Haunted Places in Alaska: 22 of the Most Haunted to Visit
A gold rush brothel with a ghost the staff greet every morning, a town that lives under one roof, an abandoned igloo on the highway and a copper mill left standing in the mountains. These are Alaska’s haunted places, with what is true, what is legend and how you can visit.
Alaska’s ghost stories follow its booms: the Klondike stampede through Skagway and Dyea, the copper and gold camps, the railroad that built Anchorage and the Army that built Whittier. We have checked every place on our older list against current sources, kept the ones you can still visit or see, and added more with well-documented stories, from Ketchikan’s Creek Street to Castle Hill in Sitka. Several places on older lists are gone, private or simply not places to visit, and we explain those near the end rather than send you to them. Ghost stories are told as staff, residents and local historians tell them, and we say plainly where we found no record behind a tale.
Where to look The upstairs brothel museum, the madam's room and the stairs
Reported ghosts Lydia, a working woman said to have died upstairs
Visiting A working saloon and restaurant; the upstairs brothel museum is seen on a guided tour
Tours Brothel museum tours about 20 minutes long, plus a Ghosts and Goodtime Girls walking tour of Skagway that ends here
Hours and season Seasonal, roughly May to September, daily from 10 AM
Ghost hunting No public investigations; the ghost stories are told on the tours
The Red Onion opened in the fall of 1898 as one of Skagway’s biggest dance halls and saloons, with a brothel of ten small rooms, called cribs, upstairs. Behind the bar sat ten dolls, one for each woman: a doll lying down meant she was busy. The building was rolled to its present corner of 2nd and Broadway in 1914 and later served as army barracks, a bakery, a laundry and a union hall. Today it is a busy saloon with a brothel museum upstairs.
Its ghost is Lydia, described by staff as Skagway’s most famous spirit. The legend says she was a working woman who took her own life, though no record names her. Staff told the Skagway News in 2023 that they hear footsteps upstairs when the floor is empty, greet her each morning and read her fan mail aloud. Visitors report perfume in the hallway, cold spots by the rooms and men being shoved on the stairs.
What investigators report
Staff say they greet Lydia, the saloon’s resident spirit, on arrival and talk or sing to her upstairs in the brothel museum, and report objects tumbling off shelves and the bar after loud music was played.
Where to look The second-floor hall, Rooms 215 and 217, Room 202, the lobby fireplace
Reported ghosts Police Chief John J. "Black Jack" Sturgus; ghostly children; a jilted bride; a woman in white
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
The Historic Anchorage Hotel is the city’s only historic hotel on the National Register, a 26-room boutique hotel at 4th Avenue and E Street. It is the 1936 annex of the original 1916 Anchorage Hotel, the frontier town’s finest place to stay, where Warren Harding, Will Rogers and Wiley Post and painter Sydney Laurence all slept. The annex declined after the original was demolished and was revived under its old name in 1989.
The hotel calls itself the most haunted in Anchorage and keeps a ghost log at the front desk. Guests write of children giggling in empty halls, a small girl in a closet, faucets and TVs switching on in Rooms 215 and 217, and a woman in white. Many link the activity to Police Chief John “Black Jack” Sturgus, shot steps away in 1921 in a case never solved.
What investigators report
The hotel’s own site says activity is reported most in the quiet early morning hours and suggests asking the front desk which rooms have had recent activity; a guest log entry described tapping at the door of room 202.
Address 167 South Franklin Street, Juneau, AK 99801
Where to look Room 219, Room 315, the second floor, the bar and the basement
Reported ghosts A woman killed by her husband, often called Alice; a man found dead in the basement in 1998
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
The Alaskan opened on September 16, 1913, as Juneau’s first purpose-built hotel, a place for gold miners to stay instead of crowded boarding houses. It ran a brothel at least twice and quietly sold liquor through Prohibition, and it has been on the National Register since 1978. Owners Mike and Bettye Adams restored its Victorian look, and the bar downstairs is one of the liveliest in town.
Local legend says a woman, often named Alice, turned to prostitution when her husband failed to return from the mines; when he came back and found her, he killed her in Room 219. Guests report a woman’s presence there and cold spots in the halls. The owners’ son believes a man he found dead in the basement in 1998 haunts the hotel too. Portals to Hell filmed here for its 2019 premiere.
