Haunted hotel guide · Baker City, Oregon

The Haunted Geiser Grand Hotel, Baker City: The Lady in Blue and Room 302

A gold-rush hotel once called the finest between Portland and Salt Lake City, where a woman in a blue gown is said to walk down the main staircase and vanish into the wall.

By The Haunted Rooms Team · Updated November 2026 · How we rate hotels

4.5/5Haunted Rooms Score

1889Opened as the Hotel Warshauer

Room 302The cupola room

Check availabilityMeet the ghosts

The Geiser Grand stands on Main Street in Baker City, in the mountains of northeast Oregon, its corner clock tower rising over a downtown built on gold. It opened in 1889, when the mines of the Blue Mountains made Baker City the Queen of the Mines, and it was once considered the finest hotel between Portland and Salt Lake City. After nearly three decades empty it was restored in the 1990s, and today it has 30 suites, crystal chandeliers and a dining room beneath a stained-glass ceiling.

It also has one of the liveliest ghost reputations among the haunted hotels in Oregon. 1859 Oregon’s Magazine says it has not just one ghost but “a whole crew of fun-loving spirits”. Guests describe a lady in blue on the staircase and a former owner in the cupola room, and during the restoration about a dozen workers quit after what they said were encounters with ghosts.

The ghosts of Geiser Grand Hotel

The lady in blue

The Geiser Grand’s best-known ghost is a woman in a blue gown from around the turn of the twentieth century. Guests describe her descending the main staircase, and in the most-told version she reaches the bottom and disappears into the wall.

Some accounts give her a name. Owner Barbara Sidway told the Oregon Wine Press that the woman in the blue gown is Granny Anabelle, who lived in what is now Room 302, and The Spokesman-Review called the Lady in Blue “Grandma Annabelle”. She is said to smell of rosewater as she floats on the staircase, the one every guest uses to reach their room.

Granny Annabelle and Room 302

Room 302 sits in the cupola, at the top of the corner tower. The hotel’s story, as Barbara Sidway told the Oregon Wine Press, is that about a century ago it was the home of Granny Anabelle, the mother of the hotel’s manager. Other versions, such as OnlyInYourState’s, make her one of the hotel’s owners and say she spent her evenings entertaining guests in the bar with her stories.

She was a regular at the bar with a favorite seat, and people who sit there today say they get pinched. Guests who stay in Room 302 describe jewelry and toiletries moved while they slept. She is said to be mischievous rather than threatening, though the wandering spirits can wake people at night.

The ghosts that drove builders away

When Barbara and Dwight Sidway were racing to reopen the hotel in 1997, the Seattle Times reported that about a dozen workers had quit, saying they had encountered ghosts. Cook Bill Harp said he and another employee watched a large carton of glassware rise, float about four feet and crash to the floor. “I never believed in ghosts until I started working here,” he said.

The Sidways themselves described noisy parties in empty rooms, objects that moved, flickering lights, furniture rearranged overnight and knots tied in curtains. Dwight Sidway once followed the sound of a party to an unused upper room. “There wasn’t a soul up there,” he said.

The party upstairs

The Sidways told The Oregonian in 1997, as quoted by 1859 Oregon’s Magazine, that if there are ghosts “it’s not just one, it’s a whole party of them”, and called them “friendly, jovial, partying ghosts”. They added that some workers would not go on the third floor after midnight.

The party is usually placed in the original dining room next to the bar. An elderly local once asked Sidway whether she had heard them yet: laughter and ice clinking in glasses that stops the moment a door opens. Staff still report late-night dinner party sounds, mostly between midnight and 4 a.m. Other ghosts in the stories include a young girl, a former saloon dancer and a cowboy.

A skeptic in charge

Not everyone at the Geiser Grand is convinced. Barbara Sidway told Gear Patrol, “there aren’t any ghosts around here,” while admitting the hotel has a lot of fun with the rumor; years later she described herself to the Oregon Wine Press as agnostic and said she has never seen a ghost. She traces the stories to the mid-twentieth century, to bartenders, construction workers and restaurant staff.

