Where Guests Check in – and Never Check Out!
Compiled by Troy Taylor
Haunted hotels can be found all over the country.
As we consider how many people pass through hotels and motels each year, it
isn't hard to imagine that there might be a ghost or two around. There are
places where people often do things that they wouldn’t do at home, which means
that even newer hotels have more than their share of murders, rapes, assaults
and mysterious deaths. Needless to say, such events can cause ghosts to linger
behind, meaning that people check in, but they don’t always check out.
STANLEY HOTEL
Estes Park,
Colorado
One of the most famous haunted hotels in the
country is the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. However, much if its
infamy comes not from the hauntings but from the fact that it inspired novelist
Stephen King to write THE SHINING in the early 1970s.
The Stanley Hotel was built in 1909 by Freelan
Stanley, the co-creator of the Stanley Automobile. He came to Estes Park for
his health and stayed at a cabin with his wife, Flora, for the summer of 1903.
They fell in love with the region and Stanley’s health improved. He decided to
invest his fortune in the area and opened the Stanley in 1909. It took two
years to complete, all built from natural wood and rock from the area. Equipped
with running water, electricity, and telephones, the only amenity the hotel
lacked was heat, as the hotel was designed as a summer resort.
The hotel opened on July 4 and catered to the rich
and famous, including Titanic survivor
“Unsinkable” Molly Brown, John Philip Sousa, Theodore Roosevelt, the Emperor
and Empress of Japan, and a variety of Hollywood personalities. Although it
enjoyed great fame among wealthy tourists for many years, its greatest infamy
came when the Stanley inspired Stephen King to write THE SHINING.
In the early 1970s, King and his wife spent the
night at the hotel thanks to bad weather. He had been working on a book idea
about a family trapped at a haunted amusement park, but it was going nowhere.
Then one day, he saw a sign in the mountains that warned of roads becoming
impassable after October because of the snow. The story of THE SHINING was
moved to the mythical Overlook Hotel after King checked into the place just as
it was closing down for the season. The empty hallways and deserted guest areas
inspired him to write a man who goes mad after agreeing to act as a caretaker
in a haunted hotel for the winter.
But according to local lore, the Stanley itself was
actually haunted. There have been a number of reports of ghostly activity,
primarily in the ballroom. Kitchen staff have reported to have heard a party
going on in the ballroom, only to find it empty. People in the lobby have
allegedly heard someone playing the ballroom's piano; employees investigating
the music purportedly found nobody sitting at the piano. Employees believe that
particular ghost is Stanley's wife, Flora, who used to be a piano player. In
one guest room, people claim to have seen a man standing over the bed before
running into the closet. This same apparition is allegedly responsible for
stealing guests' jewelry, watches, and luggage. Others reported to have seen
ghosts in their rooms in the middle of the night, simply standing in their room
before disappearing.
CRESCENT HOTEL
Eureka Springs,
Arkansas
The Crescent Hotel was built in Eureka Springs,
Arkansas between 1884 and 1886 to take advantage of the local boom time of the
Frisco Railroad, which was bringing people in to take advantage of the “healing
waters” in the area. The gothic-looking hotel was fitted with numerous towers,
overhanging balconies and granite walls that are more than eighteen inches
thick. The dining room seated up to 500 people and it included electric lights,
bathrooms and modern plumbing.
The hotel flourished for a time and then went in
and out of business for years. It boomed again in the 1920s and early 1930sm
but on July 31, 1937, the doors were closed at the Crescent Hotel and the
building was sold to Norman Baker, who remodeled the place. Once he purchased
it, the structure underwent a strange transformation and thus began the most
bizarre chapter in the history of the Crescent. Baker made his first fortune in
1903 by inventing the Tangley Air Calliope, an organ that played with air
pressure instead of steam. He made millions of dollars with his invention, but
Baker was a born charlatan, who was never happy without his next scheme. He
considered himself something of a medical expert, although he had no formal
training. He claimed to have discovered a number of "cures" for
various ailments but he was sure that organized medicine was conspiring to keep
these "miracle medicines" from the market. He was also sure that
these same "enemies" – namely doctors from the American Medical
Association -- were trying to kill him.
Baker opened his first hospital in Muscatine in
1929 but ran into legal problems over his “cure” for cancer. He was convicted
of practicing medicine without a license in 1936 and all of his medicines were
condemned by the American Medical Association. Nevertheless, he purchased the
Crescent Hotel with plans to turn the place into a hospital and "health
resort" for cancer victims.
Baker’s remodeling of the hotel reportedly cost
almost $50,000 and he tragically destroyed much of the original decoration that
remained on the structure. After the remodeling was completed, Baker moved his
hospital staff and 144 patients from Iowa to Arkansas. He advertised the health
resort by saying that no X-rays or operations were performed to save his
patients’ lives. The "cures" mostly consisted of drinking the natural
spring water of the area and various home remedies. Needless to say, no one was
cured. Eventually, federal authorities caught up with Baker and he was charged
with using the mail to defraud the public about his false medical claims. He
was convicted in 1940 and sentenced to four years in Leavenworth. The hospital
closed and Baker vanished into history.