What investigators report
Most of the hotel’s long-running stories center on Room 315 on the third floor, and the Portals to Hell crew, who stayed overnight in the haunted rooms, reported capturing orbs of light in the basement.
Where to look The room where Fannie died, usually given as 202 (some say 201 or 209)
Reported ghosts Fannie Guthery-Baehm, a tall blonde woman in a blue dress
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
The Van Gilder opened in 1916 in Seward’s historic district and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. The three-story white hotel looks little changed from its 1920s heyday, and it is a short walk from the small boat harbor and the cruises into Kenai Fjords National Park.
Its ghost is Fannie Guthery-Baehm, who was shot by her husband while the couple were staying at the hotel in 1947, according to newspaper accounts the manager has cited. Guests describe a tall blonde woman in a blue dress, objects that move and windows that open on their own. Accounts disagree on the room: 202, 201 or 209. The manager calls her a friendly ghost.
Haunted Rooms tip: Ask the front desk about Fannie; staff are happy to share the story, though the room number is disputed.
Address Kennecott Mill Town, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, end of the McCarthy Road, AK
Where to look The 14-story concentration mill, the bunkhouses and the cemetery
Reported ghosts Voices in empty buildings, footsteps, machinery sounds; tombstones along the old railroad
Visiting Walk or shuttle 4.5 miles from McCarthy after crossing the Kennicott River footbridge at the end of the McCarthy Road
Tours Guided Kennecott Mill Town tours (about 2 hours) by St. Elias Alpine Guides, late May to mid-September; NPS visitor center in the old Blackburn School
Hours and season Most services operate in summer only
Tickets Mill town tour about $36 for adults, $18 for children
Ghost hunting No; it is a national park site
Copper was found high above the Kennicott Glacier in 1900, and once the Copper River and Northwestern Railway reached the mines in 1911, ore said to be up to 70 percent pure chalcocite rolled down to Cordova for the smelters. When the last mines closed in 1938, the last train left on November 10 and the company town was simply left, with the red mill buildings still standing on the hillside. It is now a National Historic Landmark owned largely by the National Park Service.
Senior Voice and the Anchorage Daily News have collected the stories: visitors and rangers who hear voices in empty buildings, footsteps and the clank of machinery, and travelers on the old railroad grade near Chitina who saw tombstones beside the track that were gone on the way back. Workers on a 1990s state housing project said they heard voices and lost tools until the job was dropped. None of it is documented beyond those accounts.
Haunted Rooms tip: Take the guided mill town tour to get inside the 14-story mill, and plan at least two days: the McCarthy Road is slow gravel.
Address Baranof Castle State Historic Site, between Harbor Road and Lincoln Street, Sitka, AK 99835
Where to look The summit, where the Governor's House stood
Reported ghosts The Lady in Black, a governor's daughter said to have died on her wedding night
Visiting Free state historic site with a paved ramp and stairs to the summit
Tours Self-guided; Sitka’s Alaska Day festival re-enacts the 1867 transfer each October
Ghost hunting No
Long before any Russian ship arrived, the hill above Sitka Sound was Noow Tlein, home to families of the Kiks.adi clan of the Tlingit. Alexander Baranov took it in 1804, and it became the seat of Russian America. The last Governor’s House on the summit, known as Baranof’s Castle, was built in 1836 and burned in 1894. On October 18, 1867, the transfer of Alaska to the United States took place here. It is a National Historic Landmark.
The ghost story belongs to the vanished castle. The writer Eliza Scidmore recorded it in 1883: the Lady in Black, daughter of an old governor, disappeared from her own wedding ball and was found dead in a small drawing room. Later writers made her a princess forced into marriage, and the Skeptical Inquirer has traced how the tale grew. The castle is gone; the hill and its Tlingit history remain.
Haunted Rooms tip: Walk up the ramp from Lincoln Street at sunset, read the interpretive signs on both the Tlingit and Russian eras, and remember this is a place of deep importance to Sitka’s Tlingit community.
Reported ghosts A man in a top hat; a quiet woman in a chair
Visiting A working hotel; the restaurant and lobby are open to the public
Tours Featured on Ketchikan ghost walks
Ghost hunting No public investigations
Irish immigrant Pat Gilmore, a tailor who became one of Ketchikan’s civic leaders, put up this three-story concrete hotel on Front Street after a fire destroyed much of the waterfront; it opened in 1927. His family ran it for more than 50 years. It was restored in the 1980s, added to the National Register in 1989 and still takes guests, with Annabelle’s Famous Keg and Chowder House on the ground floor.
