Hotel Captain Cook, Anchorage: The Woman in White and the Locked Stall

Hotel Captain Cook is the big three-tower hotel on West 5th Avenue at the western edge of downtown Anchorage, its mustard-colored enamel panels a landmark on the city skyline. It has 546 rooms, an athletic club with a pool, a run of shops and restaurants, and the Crow’s Nest on top of Tower Three, with views over Cook Inlet. It is still owned by the family of the man who built it, and it joined Historic Hotels of America in 2016.

Its ghost story is not about the rooms at all. Staff and guests describe a young woman in a white dress who is said to have taken her own life in a women’s restroom, and according to local reporting and the city’s ghost tour, the last stall where she died has been kept locked for years. Lights switch on and off and the door opens and closes by itself. For the city’s other haunted stays, see our guide to haunted hotels in Alaska.

The ghost of Hotel Captain Cook

The woman in white

Guests and staff have reported seeing a young woman in a white dress in and around one of the hotel’s women’s restrooms. The story attached to her is that she took her own life in the last stall years ago. She is blamed for lights that turn on and off and for the stall door opening and closing on its own.

We found no public record of the death. Like many hotel stories, it has been passed along by employees and guests rather than written down, so treat it as a story rather than history.

The stall that stays locked

The detail that makes this story memorable is the door. Alaska Business magazine reported in 2019 that the last stall on the left in the women’s restroom was bolted shut after disturbances, and that it remains bolted today. Rick Goodfellow, who founded Ghost Tours of Anchorage and has used the hotel as a regular stop, said the hotel’s operations manager told him the stall is always locked because of a suicide there shortly after Tower Two opened in 1972.

A territorial ghost

Goodfellow described her as a territorial, angry presence who stays in that stall and reacts when she feels slighted. He said she can go quiet for months and then become active night after night, and that in six years of tours, people had collapsed in that downstairs women’s restroom on three separate occasions, always in the same spot. Whether you read that as a ghost or as a tour guide’s best story, it has made a hotel restroom one of the most talked-about haunted spots in Anchorage.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• The basement women's restroom: The last stall on the left, said to have been kept locked for years.
• The Crow's Nest: No ghost here, but the best view in town, on top of Tower Three.
• The guest rooms: No reports tied to a specific room.

History of Hotel Captain Cook

The Good Friday earthquake of March 27, 1964, wrecked much of downtown Anchorage, and many people wondered whether the city should be rebuilt there at all. Walter J. Hickel, a developer who had arrived in Alaska in 1940 at the age of 20 with 37 cents in his pocket, answered by promising to build the largest and finest hotel in Alaska right downtown.

Construction began within months of the quake. Tower One, nine stories and 125 rooms built to modern seismic codes and designed by Edwin B. Crittenden and Associates, opened in July 1965. It was named for Captain James Cook, who sailed into Cook Inlet and anchored in Turnagain Arm in June 1778 on his search for the Northwest Passage. Tower Two, 15 stories, followed in 1972, and Tower Three, 18 stories, in 1978.

Hickel himself went on to an extraordinary political career. He was elected governor of Alaska in 1966, served as U.S. Secretary of the Interior under Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1970, and was elected governor again in 1990. His family still owns the hotel, which joined Historic Hotels of America in 2016. The Crow’s Nest on top of Tower Three displays a scale model of Cook’s ship, HMS Resolution.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Book a table or a drink at the Crow’s Nest for the view over Cook Inlet.
• The restroom story is in the public areas, so you can look for the locked stall without booking a particular room.
• Ask for a high floor in Tower Three for the best views.
• Walk to the Historic Anchorage Hotel on E Street, a few blocks away, to read its ghost log.
• Ghost tours of downtown Anchorage run in summer; check current schedules locally.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Historic Anchorage Hotel: Anchorage’s most haunted hotel, a few blocks east
• Haunted hotels in Alaska: Including the Inlet Tower a short walk south
• Haunted places in Alaska: More of the state’s ghost stories
• Haunted hotels in Alaska

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

• Historic Hotels of America: Hotel Captain Cook history
• SAH Archipedia: Hotel Captain Cook
• Alaska's News Source: Spooky spots abound in downtown Anchorage
• Alaska Business: Transcendental Travels, haunted hotels (2019)

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