public

Heavily Investigated

Room 109 is the one people whisper about. According to legend, a young woman named Elizabeth — a prostitute said to be carrying owner George Wingfield's child — was chained to its radiator, the baby torn away and dropped down a mine shaft beneath the building. Visitors swear the room runs cold in ways the desert air can't explain, cameras seize, and something in the walls still sobs. Elsewhere, a phantom called The Stabber prowls the Gold Room; unseen hands have thrown bricks in the basement. Stand inside long enough and the building stops feeling empty.

Built in 1907–1908 atop the frenzied peak of Nevada's Goldfield gold rush, this four-story Classical Revival hotel was once — without exaggeration — the finest between Chicago and San Francisco, complete with electric lights, in-room running water, and 150 rooms furnished to stun the newly rich. Then the ore ran out. A 1923 fire gutted the town; Army Air Corps soldiers briefly occupied the hotel during WWII; the doors closed for good in 1945. Listed on the National Register in 1982, it has sat sealed ever since — which is, of course, exactly what a building full of legends requires.