The brooding old hotel stayed closed until 1946,
when new investors took it over and began trying to restore the place. The hard
years still showed and the hotel was described as being "seedily
elegant." Since then, however, it has started to regain its lost glory and
it remains an odd and historical piece of Ozark history. It is also, according
to staff members and countless visitors, a very haunted place.
A myriad of ghosts (including Dr. Baker) are
believed to inhabit the old hotel. A number of rooms (including the previously
mentioned Room 218) are said to have their own resident ghosts who checked in,
but never checked out. Doors are opened and closed, lights turned on and off
and phantom figures have been seen in the corridors. It’s possible that the era
of Baker’s hospital may have left the greatest ghostly impression on the place.
In July 1987, a guest claimed that she saw a nurse pushing a gurney down the
hallway in the middle of the night. The nurse reached the wall and then
vanished. It was later learned that a number of other people had witnessed the
same vision and had seen it reenacted in just the same way. An apparition that
is believed to be Baker himself has been spotted around the old recreation
room, near the foot of the stairs going to the first floor. Those who have seen
him say that he looks lost, first going one way and then another. It seems that
Baker may still be lingering in his old hotel, wandering forever for the crimes
he committed against those who trusted him to save their lives.
KNICKERBOCKER
HOTEL
Hollywood,
California
The Knickerbocker Hotel was built was in 1925 in
the heart of Hollywood. It first opened as a luxury apartment building and
became a hotel later on in its history. One of the attractions of the place was
the Renaissance Revival bar, which played host to the cream of the Hollywood
crop. One frequent guest was Rudolph Valentino, who reportedly loved to dance
the tango to the live music performed in the saloon. The hotel served many
guests, and was home to many scandals over the years.
The hotel lobby features a huge crystal chandelier,
which cost over $120,000 in 1925, and it was under this chandelier that epic
film director D.W. Griffith died of a stroke in 1948. At the time of his death,
Griffith, who was a pioneer in the Hollywood film industry, had been largely
forgotten by his peers. He eked out a painful and lonely existence at the
Knickerbocker, spending most of his time in the hotel bar, talking to anyone
who was willing to listen to him. His dismissal by Hollywood was as great a
tragedy as his death and it would not be until years later that he would be
regarded as the genius that he undoubtedly was.
Another Knickerbocker tragedy was actress Frances
Farmer, whose all-too-brief career electrified Hollywood in the 1930s. She was
only 27 years old, but her star was soon to fade – and then plummet from the
sky in a haze of alcohol and mental illness. Farmer was arrested at the
Knickerbocker in 1943 after reports that she had started a drunken nightclub
brawl and was running through the streets topless. The police broke into her
room and dragged her half-naked through the hotel lobby. She was sent to a
mental hospital and endured horrible conditions for years. When released, she
got a job at a hotel in Oregon sorting laundry. Her career rebounded for a time
but after another nervous collapse and more arrests for drunk driving, things
fell apart. She died from cancer in 1970. At the time of her death, the once
beautiful and headstrong star was penniless, broken, and alone.
Tragedy and legends continued to be born at the
Knickerbocker as time went by. The stories say that author William Faulkner and
Meta Carpenter, a script girl from the Fox studios, began their lengthy affair
at the Knickerbocker. Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio honeymooned there in
1954. Elvis Presley often stayed at the Knickerbocker and in 1956, when he was
filming “Love Me Tender,” he posed for “Heartbreak Hotel” photos in one of the
rooms. Other stars who lived or stayed at the Knickerbocker included rocker
Jerry Lee Lewis, Mae West, Lana Turner, Cecil B. DeMille, Frank Sinatra, Laurel
and Hardy and many others.
Character actor William Frawley, who played Fred
Mertz on the “I Love Lucy” show, lived at the hotel for decades. In March of
1966, he was walking into the Knickerbocker when he dropped dead of a heart
attack on the sidewalk outside. His nurse carried him into the lobby and
attempted to revive him, but it was too late.
Perhaps the strangest tragedy took place in
November 1962 with the suicide of Irene Gibbons, an actress and costume
designer at MGM. As a friend of actress Doris Day, she confided in her that she
had fallen in love with Gary Cooper. When Cooper died a short time later, Irene
was unable to get over the loss.
On November 15, Irene took a room at the
Knickerbocker Hotel, checking in under an assumed name. She cut her wrists but
when this did not prove to be immediately fatal, she jumped to her death from
her bathroom window on the 14th floor, landing on the extended roof of the
lobby, where she was discovered later that same night (not two days later, as
is often reported). She had left caring notes for friends and family, for her
ailing husband, and for the hotel residents, apologizing for any inconvenience
her death might cause.
