Geiser Grand Hotel

The story

Baker City grew rich on gold in the late nineteenth century, and its grandest hotel was built to show it. The building opened in November 1889 as the Hotel Warshauer, designed by the architect John Bennes. In 1900 it was bought by Mr. Geiser, and it reopened under the name Geiser Grand on January 1, 1902. In its heyday it was nicknamed "the Queen of the Mines" and promoted as the finest hotel between Portland and Salt Lake City. Among its boasts was an elevator, said to be only the third built west of the Mississippi River. The interior was designed to impress, with mahogany columns rising to a high ceiling, Victorian chandeliers and a stained-glass ceiling.

It closed in 1968 or 1969 (sources differ) and stood empty for decades. By 1993 it was facing demolition when a couple of developers who had previously restored the Biltmore in Florida took it on. After a restoration of about three years, costing roughly $6 million according to The Seattle Times, the Geiser Grand reopened in the summer of 1997. Wikipedia's statement that it reopened in 1993 confuses the start of the project with its completion. The building is a contributing property in a National Register historic district.

The legend

According to the hotel's owner, interviewed by the Oregon Wine Press in 2019, the ghost stories reach back to the mid-twentieth century and were passed on by former bartenders, construction crews and staff during the restoration. The earliest known press account appeared in The Seattle Times in October 1997, just after the reopening.

The best-known resident is "Granny" Anabelle (also spelled Annabelle). Tradition makes her the mother of a manager who ran the hotel roughly a century ago, who lived in the room now numbered 302. In life she was supposedly a regular at the bar with a favorite seat, and guests who take it may feel a pinch. She is also blamed for going through guests' jewelry and toiletries. Granny herself is said to float up and down the staircase in a blue gown, smelling of rosewater.

The third tradition is a party nobody can see. An elderly local described hearing laughter, ice clinking in glasses and doors opening in the old dining room beside the bar, followed by abrupt silence, and staff say they still hear late-night dinner parties there. The Seattle Times reported that the owners were disturbed by loud music and laughter coming from an empty room on the floor above their own; the husband went up and found no one, while his wife said she could feel the music vibrating through the wall.

The restoration years produced the most dramatic claims. The same 1997 article lists objects being thrown, lights switching on and off, furniture shifting and knots appearing in curtains. A cook, Bill Harp, and a coworker said a large carton of glassware lifted about four feet into the air before smashing on the floor; Harp said he had never believed in ghosts until he worked there. Around a dozen workers reportedly quit during the renovation because of what they said they experienced. The owners had restored the Biltmore in Florida before, a building the husband called the most haunted they had ever worked on.

The Syfy series Ghost Mine devoted an episode to the hotel, "Ghosts of the Geiser Grand" (season 2, episode 5, October 2, 2013). Paranormal teams turn up several times each year (one came from Tokyo in 2019), and the hotel appears in Leslie Rule's book Coast to Coast Ghosts. For balance, the owner calls herself an agnostic and says no ghost has ever appeared to her in the building.

What remains today

The Geiser Grand operates again as a hotel in Baker City, restored to its Victorian appearance, with the mahogany columns, chandeliers and stained-glass ceiling that defined it in the gold-rush years. Its clock tower and Italianate Victorian styling, as Wikipedia describes it, make it a landmark of the town's historic district.

Visiting

As a working hotel, the Geiser Grand can be visited simply by staying, dining or stopping in politely. Room 302 is the room associated with Granny Anabelle. A 2019 article described October events at the hotel such as a Witches Weekend and a Masquerade Ball, and said paranormal groups were welcome, but no regularly scheduled ghost tour is confirmed, so contact the hotel before planning a visit around one.

Sources

1. Wikimedia Commons category : Geiser Grand Hotel — Wikimedia Commons
2. USGS 1:125000-scale Quadrangle for Baker City, OR 1901 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1901 · Public domain (USGS)
3. USGS 1:24000-scale Quadrangle for Baker, OR 1967 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1967 · Public domain (USGS)
4. USGS 1:250000-scale Quadrangle for Baker, OR 1959 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1959 · Public domain (USGS)
5. "Ghost Mine – Ghosts of the Geiser Grand" (S2E5) — TheTVDB. — TheTVDB.
6. "Hotel Claims Uninvited Guests: Ghosts" — The Seattle Times (27 Oct 1997). — The Seattle Times (27 Oct 1997).
7. Official website
8. "Paranormal Guests: Haunted historic hotels nourish spirit of Halloween" — Oregon Wine Press (Mark Stock, 1 Oct 2019). — Oregon Wine Press (Mark Stock, 1 Oct 2019).
9. Wikipedia article — Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Text written by AI from the sources above and checked by a separate AI fact-check (how we work). Images: credits and licenses under each picture.