Location Description and History

This abandoned hotel is supposedly haunted by many spirits. The hotel was closed in 1972 by a fire which occurred on the top floor. On several occasions we tried to gain access to the hotel but were denied permission to enter. In March 1987, the hotel was vandalized by a group of teenagers who spray painted various "Satanic" messages on the walls. They were caught in the act by local police. This was a attempt to "scare friends" and it should be pointed out that the activity here existed before this and is not directly related to the act of vandalism itself. However, this freaked out the owner enough to finally let us in to do an investigation.

Aside from a multitude of bumps in the night, kitchen utensils that transport themselves, and the presence of people (with no bodies to accompany them), they're the following stories: One of the hotel's former maids, a woman named Maria, was murdered by her husband in the hotel after she was found there cheating on him. Her apparition has been seen walking in the hotel corridors, especially at night for many years. She is clad in an old, long gray skirt with a bandana around her forehead and is generally carrying towels, which she never delivers. Another ghost is believed to be a man that committed suicide upstairs. His ghost can be seen wandering through the building as well. The two ghosts are mischievous and throw things around the first floor bar and lobby.

This ghost hunt was conducted on two separate nights. The first ghost hunt was basically a recon to get the floor layout and witnesses accounts of the hauntings. The majority of the photographs in this report are from this first outing.

The second ghost hunt was conducted a month later. Ten minutes into the investigation we picked up suspect readings on the EMF detectors. We were quickly able to determine that these fields were manmade and originating from a poorly shielded powerline in the wall.Right after we explained the EM field we heard a loud banging noise coming from the second floor. We ignored it for a little while and then decided it was time to investigate. We went up the stairs walked out into the hallway.We turned the corner and looked down the other side of the hall and realized that the noise was coming from the spooky, dark entrance of a room down at the far end of the hall.As we walked down the hallway towards that area, the banging got louder. We paused for a moment and whispered among ourselves as to the possible origin of these sounds. Where homeless people staying there or was it something else? Who or What would be making all of that noise at this hour in the dark. We walked further down the hall, roughly fifty feet or so when suddenly all of our lights went out. we checked through our equipment and strangely, all of the batteries in every flashlight had gone dead. Despite this, we decided to move on and investigate the origin of the banging noises.It was difficult to see so we kind of felt our way around. All we could feel were doors with padlocks on them.Then the banging stopped and we heard footsteps stomping towards us. Carl lifted his camera and quickly took photograph. The flash illuminated (and temporarily blinded) a large man that was running towards us.With a bit of wit, an awkward situation was quickly stabilized. As it turns out, the man (who's name was Benjamin) was indeed homeless and had been staying in the attic of the old hotel for several years. Teenagers would constantly break into the building and vandalize it, often waking Benjamin up. He discovered that by making loud noises and throwing things down the stairs, he would often scare them off.We asked him if he had encountered anything unusual in the hotel. He stated that there was a strange group of people that used to come here and do "Satanic rites" but they have since moved on. He has not seen or experienced anything of a "ghostly" nature.

With Benjamin in tow, we finished searching the rest of the building. No other interesting EM fields were found.

Photographs

Click the thumbnails to view the larger image

We believe that the ghost stories originating from this location are made up and have been expanded upon by the local teenagers. No sign of any unusual that relates to ghostly phenomena was found during either visit to the hotel.