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Jefferson,
Texas is known to some as the most haunted small town in Texas.
There are many stories associated with the town and with the many
old buildings in the town, the Jefferson Hotel being no exception.
While most guests and employees have not had any ghostly
experiences, there are several stories that have been told through
the years - - -
Guests at the one hundred and fifty year old
building on the historic Jefferson waterfront regularly report
similar occurrences . . .
Whispers from
nowhere, orchestra music from a closed dining hall, knocks on
walls and headboards,
the
smell of cigar smoke in the smoke-free building,
faucets
opening of their own accord,
and
doors pulling back when pulled shut!!!
People who have been the only guests in the
hotel have heard the click-clack of footsteps walking the halls in
the middle of the night - even though the hall is carpeted!
Children have been heard laughing and romping
throughout the hotel in the middle of the night. A child calls for
mama, a baby cries, but . . .
No children
were staying in the hotel!
A former desk clerk named Michael was ending
his shift. It was the middle of a slow week and there were
no "paying" guests staying at the hotel overnight.
Michael made his rounds upstairs, turning off lights and locking
rooms before leaving for the night. He was closing the last
door in the long, dark hallway when the doors started opening and
slamming shut all at once!
Lights turned on and off as Michael dashed
downstairs and phoned his friend Phyllis, a desk clerk at the
Excelsior Hotel across the street. Phyllis reports that
Michael was in a complete panic when he called, screaming that he
was alone in the hotel but that "all heck" was breaking
loose upstairs! He said he could hear doors slamming and the
sound of footsteps and someone dragging furniture.
Michael
locked up and waited in the street
for
his ride that night.
Then there is the story of a couple in
ROOM 5 whose
young son awakened them repeatedly because a man in a long coat
and high boots would not go away.
Whispers and
repetitive knocks are common
occurrences.
At times there is a thick white cloud with a
thin, long-haired blonde in the mist. She seems to be
emotionally attached to a bed that was moved from ROOM
12 to ROOM 14.
A ninety year old man reluctantly told his tale
of wandering the hotel at one in the morning after not being able
to sleep. He saw the petite blonde woman floating down the
stairs smiling at him, only to disappear before she reached the
bottom step. He said he never believed in ghosts until he saw her!
Walking into
some rooms,
one
can get the feeling of being watched.
In
ROOM 19 a man told
his wife to go back to sleep when she awakened him with rants
about a petite woman who chilled the wife's arm with a touch of
her hand. Another woman took one step into the same room and
refused to stay there - stating that she could tell . . .
the
room was haunted.
Directly
under ROOM 19, ROOM
20 seems to be another very active place. Two
older women staying there kept waking to the sound of
running water from the bathroom . . .
they'd
turn off the spigot,
only
to wake to its splashing
later
in the night.
One night, a woman was staying with her husband
in ROOM 24 near
the front of the hotel. She happened to wake up at
five the next morning, so she got up and went into the hallway to
make coffee.
As she turned, she noticed a nice-looking man
dressed in western clothes go into the entrance foyer down the
hall to ROOMS 20 and
21. Thinking
it strange that she had not heard any doors opening or closing she
went down the hall to investigate.
The
doors to both rooms were wide open
and
there was no-one in either room!
On another occasion, a girl was hired to stay a
few nights while the owners were away. She wanted to be next
to the only guest staying that night as she was uneasy about being
alone all night in the hotel. So she decided to sleep in ROOM
23 downstairs.
She was awakened about three in the morning to
the sounds of scrapping and banging in the room above her as
though someone was moving furniture.
Needless to
say, she didn't get up and check it out!
The next morning, the people in the room next
to her asked if she had heard loud noises from upstairs the
previous night. It seems that the scrapping and banging had
also awakened them at the same time!
There are rumors that one of the hotel's
specters might be Mrs. Schluter, the woman who ran
the hotel during the 1890's through the roaring 20's.
A story
circulated by some tells of an 1890's bride
who
hung herself
when
the groom sent word
he
was not coming to marry her.
The sounds of someone crying has also brought
people wide awake, and they never discover where the weeping is
coming from....
It echoes
from everywhere.
Camera crews from various local TV stations and
radio stations have all had their own weird experiences while
taping programs in the hotel - from cameras not working in certain
areas of the hotel to recorders turning themselves off and on.
Pictures
after being developed
showed
strange anomalies in them.
The identities
of the hotel phantasms remain as mysterious as their advent.
Is there one
ghost or many?
A
psychic years ago said the hotel has - - -
seven
nonpaying guests!
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