A prostitute's ghost and bullet holes: In rural California hotels, spookiness is the appeal
The gals from West Sacramento swigged vodka on an antique floral couch in the Niles Hotel.
As their laughter echoed down the hallway, stern faces glowered from old black-and-white portraits in gilded frames.
The four women had driven five hours north to Alturas, a town of 2,700 in California's remote northeast corner. They were looking for adventure — and the ghost of an old prostitute said to haunt the hotel.
"Look at the wallpaper peeling over there!" said Mary Bateman, 58, who sells safety equipment for law enforcement officers. "That's from the little ghosties trying to come through."
"This is redrum," she added, referencing the 1980 film "The Shining," in which a little boy uses lipstick to write "murder" spelled backward on a door in a haunted hotel.
At the 115-year-old Niles Hotel — where ancient bullet holes pock the tin ceiling by the downstairs saloon — getting the creeps is part of the appeal.
Legend has it that the spirit of a bordello girl crawls in bed with gentlemen guests, scratches the walls and stomps around at night.
"She doesn't care for men," said Jody Stone, a bartender at the Niles Saloon, with a tone of respect.
Nostalgia and hope
In proud but struggling little communities throughout rural Northern California, grand old hotels hark back to when these places were booming Gold Rush towns, timber towns and cow towns. Often lovingly restored, the lodgings invoke a certain nostalgia for more prosperous days and hope for a brighter future.
Oh, and they're often said to be haunted.
Among the redwoods in Humboldt County, there's the Scotia Lodge. The 100-year-old hotel — which had deteriorated but was refurbished and reopened as a cannabis-friendly resort in 2021 — allegedly has a spirit on the third floor. Locals call him Frank. They say he's nice.
In Placerville, the Historic Cary House Hotel, a stately brick building erected in 1857, is haunted by Stan, described by the El Dorado County Visitors Authority as "a flirty front desk clerk who loved his liquor and had a penchant for pinching the bottoms of hotel guests." After flirting with someone who didn't find it cute, poor old Stan was stabbed in the chest and fell down the stairs to his death, or so the story goes.
The 1800s-era Holbrooke Hotel in Grass Valley, renovated and reopened in 2020, is "haunted by rough cowboys and Victorian Madames, their secrets forever safe within the storied walls," the owners say.
In Trinity County, the owner of the 143-year-old Weaverville Hotel doesn't like to talk about the ghosts who may or may not dwell there, including that of a 15-year-old girl, the granddaughter of some former owners, who died in the hotel of typhoid, according to the hotel's website.
"We probably have a ghost or two here, but I have young women travelers that come to town; they're by themselves," said owner Jeanne Muir. "I don't want them to be worried there might be a ghost."
No ghost hunting
Ghost hunters have tried to stay and search for paranormal activity. Muir, 80, has politely told them: No.
The hotel is a jewel of Weaverville's Gold Rush-era Main Street, also home to the Nugget Restaurant and the Diggins pub. In mountainous Trinity County — where timber crashed and legal marijuana is now doing the same — boosters are working hard to draw tourists.
Muir, originally from Florida, moved to Weaverville with her husband, Brian, in 1996, so he could work for a gold mine. They bought the hotel in 2002 and spent two years carefully renovating it, maxing out their credit cards and borrowing against their life insurance.
They felt a great responsibility "to keep it as authentic as possible," Muir said. She filled the place with antiques and doilies and Victorian-era wedding photos — some of which she bought on eBay — with unsmiling brides and grooms.
As for ghosts?
"I've been here by myself many, many, many times and would go upstairs," Muir said. "I've never even gotten a creepy feeling on the back of my neck."
Up in Alturas — where the town motto is "Where the West Still Lives" — the three-story Niles Hotel is the beating heart of a Main Street lined with empty storefronts.
Alturas is the only incorporated city in Modoc County, one of the poorest counties in California, where a fifth of the population lives in poverty. It has always been a cattle ranching town, where family roots run deep, said Annette Mohr, a volunteer for the Modoc County Historical Museum who, despite living there for two decades, said: "I'm not a native."
For years, Mohr has played bridge with her girlfriends in the Niles Hotel lobby every week, sitting by the big picture windows, watching people walk by. Over the years, the foot traffic has dwindled.
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