Undoubtedly, the first thing of a supernatural
nature to occur at the Knickerbocker was the anniversary séance to contact the
spirit of magician Harry Houdini. During his life, Houdini had been an opponent
of the Spiritualist movement, but made a pact with his wife and friends that
should contact be possible from the other side, he would attempt it. For 10
years after his death, his wife, Bess Houdini, continued to hold séances in
hopes of communicating with her late husband. The last "official"
Houdini séance was held on Halloween night of 1936 – on the roof of the
Knickerbocker Hotel. Attempts were made to contact the magician but all failed –
or did they? As the moment the séance came to an end, a tremendously violent
thunderstorm broke out, drenching the séance participants and terrifying them
with the horrific lightning and thunder. They would later learn that this
mysterious storm did not occur anywhere else in Hollywood --- only above the
Knickerbocker Hotel! Some speculated that perhaps Houdini did come through
after all, as the flamboyant performer just might have made his presence known
by the spectacular effects of the thunderstorm.
Although Houdini’s ghost has never been reported to
make an appearance at the Knickerbocker, the place has long been considered to
be haunted. The most “spirited” spot was always thought to be the hotel bar, so
not surprisingly, when the Knickerbocker closed in 1971 and became a senior
citizen’s retirement building, the old bar was sealed off. The rooms remained
closed and unused for nearly 25 years until the early 1990s, when it was
re-opened as a nostalgic coffee shop.
Many believe that celebrities from the past often
put in appearances here as well. The ghost of Valentino has occasionally been
reported, along with that of Marilyn Monroe, who has been seen in the women’s
restroom. Other anonymous spirits sometimes show up as well and staff members
are quick to recall instances of lights turning on and off and things moving
about on their own. Even after all of these years, the Knickerbocker remains a
glamorous, and often mysterious, place.
HOTEL DEL CORONADO
San Diego,
California
When the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego opened in
1888, it was the largest resort hotel in the world. In the middle 1880s, the
San Diego area was in the middle of a real estate boom. To draw people to the
area, several wealthy businessmen went together and built the Hotel Del
Coronado. The massive undertaking ran into numerous problems, not the least of
which was the lack of lumber in the area, fresh water, skilled craftsmen and
men who could handle the “new-fangled” electricity that the owners wanted
installed. The electric wires were eventually installed inside of gas lines,
just in case they didn’t work.
The popularity of the hotel was established before
the 1920s. It already had hosted Presidents Harrison, McKinley, Taft, and
Wilson. The hotel went on to host presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D.
Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford,
Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush,
and Barack Obama.
By the 1920s Hollywood's stars and starlets
discovered that 'the Del' was the 'in place' to stay. Many celebrities made
their way south to party during the era of Prohibition and used the Hotel Del
as their personal playground. Tom Mix, Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin, and
Ramón Novarro were a few of the many actors who stayed at the hotel during
weekend getaways. Other notables have included Marilyn Monroe, Thomas Edison,
L. Frank Baum, Vincent Price, Babe Ruth and many others.
During World War II, many West Coast resorts and
hotels were taken over by the U.S. government for use as housing and hospitals.
The Hotel Del Coronado housed many pilots, who were being trained at nearby
North Island Naval Air Station on a contract basis, but it was never
commandeered. General manager Steven Royce convinced the Navy to abstain from
taking over the hotel, because most of the additional rooms were being used to house
the families of officers. The hotel did start a number of victory gardens on
the grounds.
By the end of the war, the neglected hotel had
started to age and while millions were spent to refurbish it, a new owner in
1963 planned to tear it down. But he changed his and remodeled and expanded it
instead. It remains today as one of the most beautiful resorts on the west
coast – and many say, one of the most haunted.
There are a number of hauntings associated with the
hotel, including the ghosts of a little boy and girl, a former hotel caretaker,
seen in the dining room, and a Victorian woman who has been seen dancing in the
ballroom.
Room 502 (now 3502) was rumored to be the love nest
of hotel builder and early owner E. S. Babcock. The ill-fated mistress staying
in this room took her own life soon after learning she was with child. The body
later disappeared, perhaps removed by someone wishing to avoid an ugly scandal.
Today, lights sometimes flicker in the room, and outside the door, an icy chill
may be felt. In 1983, a Secret Service agent was assigned to room 3502 while he
was at the hotel to protect then Vice-President George Bush on an official
visit to San Diego. The agent did not last the entire night in room 3502,
complaining of feeling a breeze and seeing billowing drapes despite the windows
being closed, gurgling sounds, and finally a ghostly glow that clung to the
entire room.
Apparitions have been seen in the hallways and
there have been numerous reports of whispers and voices of people who are not
there. It is not unusual for the cleaning staff of the hotel to arrange to work
in pairs, to avoid being anywhere alone. But there is no ghost story at the Del
more famous than that of a beautiful young woman, Kate Morgan, who stayed at
the hotel around Thanksgiving, November 1892.
Hotel guests and employees believe that most of the
paranormal events that occur at the hotel can be connected to Kate Morgan. Witnesses
report flickering lights, televisions that turn on and off by themselves,
dramatic shifts in room temperatures, odd scents, unexplained voices, the sound
of strange footsteps, mysterious breezes which cause curtains to billow when
windows are closed, and objects which move of their own accord; and some claim
to have seen the ghost of Kate Morgan herself.
