was a real person tied to Charleston’s liquor battles, and he was publicly known—literally described in 1906 print—as the “uncrowned blind tiger king of Charleston.” (Historic Newspapers)
South Carolina’s Dispensary system created the enforcement climate that helped “blind tiger” operations thrive, and the state’s shifting alcohol regimes set the stage for years of raids, prosecutions, and public drama. (South Carolina Encyclopedia)
Paranormal interpretation (not proof): The EVP phrase reads less like a literal scavenger hunt and more like an archetypal imprint—a powerful man, a controlled place, a “king” whose time is over, and a warning that feels more like boundary/awareness than menace.
So do I think the EVP might rhyme with Vincent Chicco’s legacy?
I’ll say it like this:
I can’t prove a spirit identified itself.
But I can say the words landed on a documented Charleston archetype so cleanly—“blind tiger king”—that it stopped feeling random and started feelinglocation-accurate.(Historic Newspapers)
And in my line of work, that’s the sweet spot: history you can cite, lore you can explore, and a little chill on your neck that keeps you walking.
Sources
Charleston Magazine — “The legendary story of Vincent Chicco, a 19th-century immigrant restaurateur who faced down the governor over booze laws and won” (Aug. 2022). (Charleston, SC | Charleston Magazine)
Historical Newspapers of South Carolina (University of South Carolina) — 1906 article referencing Vincent Chicco as the “uncrowned blind tiger king of Charleston.” (Historic Newspapers)
Historical Newspapers of South Carolina (University of South Carolina) — 1916 article referencing Vincent Chicco among those charged with violating the prohibition law, discussing “blind tiger” operations and enforcement. (Historic Newspapers)
South Carolina Encyclopedia — “Dispensary (1892–1915)” overview of the system, monopoly on liquor sales, special liquor constabulary, resistance and dismantling. (South Carolina Encyclopedia)
South Carolina Law Review (sclawreview.org) — Background discussion of South Carolina’s Dispensary System, wet/dry conflict, enforcement turmoil, and transition toward statewide prohibition. (South Carolina Law Review)
Blind Tiger Pub (official site) — “About” page describing the historical “blind tiger” concept and the venue’s homage framing (used as venue narrative, not primary proof). (Blind Tiger)
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