With their rich history and romantic atmosphere, the Legends and Lore of Illinois has found that hotels can attract quite a number of ghostly tales. Illinois has several historic hotels dating back to the 1800s, but even more modern establishments are said to be the home of some tortured spirits.  Which one will prove to be the most haunted of them all?

As heard on Thresholds Radio!

10. Ruebel Hotel

Grafton, IL

The Ruebel Hotel has survived the test of time and has seen the best and worst the Illinois and Mississippi rivers have to offer. It is named after its original owner, Michael Ruebel, who opened the austere, brick hotel in 1884. After one hundred years of serving the miners and river workers of Grafton, it was abandoned. Its clientele had long dried up. In 1997, new owners acquired the Ruebel Hotel and opened it for business once again. The new staff quickly discovered that one guest—a young girl named Abigail—had never left. Her ghost has been spotted roaming the hallway, but no one knows who she was or why she might haunt the building.

9. Capital Hotel

Colchester, IL

In the late 1800s, an entrepreneur named Darius Hicks sought to build a resort community around natural springs that had been discovered near the coal mining town of Colchester. At the center of this community, known as Vishnu Springs, he built a hotel he called the Capital Hotel. Other people soon arrived to live and work there, but the isolated nature of the resort impeded its growth. During the early 1900s, several deadly incidents and scandals tarnished the community, and when Darius Hicks committed suicide in 1908, no one remained who was willing to invest their energy in the resort. During the 1970s, a group of hippies made a short lived attempt to turn the old Capital Hotel into a commune. Today, the hotel is all that remains of Vishnu Springs.

8. DeSoto House

Galena, IL

First opened in 1855, the DeSoto House is one of the oldest operating hotels in Illinois. Abraham Lincoln spoke from the hotel balcony on July 23, 1856, and it has had other prominent guests, such as Stephen A. Douglas, Ulysses S. Grant, and William Jennings Bryan. With such a rich history, the DeSoto House was bound to have a ghost or two. According to hotel staff, guests have witnessed apparitions in old fashioned dress passing through walls where doorways once were. Others have heard voices in the hallway and caught the scent of an old cigar.

7. Rose Hotel

Elizabethtown, IL

The Rose Hotel is currently owned by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and operated as a bed and breakfast. Built by James McFarland c. 1830, with additions added in 1848 and 1866, it is the oldest active hotel in the state of Illinois. In 2009, the Little Egypt Ghost Society investigated the hotel and captured a photo of a strange reflection that appeared in the mirror of the McFarlan Suite. They compared it to photographs in an old hotel scrapbook and determined it was an image of the ghost of a former servant named Tote. Another anomalous photo appeared to show a woman in old-fashioned dress, which they believed to be a former hotel operator named Maimee Rose. The group also recorded several EVPs and heard a number of out-of-place voices.

6. Drake Hotel

Chicago, IL

The opening night of the Drake Hotel was both magnificent and tragic. It was magnificent because the Drake was to be one of Chicago’s most beautiful hotels; it was tragic because, according to legend, it was the night the “Woman in Red” ended her life. On New Year’s Eve in 1920, a man and his fiancé (who was clad in a brilliant silk gown) attended the gala held in the Drake’s Gold Coast Room on opening night. The man stepped away and did not return, so his fiancé went looking for him. She found him, enthralled by another woman, in the Palm Court parlor. Devastated, the Woman in Red climbed to the roof and jumped to her death. Since then, guests at the Drake have reported seeing her ghost in the Gold Coast Room, Palm Court, and on the top floor and the roof. She seems to be condemned to replay her final night.
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