Kate Morgan, a pretty woman in her mid 20s, checked
into the Hotel Del Coronado alone on Thursday, November 24, 1892 (Thanksgiving
evening). During her stay, hotel
employees – many of whom had frequent interactions with Kate – reported that
she had appeared ill and very unhappy.
She had also told quite a few employees that she was waiting for her
brother (who she said was a doctor) to join her - but he never showed up. Five
days after she checked in, Kate was found dead on an exterior staircase leading
to the beach. Kate had a gunshot wound
to her head, which the San Diego County Coroner later determined was self-inflicted.
A search of her hotel room revealed no personal
belongings. In fact, there was nothing
to identify “the beautiful stranger” except the name she used when she
registered: Lottie A. Bernard (from Detroit). After her death, police sent a
sketch of Kate’s face and information about her death to newspapers and police
stations around the country, in the hopes that someone could shed light on “the
dark mystery surrounding the suicide of the unknown girl at the Coronado
Hotel.” Eventually, Lottie Bernard was identified as Kate Morgan, originally
from Iowa, and the wife of Tom Morgan.
Reportedly, Tom Morgan was a gambler, who may have made his living
gambling on the railroad.
After the inquest into Kate’s suicide, a gentleman
came forward to say that he had seen Kate arguing with a man (thought to have
been Tom) on a train en route to San Diego. The witness said that Tom
disembarked before reaching San Diego, and Kate continued on to the Hotel Del
Coronado by herself, where, it is assumed, she waited – and waited - for Tom to
join her. When he never showed up, Kate
took her own life.
Since that time, paranormal activity has been
reported in the room Kate stayed in during her 1892 visit – room 3327 --- and
in other areas of the hotel. She is the most enduring ghost of the grand hotel
and continues her hold on the place more than 120 years after her tragic death.
ST. JAMES HOTEL
Cimarron, New
Mexico
The St. James Hotel was built in 1872 by Henry
Lambert. First known as Lambert’s Inn, its saloon, restaurant and 43 guest
rooms saw at least 26 murders during the wilder days of Cimarron. There was
little in the way of law and order in those days and gunfighters like Clay
Allison and Black Jack Ketchum left their mark on the place. The saloon was
wildly popular to cowboys, traders, miners and the many travelers of the Santa
Fe Trail. The saloon did so well that Henry added guest rooms in 1880, and the
hotel was soon considered to be one of the most elegant hotels west of the
Mississippi.
Many well-known people stayed there over the years.
Wyatt Earp, his brother Morgan, and their wives spent three nights at the St.
James on their way to Tombstone, Arizona. Jesse James stayed there several
times, always in room 14, signing the registry with his alias, R.H. Howard. Buffalo
Bill Cody met Annie Oakley at the hotel and began to plan and rehearse their
Wild West Show. When Henry’s son Fred was born, Buffalo Bill nicknamed him
"Cyclone Dick” because he was born during a blustery snow storm, and he
was soon asked to be Fred’s godfather.
As Fred Lambert grew older, Buffalo Bill would be
one of the first to give him instruction in the use of guns. Fred Lambert would
spend his entire life upholding the law as a Cimarron Sheriff, a member of the
tribal police and a territorial marshal. When Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley
left Cimarron to take their show on the road, they took an entire village of
Indians from the Cimarron area with them.
Other notables who have stayed at the historic inn
include Bat Masterson, General Sheridan, Kit Carson, Doc Holliday, Billy the
Kid, Pat Garrett, artist Fredrick Remington, Governor Lew Wallace, and writer
Zane Grey. The Hotel was later renamed the St. James and continues to cater to
travelers today – along with a number of ghosts.
Both the owners and the guests of the hotel tell of
the haunting with many unexplained events.
The second floor of the hotel is the most active, with stories of cold
spots and the smell of cigar smoke lingering in the halls (smoking is not
allowed in the hotel.) A report from a former owner, states that she walked
into the dining room and saw a pleasant-looking cowboy standing behind her in
the mirror on the front of the bar.
Room 18 at the hotel is kept locked because it
houses the ghost of an ill-tempered Thomas James Wright, who was killed at his
door just after winning the rights to the hotel in a poker game. Having been
shot from behind, Wright continued on into the room and slowly bled to death. Wright’s
angry, malevolent ghost continues to haunt the room and he does not like
company. One former owner said she was pushed down while in the room. This room
is considered by the staff to be the most haunted and people are rarely allowed
to enter the room, much less sleep in it. Rumors abound that when the room was
rented, a number of mysterious deaths occurred there.
Other entities are also said to roam the hotel,
creating a host of paranormal activities. Staff members report that items
constantly fall off walls and shelves and electrical equipment at the front
desk behaves unpredictably. Others have reported cold spots throughout the
historic inn, lights that seemingly turn on by themselves, feelings of being
watched by unseen eyes, and cameras that cease to work inside the hotel,
strangely return to normal after leaving the St. James.
MENGER HOTEL
San Antonio, Texas
The famous Menger Hotel in San Antonio is one of
the best-known and oldest hotels in Texas. Opened by William Menger on February
1, 1859, the hotel was constructed on the site of Menger′s brewery, the first
brewery in Texas. Said to have been the finest hotel west of the Mississippi
River, it once hosted such notables as Sam Houston, Generals Lee and Grant and
Presidents McKinley, Taft, Eisenhower, and Roosevelt; Babe Ruth, and Mae West.
