Nestled on Main Street in Murphys, California, Murphys Hotel is one of the oldest continuously operating hotels in the state, first opening its doors on August 20, 1856, during the height of the Gold Rush. Originally known as the Sperry and Perry Hotel, the two-story stone building was constructed along a busy stagecoach route and quickly earned a reputation as one of the finest accommodations outside San Francisco. Its thick stone walls and iron shutters helped it survive several devastating fires that swept through the town, and by 1860 the hotel had been restored and reopened.
Over the decades, the hotel hosted an impressive list of notable guests, including Mark Twain, Ulysses S. Grant, John Jacob Astor, the infamous outlaw “Black Bart,” Henry Ward Beecher, Horatio Alger, and J. P. Morgan. The hotel itself underwent several name changes over the years, becoming the Mitchler Hotel in 1882 before finally adopting the name Murphys Hotel in 1945, which it still bears today. It is now recognized as a California Historical Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Of course, Weird Fresno is not really about historic Gold Rush hotels, though I will admit I enjoy reading about them. What makes Murphys Hotel relevant here is its long-standing reputation for paranormal activity. Over the years, staff and guests have reported unexplained footsteps, strange sensations in otherwise empty rooms, and other unsettling experiences. There are also recurring accounts of children’s laughter echoing through the hallways late at night, a detail that seems to crop up in haunted hotel stories everywhere.
The most frequently cited ghost associated with the hotel is a woman known as Eleanor, said to have worked as a chambermaid during the hotel’s early years. According to legend, sometime in the 1860s she fell in love with a gold miner who promised to return for her, but never did. Heartbroken, Eleanor supposedly remained devoted to the hotel for decades before perishing in a kitchen fire in the late 19th century. Since then, reports claim that small objects are sometimes thrown in the kitchen and the Mark Twain Ballroom, behavior attributed to Eleanor’s lingering presence.
Much of the above comes from Wikipedia and a handful of articles covering Murphys’ ghost lore. It is interesting, but honestly, it feels like fairly standard haunted hotel material. That is when I stumbled across something more compelling, a firsthand account posted to TripAdvisor in 2014. What follows is that reviewer’s experience, shared here exactly as they described it.
Are the Ghosts real at Murphy’s Historic Hotel? YES YES YES!!!
I have a family of five. My wife and our three kids (16, 13, and 10.)
At first we were set to stay in the new rooms at Murphy’s Historic Hotel which are not attached to the main old historic hotel. When we checked in they told us about the ghosts in the old hotel rooms, so we just had to change our rooms to the old hotel rooms. We wanted to change rooms so our kids who love watching paranormal TV shows and movies would have a great experience. We were the only ones staying in the old hotel that night. My wife and I WERE NOT ghost believers.
Our kids stayed in room 15 and we stayed in room 14 which is an adjoining room. In room 15 there is a rocking chair and we were told that the ghost Eleanor sometimes rocks in it at night. The rocking chair is very old and does not rock smoothly. It actually takes a little effort to rock it because of a major flat spot on the bottom. This flat spot also makes a distinctive sound when rocked. We all sat in it and we could feel the flat spot and noticed it took some extra effort to get it past the flat spot before starting to rock.
Below rooms 14 and 15 is the hotel’s bar, so we had to try and sleep with some noise from the bar. A little after midnight someone was vacuuming the hallway. My wife and I woke up and asked each other, while trying to go back to sleep, why the staff would do that. It stopped and we went back to sleep.
During the night my wife and I actually woke up and heard the rocking chair in room 15 rocking (our kid’s room) three separate times. Each time it occurred for several minutes. Crazy!!! We did not get up because we were intrigued and thought if we got up it would stop. We were waiting for our kids to burst into our room freaking out about the rocking chair moving and the sound; however, they never did (they were sound asleep.)
We woke up the next morning and told the kids. None of them heard it. While still lying in bed, I asked my son to go back to his room and rock the rocking chair so I could validate it was the sound we heard. He did and it ABSOLUTLEY WAS the sound of the rocking chair my wife and I heard.
We went down to the lobby, and after talking with the receptionist about our experience, we asked why they vacuum the hallways late at night after the bar closed. They informed us they don't vacuum at night when guest stay at the old hotel, and there is no carpet in the bar.
A couple came down from the old hotel room that checked in after we went to bed. We asked if they had any experiences as we did. They said they did not. Then I asked if they heard the vacuum cleaning sound. The woman said surprisingly to her husband that she was right and she did her the vacuum sound while he did not. Freaky!!!
In each room is a journal of guest experiences, or no experiences. I read the one for room 15 and someone else over a year ago mentioned how ridiculous it was for the staff to vacuum the hallways late at night.
So are ghost real at the Murphy's Historic Hotel. YES YES YES!!! And, we WILL stay in room 14 with our kids in room 15 during our next visit. The next time we will bring an audio recorder. Also, if the vacuum sound occurs I will get up looking for the source, and when the rocking chair moves I will get up to check it out even if it stops.
If you want a great experience which will change your mind about ghost, do as we did and stay in room 14 or 15.
Accounts like this tend to resonate with me. What we have here is a detailed firsthand experience, one that clearly left enough of an impression for the guest to take the time to post it publicly on TripAdvisor. Skeptics may argue that stories like these are planted for marketing purposes, but Murphys Hotel has been in continuous operation for more than 150 years. At that point, it is fair to ask whether the hotel really needs that kind of advertising.
It is also worth noting that Murphys Hotel appeared on Hotel Hell in 2014, hosted by Gordon Ramsay. There was no mention of Ramsay encountering anything paranormal during his visit, but the hotel remains open and operating today.
Wikipedia article can be found
here.
More on the hotel's history can be found
here.
A write up of a paranormal investigation can be found
here.
Tripadvisor review can be found
here.
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