The reputation has traveled far. A Japanese TV crew broadcast live from the hotel in 2010, its director convinced he had once taken a spirit home in his suitcase, and the hotel has appeared on SyFy’s Ghost Mine. Paranormal investigators lead guest ghost hunts a few times a year. It is a fair balance to keep in mind: the stories are lively and long-running, but they are stories.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Room 302: The cupola room at the top of the corner tower, linked to Granny Anabelle, the manager’s mother. Ask for it by number when you book.
• Third-floor suites: The floor some workers are said to avoid after midnight. Good if Room 302 is taken.
• Second-floor suites: Open onto a wraparound balcony overlooking the dining room and its stained-glass ceiling, the view guests see when they step out of their rooms.
• The main staircase: Not a room, but the spot to watch for the lady in blue. Every guest passes it.

History of Geiser Grand Hotel

Baker City boomed on gold from the 1860s onward, and by the 1880s it needed a grand hotel. The Hotel Warshauer opened in November 1889, built for about $65,000 according to the National Park Service, with plate glass windows, electric lights and bells, baths, a 200-seat dining room and an elevator that the hotel claims was the third installed west of the Mississippi. The NPS credits Czech-born architect John Bennes; Wikipedia notes he did not arrive in Baker until 1900, so his work there was likely later changes.

The Geiser family, mining investors John Geiser and his son Albert, whose fortune came from the Bonanza Mine, bought the hotel around the turn of the century. Sources differ on the year (the NPS says 1895, Wikipedia and others 1900), but the renamed Geiser Grand had its grand reopening on January 1, 1902. For decades it was the social center of the town, known for fine dining and dances. In later years, according to the Seattle Times, the building also served as a brothel, a veterans hospital and a casino before it closed in 1968. The Baker City Herald notes that crew members from the film Paint Your Wagon stayed there shortly before it shut.

The empty hotel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 as part of the Baker Historic District. By the early 1990s the third floor was thick with pigeon droppings and the basement flooded, and in 1993 the building was facing demolition when Barbara and Dwight Sidway of Hillsboro took it on. The Seattle Times put the restoration at $6 million over three years (the Baker City Herald later said more than $7 million), and the hotel reopened in stages, welcoming guests for the summer 1997 season; the NPS dates its grand reopening to 1998. The Sidways cut the room count from 70 to 30 to make larger suites, restored the woodwork and chandeliers, and rebuilt the stained-glass ceiling over the dining room. The work earned the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Honor Award.

Today the Geiser Grand is still the landmark of Main Street. Volunteer docents have led Saturday history tours, free for overnight guests, and its dining room draws visitors passing through on Interstate 84 as well as overnight guests.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Ask for Room 302 in the cupola when you book. It is the room tied to Granny Anabelle.
• Take one of the hotel’s history tours if one runs during your stay, then come back to the main staircase after dark.
• Eat under the stained-glass ceiling at least once, and look up at the balcony from below.
• Baker City is a long drive from anywhere: about five hours from Portland on Interstate 84, so plan a full trip.
• Pair your stay with Hot Lake Springs near La Grande, under an hour northwest, another eastern Oregon hotel with a ghost reputation.
• Ask about October events. The hotel has held Halloween-season weekends and paranormal investigators lead guest ghost hunts a few times a year.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Hot Lake Springs, La Grande: a 1906 hot springs lodge and former sanatorium, under an hour away
• Historic Wolf Creek Inn: Oregon’s oldest hotel, with Clark Gable’s room
• The Heathman Hotel, Portland: room 703 and the haunted ’03’ rooms
• Haunted places in Oregon: more ghost stories across the state
• Haunted hotels in Oregon

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.

• Wikipedia: Geiser Grand Hotel
• National Park Service: Baker City case study, Geiser Grand Hotel
• Seattle Times: Hotel claims uninvited guests: ghosts (1997)
• Oregon Wine Press: Paranormal guests (2019)
• The Spokesman-Review: Japanese TV show to air live from old Oregon hotel (2010)
• Baker City Herald: A grand tour from a history buff
• Gear Patrol: Baker City's beacon, the Geiser Grand Hotel
• 1859 Oregon's Magazine: Oregon's haunted places (2017)

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