The hotel saw great success and Menger died in the building in March 1871, and
his widow and son took over the management.
When the Civil War and Reconstruction were over,
and especially after the railroad arrived in 1877, the Menger became the
best-known hotel in the Southwest. It was praised for the cuisine offered in
the Colonial Dining Room, which included such specialties as wild game, mango
ice cream, and snapper soup made from turtles caught in the San Antonio River.
Hermann Kampmann became manager in 1887 and
supervised the installation of a new bar, a replica of the taproom in the House
of Lords Club in London. The solid cherry bar, cherry-paneled ceiling, French
mirrors, and gold-plated spittoons were the marvels of San Antonio. Theodore
Roosevelt first visited the Menger in 1892 on a javelina hunt; he returned to
recruit his Rough Riders at the hotel in 1898; and in 1905 he was back for a
banquet.
The hotel was a center of San Antonio social
affairs and a meeting place for visiting celebrities. It declined during the
Great Depression, but since that time, it has been remodeled and restored
several times and still greets scores of guests every year. Some of them, of
course, never leave…
The Menger Hotel is said be called home or visited
regularly by some 32 different ghosts, including former president Theodore
Roosevelt. It was here, in the Menger Bar, that Roosevelt recruited hard-living
cowboys to his detachment of Rough Riders. Reportedly, Teddy would sit at the
bar and as the cowboys came in, he would jovially offer them a free drink (or
several) as he worked his recruiting strategy upon the unsuspecting cowpoke.
Many sobered up the next morning to find themselves on their way to basic
military training at Fort Sam Houston before joining in the Spanish-American
War. Over the years, Roosevelt has reportedly been seen having a drink at the
dark little barroom off the main lobby.
The most often sighted spiritual guest is a woman
named Sallie White. Long ago, Sallie was a chambermaid who worked at the hotel.
Her husband was abusive and one night, March 28, 1876, he attacked her at the
hotel. Badly injured, she held on for two days before dying of her injuries. Today,
Sallie apparently continues to perform her duties in hotel. She has been seen
numerous times wearing an old long gray skirt and a bandana around her
forehead, the uniform common during her era. Primarily, appearing at night,
Sallie is generally seen walking along the hotel hallways, carrying a load of
clean towels for the guests.
Another apparition that is often reported is that of
Captain Richard King, one time owner one of the largest ranches in the world –
The King Ranch. A frequent visitor to the Menger Hotel during his lifetime, he
had a personal suite within the hotel. When he learned of his impending death
from his personal physicians, Captain King spent the last months of his life,
wrote his will disposing of his great wealth, and bade farewell to his friends
in his suite at the Menger. On April 15,
1885, King’s funeral was held in the Menger’s parlor. Today, the room in which
he stayed is called the "King Ranch Room.” He is often seen entering his
old room, going right through the wall where the door was once located before
it was remodeled. Display cases and photographs on the walls of the first floor
lobbies provide a glimpse into the Menger’s colorful past.
And those ghosts do not walk here alone. Ghostly
staff members have been seen, objects move about in the kitchen, and even
soldiers from the Alamo – located next door – have wandered through the
building.
CONGRESS PLAZA HOTEL
Chicago, Illinois
Built in 1893 to accommodate the scores of tourists
arriving in Chicago for the World's Columbian Exposition, the Congress Hotel
was regarded as the most elegant establishment of its kind in the city. The
ballrooms and restaurants inside of the hotel were the finest in Chicago and
attracted both travelers and city-dwellers to its doors. History has left quite
a mark on this old hotel in the way of both triumph and tragedy - and has left
a myriad of ghosts behind.
The Congress was a major attraction during the
World's Fair and it was designed by Clinton Warren, a former employee of
Burnham and Root, the firm that had constructed the magnificent buildings and
pavilions of the White City, as the exposition had been dubbed. After the fair,
the hotel began to expand. The south wing was constructed between 1902 and 1907
and part of the new construction included the Gold Room, a massive ballroom
that was the first venue of this type to be air-conditioned in the city.
One floor above the Gold Room was the Florentine
Room, a slightly smaller room decorated with reproductions of Italian paintings
on the ceiling. This room became a favorite of politicians. It was in this room
that Theodore Roosevelt made the startling announcement that he was leaving the
Republican Party, under which he had served as president from 1901-1909. Six
weeks later, Roosevelt was back in the Florentine Room and it served as his
headquarters during a bid for presidency as the nominee of the Progressive
Party, which, after a remark made by Roosevelt to reporters in the room, became
known as the Bull Moose Party. The Florentine Room eventually became a popular
spot for women's suffrage meetings, as well as dances, skating parties, and
banquets.
Another hall, the Elizabethan Room (later re-named
the Joseph Urban Room), became known all over the country when Benny Goodman
played a six-month stand with his integrated orchestra in 1935-36, and, through
a series of NBC broadcasts, introduced much of the nation to swing music.