On the Ketchikan ghost walk, guide Kelli Klees told KRBD in 2017 about a friendly man in a top hat who likes to unsettle guests in Room 208, and a woman who sits quietly in a chair. A ghost tour company adds singing heard near Room 303 and chandeliers that swing with no breeze. The same company notes there is no record of a violent death in the building.
What investigators report
Ketchikan ghost tour guides single out room 208, where a man in a top hat is reported sitting quietly, with a woman also seen seated in a chair.
Where to look Dolly's parlor and the boardwalk at night
Reported ghosts Shadows and noises in Dolly's House; displays moved overnight in old brothels
Visiting The boardwalk is public; Dolly’s House is a small private museum open in the cruise season
Tours Self-guided museum visits; featured on Ketchikan ghost walks
Ghost hunting No
Creek Street is a boardwalk of wooden houses on pilings over Ketchikan Creek, and from 1902 to 1954 it was the town’s red-light district. Dolly Arthur lived and worked at number 24 from 1919, running her business there into the 1940s and staying until poor health took her to a nursing home in 1973. Her small house is now a museum, furnished mostly with her own things.
Guides on the Ketchikan ghost walk told KRBD and Alaska Public Media in 2017 about shadows and noises in Dolly’s House, and former brothels along the boardwalk where shop displays are found moved in the morning. Guide Kelli Klees said she has never been more scared than walking Creek Street alone at night. The stories are tour lore, with no records behind them.
Haunted Rooms tip: Visit Dolly’s House by day, then come back to the boardwalk after the cruise ships leave to see it lit and quiet.
Address University of Alaska Anchorage, 2533 Providence Drive, Anchorage, AK 99508
Where to look The lobby staircase, the accessible restroom, the stage and catwalk
Reported ghosts A woman in white, a teenage boy, children and a man who pushes women
Visiting Open during public performances and events
Tours UAA has held occasional ghost tours of the building, first in October 2023
Ghost hunting No public investigations
The 910-seat Wendy Williamson Auditorium on the UAA campus opened in 1972 and is named for the late professor John Wendell ‘Wendy’ Williamson. Money ran out during construction, the plans were cut back, and the building was left with an elevator shaft and a catwalk that lead nowhere. It hosts concerts, comedy and the Miss Alaska pageant.
Staff told the Anchorage Daily News and the student paper, The Northern Light, about lights bursting, props flying, a piano that plays itself and a restroom door held shut from the other side. A woman in white has been seen in freshly waxed floors and, the staff say, in a group photo. The best-known claim is that women with long dark hair are pushed on the lobby stairs. UAA ran its first ghost tours of the building in 2023.
Haunted Rooms tip: Buy a ticket to any evening show, arrive early and take the left lobby staircase.
Where to look The kitchen and restroom sinks after closing
Reported ghosts Said to be Muriel Pfeil, killed by a car bomb across the street in 1976
Visiting A working cafe, open to everyone
Tours Ghost Tours of Anchorage walking tours meet here
Hours and season Daily, 7 AM to 3 PM
Ghost hunting No
Snow City Cafe is one of downtown Anchorage’s busiest breakfast spots, at 4th Avenue and L Street. The building once held the city’s first travel agency, run by Muriel Pfeil. On September 30, 1976, she was killed when a bomb exploded under the hood of her car in the parking lot across the street. Her ex-husband was the only suspect, but no one was ever charged with her death.
On the Ghost Tours of Anchorage, which meet at the cafe, guides tell of closing staff who find taps running in the kitchen and restroom and blame ‘Ms. Muriel’. Staff have described her as friendly. It is a real and unsolved killing, so the story deserves to be told with care; the cafe itself is a bright, cheerful place to eat.
What investigators report
Ghost tour guides say the spirit staff call Ms. Muriel is blamed for playing with the sink water in the kitchen and bathroom at night, and a longtime closer would scold her by name.
Where to look The 1920s log lodge, especially Room 5
Reported ghosts A pipe-smoking gentleman prankster; phantom footsteps and tobacco smoke
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
Gakona Lodge sits where the old Valdez trails met, on the site of Doyle’s Roadhouse, built in 1904 as a stop with a post office, stagecoach station and blacksmith. Norwegian Arne Sundt bought the property and built the log lodge in 1929, and his widow Henra ran it until 1976. Listed on the National Register, it calls itself Alaska’s oldest continuously operating roadhouse, with ten rooms, cabins, the Carriage House Restaurant and the Trapper’s Den tavern.
