public

Heavily Investigated

Something about the Blackhawk doesn't quite let go of its dead. Guests on the upper floors report a chill that has nothing to do with the HVAC — and more than a few have clocked a well-dressed figure drifting the corridors with the unhurried ease of a man who has nowhere else to be. Some swear it's Cary Grant, still working the room. Elsewhere, a woman in a red or blue evening gown glides the halls on no discernible errand, and from the ballroom — after hours, when no one's there — piano music has been known to drift up through the floors.

Built in 1915, the Blackhawk rose as Davenport's crown jewel, hosting presidents from Hoover to Obama and no shortage of Hollywood royalty. Cary Grant checked in on November 29, 1986, for a fundraiser in the grand ballroom — and suffered a fatal stroke before the night was out, dying at 82. The hotel later fell into spectacular disrepair: by 2006 a meth lab had exploded on the eighth floor, which is either the low point of the property's story or, depending on your theory of hauntings, the beginning of its most interesting chapter. It has since been fully restored.