But not everything about the Congress was happiness
and light. The hotel had a dark side, as well. Over the years, the place has
been plagued by an inordinate number of bizarre occurrences and strange deaths,
many of which have led to rumors and whispers of ghosts lingering in the hotel.
In 1900, a U.S. Army officer named Captain Louis
Ostheim was found in his room at the Congress, dead from an apparent
self-inflicted gunshot to the head. He had suffered from night terrors and
friends speculated that he shot himself in the middle of one of his violent
nightmares. Tragically, he was supposed to be married the next morning.
Hotel guests witnessed an elevator operator fall
four stories down an elevator shaft to his death in 1904. In 1908, a murder-suicide
occurred over a love triangle, just outside the hotel's front door. A husband
and wife, shot by a jealous lover, reconciled as they lay bleeding on the
sidewalk. Also in 1908, a man named Roy Gormely came to drink in the Pompeiian
Room and asked the orchestra to play "The Dead March from Saul." The
conductor didn't have the music, so, instead, Gormley bought drinks for every
musician - and paid for another round to be served the following Monday. Having
enjoyed a drink with the band, he retired to his room and shot himself. A girl
was poisoned at a party in the Pompeiian Room in 1919 and narrowly survived.
The same year, opera singer Charlotte Caillies tried to commit suicide by ingesting
poison in her hotel room. In 1930, a
showgirl named Jean Farrel died of mysterious causes in the hotel. A 15-year resident of the hotel named Hoyt
Smith shot himself in his room in 1932.
In 1938, a Czech refugee named Adele Langer who had
been forced out of her homeland with her family when Hitler invaded went
insane, purportedly because of the persecution she and her family had suffered.
Out of her mind with dementia, she threw herself out of a window - taking her
sons Karel, 6, and Jan, 4, with her.
And these weird stories are just a sample of the
tragedy that the Congress Hotel has seen. The list of murders in the hotel is
long, the list of suicides even longer, and the list of those who died of
natural causes in the place longer still. Many of the murders and deaths never
even made the newspapers.
Not surprisingly, there are numerous ghosts
associated with the hotel. Rumor has it that Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore
Roosevelt, Thomas Edison and Frank Lloyd Wright all haunt the place. These
rumors appear to have no basis in fact, but the staff has plenty of stories of
their own. Several staff members are not shy about admitting that there are
certain floors or rooms that they prefer to avoid at night.
Guests of the hotel have told of lights and
especially televisions turning on and off by themselves. This activity is
usually attributed to the ghost of "The Judge", one of the last
elderly people to live in the hotel full time. In his declining years, the
Judge would entertain himself by wheeling around in his wheelchair with a
remote control, confusing people by turning their televisions off and on from
the hallway outside.
There have been several reports of a little boy and
girl running up and down the hallways. The boy is far more commonly seen than
the girl. He has been seen all over, including in the kitchen and in guest's
rooms in the middle of the night. He is most active on the 12th floor of the
north wing, which is commonly said to be the spookiest floor of the hotel.
There are a couple of theories as to the boy's identity - some say that he may
be the ghost of Karel Langer, the six-year-old who fell to his death along with
his mother and brother in 1938. Another theory is that the boy and girl are
Donald and Zudel Stoddard, two children who were killed in the Iroquois Theatre
Fire. Their mother spent a frantic day searching for them before retiring,
semi-conscious, to her room at the hotel, where she soon learned that their
bodies had been found. Some say that the ghosts are her children coming to find
her.
The Gold Room, the largest remaining ballroom, is
not without ghosts of its own -- a phantom piano has been seen, and a
well-dressed ghostly couple is sometimes spotted overseeing the ballroom from
the balcony. Shadow figures sometimes show up in photographs taken of the
southeastern corner.
As spooky as the Gold Room can be, it is the
Florentine Room that the staff seems to regard as the scariest. At least three
security guards have reported hearing old-fashioned music coming from the room
in the middle of the night. Some attribute this to music played in the room
when it was used for roller skating parties years ago. Others have heard the
piano in the room play of its own accord. Still others have reported seeing
phantom dancers, and many have reported the feeling of a hand on their
shoulder.
Regardless of who all of these ghosts might be,
it's obvious that the Congress Hotel is one of the most haunted places in
Chicago -- a place where guests check in, and some of them never check out!
ORIGINAL SPRINGS
HOTEL
Okawville,
Illinois
The Original Springs Hotel got its start after “healing
waters” were discovered under the small town of Okawville. In 1884, the wife of
Reverend J.F. Schierbaum of Edwardsville came to Okawville to take in the
waters. At that time, she was said to have been a hopeless invalid and had
visited all of the best doctors in St. Louis, who offered her no relief from
her pains and ailments. She came to Okawville, bathed in the water and was
restored to perfect health. She was so overjoyed that she convinced her husband
and several other ministers in the German Evangelical Church to buy water business
in town and build a hotel on the site.
As the years passed, the town of Okawville and the
hotel both prospered. The hotel changed owners a few times and then in 1892,
burned to the ground. It was soon rebuilt and expanded and by 1898, the owners
were bottling the water and shipping it out all over the state, bringing more
fame to the Original Springs Hotel.