Guests have told of footsteps in the lodge when no one else is about, and of pipe or tobacco smoke drifting through rooms where nobody is smoking. Nobody has put a name to the ghost, but in a roadhouse that has sheltered travelers for more than a century, there is no shortage of candidates.
Haunted Rooms tip: The lodge is open from June 1 to Labor Day; book a rafting or salmon fishing package on the Gulkana River.
Reported ghosts A whistling man, heavy footsteps, a hungry ghost in a kitchen
Visiting A residential condominium; public offices inside, but the homes and corridors are private
Ghost hunting No; this is where people live
Whittier’s 14-story tower was built by the Army between 1953 and 1957 as the Hodge Building, and renamed in 1972 for Congressman Nick Begich, who vanished in a plane over Alaska that year. Most of the town’s roughly 270 people live inside, with a post office, store, church, police station and clinic under the same roof and a tunnel to the school. The only road in is a single-lane tunnel that closes at night.
Residents have told the Anchorage Daily News that the building has ghosts they simply live with: a man who whistles as he walks the halls, another with a heavy step that echoes through the corridors, and a hungry spirit that rattled around the city manager’s kitchen until he reached for his gun. Nobody claims to know who they are, and staff say they have never hurt anyone.
Haunted Rooms tip: It is a private home for most of Whittier, so admire it from outside, or book one of the condo rentals inside for a night in the town under one roof.
Address Eldred Rock, Lynn Canal, about 15 miles south of Haines, AK
Where to look The rocks of the island and the water off its south point
Reported ghosts The steamship Clara Nevada and her lost passengers
Visiting Seen from passing ferries and cruise ships; the island has no dock and landing needs permission
Tours Lighthouse cruises from Haines and Skagway were planned to begin in June 2026
Ghost hunting No
In February 1898 the steamship Clara Nevada, heading south from Skagway in a storm, was lost on a reef near Eldred Rock in Lynn Canal. Witnesses spoke of an explosion and fire; the ship may have carried gold and illegal dynamite, and no one knows how many died, though the toll is often put near 75. Only one body was identified. The wreck helped push the government to build the Eldred Rock Lighthouse, first lit on June 1, 1906, now Alaska’s oldest original lighthouse building.
The ghost story is old. In 1908, ten years after the wreck, a keeper is said to have seen the Clara Nevada lying on the rocks at dawn with the remains of her crew, before a storm took her back. In 1910 two assistant keepers vanished on a short boat trip, and the head keeper was said to call their names in his sleep. A preservation group restored the station and planned lighthouse cruises from Haines and Skagway starting in 2026.
Haunted Rooms tip: The easiest view is from the deck of an Alaska Marine Highway ferry or a cruise ship between Juneau and Haines; check the preservation group’s plans for boat trips.
Where to look A basement women's restroom, where one stall is kept locked
Reported ghosts A young woman in white said to have taken her life in the restroom
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
Hotel Captain Cook is Anchorage’s landmark downtown hotel, three tall towers on West 5th Avenue built by Walter J. Hickel, the developer who went on to be Alaska’s governor, after the 1964 earthquake. It is still family owned, with fine dining at the Crow’s Nest on the top floor, an athletic club and a run of shops in its arcade.
Its ghost story is small and strange. Staff and guests describe a young woman in a white dress who is said to have taken her life in a women’s restroom years ago. Lights switch on and off and the stall door opens and closes by itself, and according to local reporting the last stall on the left has been bolted shut for years. We found no record of the death behind the story.
Haunted Rooms tip: Have a drink in the Crow’s Nest for the view over Cook Inlet, then look for that bolted stall.
Address Corner of 8th Avenue and Main Street, Skagway, AK 99840
Where to look Guest bedrooms
Reported ghosts A kindly young woman seen at the foot of beds and with children
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
At the White House is a white clapboard inn built in 1902 for Lee Guthrie, a gold rush saloon owner and city councilman, on a quiet corner two blocks from Skagway’s historic district. It later became a small hotel, served the Army as a small hospital in World War II and was damaged by fire in 1977 before new owners restored it. It is a contributing building in Skagway’s historic district.
