The Haunted Hotel Julien Dubuque: Al Capone Legends on the Mississippi

Hotel Julien Dubuque sits at 200 Main Street, a few blocks from the Mississippi River, on a corner where travelers have been taking rooms since 1839. The present building, in brick and limestone, opened in 1915 after fire destroyed the old Julien House, and a $30 million restoration brought it back to its early glory in 2009. Today it has 133 rooms and suites, one of them named for Al Capone.

The Capone link is the heart of its ghost story. Dubuque lore says the Chicago gangster used the hotel as a retreat and hideout, and some claim he owned it. Guests and staff describe a man in vintage clothing drifting along the upper hallways, and plenty of them are sure it is Capone himself. None of it is proven, and the hotel’s own history says so, but it makes Hotel Julien one of the most talked-about stops on our list of haunted hotels in Iowa.

The ghosts of Hotel Julien Dubuque

The man in vintage clothes

The Julien’s best-known ghost is a man dressed in the style of an earlier era, seen in the halls of the upper floors. Guests and staff have reported him walking along a corridor and then simply not being there. He is not described as threatening, more like a guest who has never quite left.

Radio station KROC, retelling the story in 2023, was careful to say “supposedly” and “apparently”, and so are we. There is no photograph or detailed first-hand account in print, only a story that has been repeated for years.

Is it Al Capone?

Many people who tell the story believe the man is Al Capone. Dubuque lore says Capone and his entourage came to the Julien when things got too hot in Chicago, staying on the eighth floor and parking their cars in an underground garage nearby. Some versions go further and say Capone owned the hotel.

The hotel’s own history fact sheet is honest about it: no records confirm that Capone owned the Julien. Investor records and a 1927 lawsuit involving “unnamed Chicago interests” have kept the speculation going. Capone died in Florida in 1947, so if his ghost is here, he chose to come back.

Other famous guests

The Julien has had plenty of guests worth haunting a hotel over. Abraham Lincoln is believed to have stayed at the old Julien House in 1859 while working for the Illinois Central Railroad, and Buffalo Bill Cody and Mark Twain are said to have stayed too. Sylvester Stallone stayed at the hotel while filming F.I.S.T. in the 1970s. None of them is linked to a ghost story, but they help explain why the place feels full of the past.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• The Al Capone Suite: Named for the hotel’s most famous rumored guest. Ask for it by name if you want the full legend.
• The upper floors: Where the man in vintage clothes is most often seen. The eighth floor is the one tied to Capone in local lore.
• The lobby and grand staircase: Restored in 2009, and the best place to soak up the 1915 building before you head upstairs.

History of Hotel Julien Dubuque

Dubuque was one of the first towns in Iowa, and its riverfront drew travelers from the start. A hotel has stood at Second and Main since 1839. The four-story Waples House, named for merchant Peter Waples, was likely the first building travelers saw after crossing the Mississippi. In 1854 new owners enlarged it, doubled it to 80 rooms and renamed it the Julien House after Julien Dubuque, the French-Canadian lead miner the city is named for.

W.W. Woodworth bought the hotel and began a seven-story brick and terracotta addition in 1874, and later renovations added an elevator and electric lights. Then, just before midnight on April 7, 1913, fire destroyed the building. No one is believed to have died. Local investors led by W.H. Day formed the Dubuque Hotel Company, construction of a fireproof concrete and steel hotel began in February 1914, and the new Hotel Julien Dubuque held its grand opening on September 12, 1915.

The Capone stories belong to the Prohibition years that followed. In 1962 Louis Pfohl bought the hotel, closed it for a major remodel and reopened it in 1970 as the Julien Motor Inn. By then it was a contributing building in the Old Main Street Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

In 2007 the hotel’s owners, the Fischer Companies (the hotel credits the third generation of the Pfohl family), began a $30 million restoration of the exterior and a complete interior renovation, turning 168 dated rooms into 133 rooms and suites and restoring the lobby and grand ballroom. It reopened as Hotel Julien Dubuque in 2009.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Ask for the Al Capone Suite or an upper-floor room, and ask the front desk staff what they have heard. The hotel does not advertise its ghosts, so be polite about it.
• Ride the Fenelon Place Elevator, a short and very steep funicular a few blocks away, for views over the river and three states.
• Walk the restored Port of Dubuque and the riverfront at night.
• Galena, Illinois, is about 20 minutes away: have dinner there and look at the DeSoto House Hotel, another famous haunted hotel.
• For a second Dubuque night, the Redstone Inn is an 1894 mansion with its own ghost.
• Haunted Rooms runs ghost hunt sleepovers at Ringling House in Baraboo, Wisconsin, a scenic drive north.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Redstone Inn and Suites, Dubuque: an 1894 mansion inn across town
• DeSoto House Hotel, Galena: about 20 minutes away in Illinois
• Hotel Blackhawk, Davenport: Cary Grant’s last hotel, 90 minutes down the river
• Haunted hotels in Wisconsin: just across the river to the north
• Haunted hotels in Iowa

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.

• Hotel Julien Dubuque: History fact sheet
• Hotel Julien Dubuque: The Capone connection
• Wikipedia: Hotel Julien Dubuque
• KROC: Hotel Julien in Dubuque, Iowa, is haunted (2023)
• Only In Your State: Hotel Julien Dubuque

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