Around 1900, the hotel was sold back to Reverend
Schierbaum. After his death in 1904, his family continued to run the place,
making changes and expanding the operations through the early 1900s. Business
continued to be brisk through 1911, when Anna Schierbaum, the Reverend’s wife,
died after a lengthy illness. She had been managing the hotel since her
husband’s death and it fell to her son, Ben, who had been a clerk for several
years, to take over.
The following year, Ben married Alma Schulze, the
daughter of C.L. Schulze, who operated a store in the brick building across the
street from the hotel. Their marriage was apparently a rocky one and while no
details of their troubles have been found, Alma left Ben in November 1916, not
long after the hotel closed for the winter season. Not having any idea where
she had gone, he spent several days searching for her. He soon returned home,
depressed, and late one evening went to see her parents at their store across
the street. They were unable, or unwilling, to help the young man and he
returned to the empty hotel.
Five days later, a traveling salesman, who had been
looking for another hotel in town and was directed to the Original Springs by
mistake, walked into the lobby of the place. Even though the hotel had been
closed for the season, he found the front door unlocked and he called out to
see if anyone was around. After a short search, he found the body of Ben
Schierbaum, slumped against a wall. He had killed himself with a single shotgun
blast. Several letters and his wife’s photograph were lying on the floor. Ben
had taken his own life in despair over losing his beloved Alma.
The hotel was sold off in 1919 and began a period
of decline that resulted in the hotel becoming a hang-out for Southern Illinois
gangsters during the 1920s. The Great Depression caused hardship all over
America but it actually revived Okawville and the hotel. Radio ads brought in
large crowds from St. Louis and the surrounding area. The hotel was constantly
filled during the early 1930s but started to slack off by 1933. Business became
so bad that owner, Conrad Paeben, committed suicide by poisoning himself. The
management of the hotel was taken over by two of its employees, Tom Rogers and
Louis Elardin. With the help of a local banker, they were able to keep the
hotel open.
The hotel continued to draw weekend visitors, even
during the difficult days of World War II, but it far from the capacity crowds
of the hotel’s heyday. Owner Tom Rogers became known for being increasingly
stranger and more eccentric. He took to wandering the empty corridors of the hotel
each night until one morning in March 1962, he was discovered lying dead in one
of the upstairs rooms. A search for heirs was started but none were ever found.
His estate was settled in October of that year and the hotel was sold to Albert
and Doris Krohne, who updated the hotel and saw a rise in business.
The last change in ownership for the Original
Springs occurred in May 1990 when the Krohne’s sold out to the present owners,
Don and Mary Rennegarbe, who continue working to restore the hotel to its
former glory. The Original Springs has weathered fires, the Great Depression,
suicides, changes in management, two world wars and the changing tastes of the
American people and through it all, the hotel still stands as a monument to the
past. Even today, people come here from
all over the region to take in the healing Okawville waters and to soak up some
of the ambience of days gone by. Healing waters and good food are not the only
things that people come here looking for either – some come looking for ghosts.
And thanks to the unusual history of the hotel, and the colorful parade of
characters that has passed through it, ghosts are something that many of them
find.
Over the years, many apparitions have been seen,
notably a woman in a white dress from the 1910s. Staff members and desk clerks
started to tell of strange noises that they heard in the building at night,
including pacing footsteps in otherwise empty hallways, figures that were
sometimes seen out of the corner of the eye, doors that opened and closed by
themselves, the tinkling sound of old-time music that echoed in the corridors
and as one of the employees recently told me, the constant feeling “of someone
watching you.” Many of the staff members at the hotel refuse to go upstairs and
into the older wing at night. They have often heard strange noises in some of
the locked rooms, as well as footsteps tapping in the hallways. One
particularly unsettling room is a large suite that was converted from three
smaller rooms. Coincidence or not –- one of those rooms was where former owner
Tom Rogers was found dead back in March 1962.
Who haunts the Original Springs Hotel? Could the
figures seen here, as well as the odd sounds that are heard, simply be memories
from the past, repeating themselves over and over again? Or could there be
conscious spirits from the glory days of the hotel, simply refusing to cross
over to the other side? Might Ben Schierbaum, Tom Rogers or other characters
from the building’s history still be lingering here? And if so, who is the
mysterious woman in white who has been seen on numerous occasions? Perhaps she
is Alma Schierbaum, Ben’s wife, still haunting the hotel where her husband met
his tragic end --- trapped by guilt over having been the reason for his death.
THE ELMS
Excelsior Springs,
Missouri
In 1888, the Excelsior Springs Company built the
first Elms Hotel amidst the rolling lands and lush trees on the edge of a small
town that was also known for its “healing waters.” It was strategically located
close to the salt of a mineral well that was already a popular tourist attraction.
The three-story hotel hosted scores of visitors every season, offering large,
shaded verandas on all four sides, a live orchestra, large heated swimming
pool, bowling alley, billiards room, a target range for skeet shooting and a
four-lane bowling alley.