Guests have described a kindly young woman standing at the end of their beds, and others have seen her talking with children in the house. The popular belief is that she ran a day care said to have occupied the building, though we found no record of one. She is described as gentle, and the stories are told with affection.
Haunted Rooms tip: Skagway is a cruise port: book early for summer, and walk Broadway after the ships leave in the evening.
Address 3rd Avenue and Broadway, Skagway, AK 99840
Where to look The onion-domed corner, once said to be Room 23
Reported ghosts 'Scary Mary', a bride said to have died waiting for her fiance
Visiting Now shops; the old hotel rooms are not open to visitors
Ghost hunting No
The building with the golden onion dome on Broadway went up in early 1898 as the Klondike Trading Company store. In 1908 it was rolled to the corner of 3rd and Broadway and became the Golden North Hotel, run for decades by the Dedman family. It no longer takes guests: the building now holds shops, and you see it on any walk through the historic district.
Its famous ghost is Mary, often called Scary Mary, a bride said to have died in her room waiting for a fiance who never came back from the gold fields. A descendant of the hotel family told the travel site Voyij that a later owner promoted the story in the late 1960s, staging photos in a borrowed wedding dress, and that the building was not a hotel at the time the tale is set. Treat it as a story the town loves rather than a record.
Haunted Rooms tip: Admire the dome from across Broadway, then stay a few blocks away At the White House if you want a haunted night in Skagway.
Address North end of State Street, past the railroad shops, Skagway, AK 99840
Where to look Soapy Smith's wooden marker and Frank Reid's monument
Reported ghosts No specific sightings on record; the ghost lore is about who lies here
Visiting Open grounds, a short walk or bus ride from downtown; many town tours stop here
Tours Self-guided; included on many Skagway town tours
Ghost hunting No organized investigations; please treat it as a cemetery
Skagway’s first cemetery sits in the forest at the north end of town, a short walk past the White Pass railroad shops. Burials began in early 1898, when the ground thawed, and about 174 people were buried here before a new cemetery opened in 1908. The two most famous graves belong to the men who killed each other on the Juneau Wharf on July 8, 1898: the con man Jefferson Randolph ‘Soapy’ Smith and city surveyor Frank Reid, who died of his wounds twelve days later.
Smith’s plain wooden marker sits just outside the main plot; Reid’s granite monument reads ‘He gave his life for the honor of Skagway.’ The cemetery is a stop on Skagway’s ghost and history walks, but we found no published ghost sightings here, only the town’s long fascination with Soapy. Visit for the history, and walk on to Lower Reid Falls behind the graves.
Haunted Rooms tip: Walk up from town or take the SMART bus, and follow the short trail behind the graves to Lower Reid Falls.
Reported ghosts Oscar Anderson, who loved the house 'too much to ever leave it'
Visiting Guided tours in summer; the house sits in Elderberry Park at the west end of downtown
Tours Guided house tours with a historian, summer season
Ghost hunting No
Swedish butcher Oscar Anderson arrived at the Ship Creek tent camp in 1915 and built this small bungalow at the edge of the new townsite that year; it is said to be the first frame house finished in Anchorage. He lived here with his family for nearly 60 years. After the family left in 1974 the house was given to the city, moved a short way into Elderberry Park and opened as a museum in 1982.
His widow said Oscar loved the house too much to ever leave it. According to the historian Phyllis Downing Carlson, a young couple who bought the house after he died heard noises upstairs, and one morning found a chest pushed across the door of his old room. Senior Voice tells these as stories, not proven events, and that is how to take them.
Haunted Rooms tip: Visit on a summer guided tour, then walk the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail from Elderberry Park at sunset.
Where to look The old sections near the Bagoy gate at 7th and Cordova
Reported ghosts Whispers and movement reported by night visitors (tour company claims)
Visiting Open municipal cemetery; no pets
Tours Free summer history tours: the John Bagoy Solstice Tour and Stories at the Cemetery
Ghost hunting No; please treat it as a working cemetery
Anchorage’s oldest cemetery was set aside in 1915 as part of the original townsite and covers about 22 acres between downtown and Fairview, with more than 12,500 graves. It is on the National Register. Painter Sydney Laurence, first mayor Leopold David, Governor Walter Hickel and the Arctic survivor Ada Blackjack are buried here, and each summer actors in costume tell the stories of early residents at their graves.
One of those characters has been Police Chief John ‘Black Jack’ Sturgus, shot in a downtown alley in 1921 in a case never solved, whose ghost is linked to the Historic Anchorage Hotel. A local ghost tour company says visitors hear names whispered and that night security has seen movement among the stones; we found no other report. Come for the real stories, which are better.
Haunted Rooms tip: Go to the free John Bagoy Solstice Tour in June or Stories at the Cemetery in summer; park on Cordova Street, not inside.
Address Mile 188.5 George Parks Highway, south of Cantwell, AK
Where to look The upper windows of the dome
Reported ghosts A woman in white at a cracked window; lights inside
Visiting Private property; view and photograph only from the Parks Highway
Ghost hunting No: private, unsafe and posted no trespassing
The giant igloo on the Parks Highway was built almost single-handedly by Leon Smith, a railroad worker and World War II veteran, who began it around the early 1970s as a hotel with dozens of rooms. Building code problems, money and an injury stopped him, and he sold it in the 1990s. A gas station beside it closed in the 2000s, and the dome has stood empty ever since, about halfway between Anchorage and Fairbanks.
Older lists of haunted places say lights move inside and a woman in white looks out from a cracked upper window. We found no first-hand account or local report behind the story. The building is unsafe, the property is private, and in 2024 signs asked visitors to take photos only from the road. Lessees announced plans in 2023 to open a distillery here.
Haunted Rooms tip: Pull over safely and photograph it from the highway; do not climb the fence or go inside.
Where to look The ground floor that once held the bakery
Reported ghosts Gus Messerschmidt, the baker who founded the business
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
The Silverbow Inn is a small downtown Juneau hotel in a building put together from four structures over more than a century. German immigrant Gus Messerschmidt founded the San Francisco Bakery here in 1902, and the inn dates its building to 1907. The Messerschmidt family lived upstairs until the 1980s, when the apartments became guest rooms, and the Silverbow Bagel Bakery ran on the ground floor from 1997 to 2015.
Gus died in 1938, but local lore says he never left his bakery. Early risers have reported seeing a man in the old bakery in the morning or simply feeling that someone was working there before dawn. The bakery itself has closed, so these days the stories belong to the building.
Haunted Rooms tip: Breakfast is included; come down early if you want to meet Gus.
Address 1020 West 12th Avenue, Anchorage, AK 99501
Where to look The ground floor, the hallways and the elevator
Reported ghosts A laughing little girl; a repairman said to ride the elevator
Visiting A working hotel that takes overnight guests
The Inlet Tower is a tall striped high-rise on West 12th Avenue, on the edge of downtown Anchorage near the Delaney Park Strip, with suites and kitchenettes that make it popular with longer-stay visitors and families. On a clear day the upper floors look across Cook Inlet to the mountains.
Its stories are told by staff and repeated by guests. A little girl is heard laughing as she runs and plays on the ground floor, and a man, said to be a repairman killed in an elevator accident, rides the elevator up and down or walks in through the front entrance and vanishes. Local reporting notes there are no official records of either death.
Haunted Rooms tip: Ask for a high floor facing the inlet; the ghost stories are on the ground floor, the views are up top.
These places appear in older lists of haunted spots. We keep them here so you know the facts before you go, but you cannot (or should not) visit them.
Old Jesse Lee Home for Children, Seward
The Methodist children’s home in Seward opened in 1926, and it was here that a 13-year-old resident, Benny Benson, designed the Alaska flag. The 1964 earthquake badly damaged the buildings and the home closed afterward. Older lists of haunted places say children were killed in the quake and still giggle and bounce balls inside; we found no record that any child died there. Despite years of fundraising to save it, demolition began on November 4, 2020. The building is gone.
Buckner Building, Whittier
Finished by the Army in 1953 to house up to 1,000 soldiers, with a theater, bowling alley and jail, the Buckner was abandoned after the military left in 1966. Whittier’s museum curator told the Anchorage Daily News of water running through dead pipes and ‘Redrum’ painted on a wall, and explorers call it haunted. The city now owns it, it is fenced, and it is full of asbestos, lead paint and PCBs, with officials cracking down on trespassers. See it only from the road.
4th Avenue Theatre, Anchorage
Cap Lathrop’s grand art deco cinema opened in 1947 after a wartime pause. Former staff described cold spots, shadowy figures in the balcony and a presence in the projection booth, and a woman was said to appear in the mirrors by the restrooms. The theater was demolished in late 2022, so there is nothing left to visit.