Unfortunately, in 1898, the beautiful hotel was
destroyed by fire. Although no one was injured, the structure was a total loss.
The fire began in the basement in the Elms bakery and quickly spread throughout
the building. Fire crews were quickly sent to the scene but could do little to
stop the blaze because the coupling on the fire hoses didn’t fit on the
hydrants located near the Elms.
Plans were made to rebuild the place but due to
various delays, construction did not begin on the new Elms until 1908. In July
1909, the new Elms had its second grand opening and the popularity of the place
continued to spread – but only for two short years. On October 29, 1910, the
hotel burned down again. Following a large party in the Grand Ballroom, a
boiler ignited and spread a fire throughout the interior and set the roof
ablaze. The hotel was lost once again, but thankfully, no one was killed – no guests
anyway. Rumor has it that staff members who were working on the boiler in the
basement died in the blaze. Their ghosts are still said to be haunting the
hotel, banging on the pipes in the walls. Those who have dismissed such stories
as nothing more than pipes that make noise when the heat turns on have to be
told that those pipes are no longer connected to the heating system.
Once again, the owners were determined to rebuild.
In order to do this, they had to sell off some of the property surrounding the
hotel to raise the funds. Work began on the new structure soon after, this time
working to make the hotel as fire-proof as possible. Missouri limestone was
used for the principal work, along with steel frames and reinforced concrete.
The hotel had its final grand opening on September 7, 1912, drawing a crowd of
more than 3,000 people.
Business at the hotel boomed during the Prohibition
era, since it earned a reputation as a very popular speakeasy, serving alcohol
during a time when it was illegal across the country. The Elms attracted all
sorts of guests during this time, from average folks to the cream of Kansas
City society. It also played host to a number of gangsters, including Chicago
mobster Al Capone, who was known to conduct all-night drinking and gambling
parties in his suite of rooms. Whenever he stayed at the Elms, Capone would
line up all of the staff members when he was ready to depart and tip each of
them with a $100 bill. Needless to say, he was one of the more popular guests
of the 1920s.
One of the guests from this era has never checked
out of the hotel. He is reportedly a ghost that haunts the European lap pool,
killed during the violent Prohibition days. Gangsters often stored their booze
and held parties in a blocked-off section of the hotel and this unlucky spirit
was a man who crossed the wrong bootlegger and got a bullet for his trouble.
During prohibition, the gangsters used to store their liquor and hold their
all-night gambling parties in these blocked off rooms. The spirit is said to be
that of man killed by the mob during one of these illegal drinking events.
During the Depression, the hotel fell on hard times
and closed down for a time. In the late 1930s, though, it was open again and
thrived during the World War II, again both hosting famous guests and ordinary
people who came to take in the legendary waters. During the 1948 presidential
election, Harry S. Truman sought refuge at the hotel when it appeared that he
was losing his re-election bid. However, in the wee hours of the morning, he
was awakened by his aides informing him that he had, in fact, won the election.
A short time later, he was photographed holding the now-famous copy of the Chicago Tribune that mistakenly declared
Dewey the winner.
The year 1961 dealt a serious blow to the Elms when
the U.S. government ruled that mineral water treatments could no longer be
covered by insurance. People largely stopped coming to town and most of the
local water sources were capped. Other hotels in town were closed, boarded up and
abandoned – but not the Elms. While much of Excelsior Springs was closed down,
the old hotel has managed to endure, fully restored to its former glory and
still hosting hundreds of guests every year. And many of those guests simply
never leave.
The Elms seems to be filled with unearthly guests.
Both guests and staff report the feeling of mysterious presences throughout the
building. A chandelier has been reported shaking in the Grand Ballroom and
once, a manager chased the sound of a phantom vacuum cleaner as it traveled
about one floor of the hotel. Could it have been in the ghostly hands of the
maid who has been seen in the 1920s-style uniform? She has been seen many times
by guests and employees and staffers feel that she is only there to watch
today’s housekeeping staff to ensure that they are doing their work correctly.
Another resident ghosts seems to be that of a
former guest. The spectral woman walks through the hotel looking for her child.
Distressed, she has been known to pull people’s hair or throw things across the
room in despair.
There are two allegedly “haunted rooms” at the
Elms, Room 505 and Room 501. The presence in Room 505 is said to have once
bumped a staff member and then locked him inside of the room. According to
reports, the employee eventually managed to get out of the room but refused to
ever go back into it again.
One early morning, around 2:00 a.m., the hotel’s
fire alarm went off and a phone at the front desk began ringing while everyone
was waiting for the fire department to arrive. There was no one on the other
end of the line. It rang again and once more, there was no one there. The call
was coming from Room 501. One of the front desk managers went up to the room,
but it was empty. Thinking that perhaps there was something wrong with the
line, he unplugged the phone from the wall and went back downstairs. Before he
made it to the desk, staff members reported that the telephone had rang once
again – after he had unplugged it.
Who haunts the Elms? Staff members from the past,
former guests, or both? While their identity may remain a mystery, it’s no
surprise that they chose to stay behind at this fascinating and atmospheric
spot, where the past is never far away from the present.