West High School auditorium, Anchorage
Theater teacher David Block told the Anchorage Daily News in 2012 that enough people have seen a lady in white in the auditorium, backstage and basement halls that he has to believe something is going on, and a former janitor is said to sweep the lobby. It is a working public high school, so you can only see the auditorium at public performances.
Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, Fairbanks
Older lists say spirits appear in the nursery when a baby is near death, with cold spots and crying from empty rooms. We found no published account from staff or local press behind the story. It is a working hospital: please do not go looking for ghosts there.
Nightmute school, Nightmute
Nightmute is a small Yup’ik village on Nelson Island in western Alaska, reached only by air or water. Online lists repeat a story of a girl who haunts the school bathrooms and plays with basketballs in the gym, and claim a grave was found under Room 106. We found no local report or record behind any of it. It is a working school in a small community, so it is not a place to visit uninvited, and stories about graves deserve respect for the families who live there.
Badarka Road, Chugiak
The legend says a little girl died in an axe accident in the woods here and her grieving father sat with her until he froze, and that at 3:30 AM you can see him cradling her by the road. We found no record of any such deaths, and the story appears only in online lists. It is a residential road: do not stop, park or trespass to look for them.
Haunted Alaska by city
Haunted places in Anchorage: downtown hotels, a cafe with a sad story, a haunted auditorium and the city cemetery
Want to sleep somewhere haunted? See our guide to haunted hotels in Alaska, from Juneau’s Alaskan Hotel and Room 219 to the Van Gilder in Seward and the century-old Gakona Lodge.
Changed in this guide: The Old Jesse Lee Home was demolished in 2020, so it is now under off-limits, and we found no record behind the old claim that children died there. Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, the Nightmute school and Badarka Road moved to off-limits because they are a working hospital, a village school and a residential road, and none of their stories has a published local source. Igloo City stays, but only as a roadside view: it is private and unsafe. We corrected the Eldred Rock story and added Kennecott, Castle Hill, Creek Street, the Gilmore Hotel, Skagway’s Gold Rush Cemetery, Anchorage’s auditorium, cafe and museum house, and every Alaska hotel we have a ghost guide for.
Visited one of these places? Tell us what happened
We collect first-hand accounts from visitors and add the best ones to our guides, with your first name and the date of your visit. We read every story before it’s published.
The Red Onion Saloon in Skagway is the best known, with staff who say they greet its ghost, Lydia, every morning. The Historic Anchorage Hotel and the Alaskan Hotel in Juneau are close behind, and both take overnight guests.
What is the most haunted hotel in Alaska?
The Historic Anchorage Hotel, which keeps a ghost log at the front desk, and the Alaskan Hotel in Juneau, known for Room 219, are the two most often named. See our guide to haunted hotels in Alaska.
Is Igloo City haunted?
Older lists say a woman in white looks out of its upper windows, but we found no first-hand account behind the story. The unfinished dome on the Parks Highway is private and unsafe, so photograph it from the road. Read our full Igloo City guide.
Can you visit Begich Towers in Whittier?
It is home to most of Whittier’s residents, so the corridors are private, but you can see it from outside and there are condo rentals inside. Residents have told the Anchorage Daily News about a whistling ghost and heavy footsteps. Read our Begich Towers guide.
Are there ghost tours in Alaska?
Yes, in the summer season. Skagway’s Red Onion Saloon runs brothel tours and a ghost walk, Anchorage has walking ghost tours that meet at the Snow City Cafe, and Juneau and Ketchikan have ghost walks aimed at cruise visitors.
What is the best ghost town in Alaska?
Kennecott, the abandoned copper mill town inside Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, where guided tours take you inside the 14-story mill. Dyea, near Skagway, is another, with the Slide Cemetery from the 1898 Palm Sunday avalanche.
Sources and how we research
Every place in this guide is checked against its official website, historic register listings and news coverage, and we confirm whether it is open, closed, private or gone before we list it. Ghost stories are reported as staff, visitors and local historians tell them; we say so where records contradict a story. Each place shows how many independent sources we checked it against; our own Haunted Rooms pages are not counted.
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About the authors
The Haunted Rooms Team are paranormal researchers who write about historic haunted places across the United States. We research every place in our guides using official sites, historic registers, local archives and news coverage, and we report ghost stories as the stories they are. We review each guide regularly so you are not sent to a place that has closed, changed hands or banned visitors. Spotted something out of date? Let us know.
