The Haunted Hotel Mead, Wisconsin Rapids: The Story in the Basement

Hotel Mead stands at 451 East Grand Avenue, close to the Wisconsin River in the center of Wisconsin Rapids. Consolidated Papers built it in 1950 and 1951, and today it is the town’s only full-service hotel, with 150 rooms and suites, an indoor pool, a conference center, the Grand Ave Tavern and The Whitney restaurant, and a calendar of weddings, conventions and live music. For most guests it is simply the best-known place to stay in town.

For a long time, though, it has also had a ghost story. Guests and local storytellers say the basement, once a bar and gambling room called the Shanghai Room, is haunted by a woman who was killed there. Staff have reportedly been told not to discuss it, which, as our original guide put it, has not stopped guests talking. This short guide sets out the story, what people report and how to plan a stay at one of the lesser-known haunted hotels in Wisconsin.

The ghosts of Hotel Mead Resort & Conference Center

The woman in the basement

The story at the heart of Hotel Mead is a dark one. According to a 2017 WROK round-up, the hotel’s basement held the Shanghai Room, opened in 1953 and used as a bar and gambling room, and local legend says a female bartender was stabbed to death there. The same article notes that the killing has never been confirmed, and we have found no newspaper report or record of it either, so treat it as a legend rather than documented history.

People who have been in the basement describe a smell like blood, doors slamming on their own, lights that flicker and a cold that the rest of the building does not share. Most of those accounts are second-hand, passed on by former staff and guests rather than published under their names.

A hotel that does not talk about it

What makes Hotel Mead unusual is not the ghost but the silence around it. Past and present employees have reportedly been told not to discuss the basement, and the hotel’s own website says nothing about ghosts. That is a reasonable position for a busy conference hotel, and it means you should not expect a ghost tour or a haunted room package. Be polite with staff, who may not know the story or may not be allowed to talk about it.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• The basement: The old Shanghai Room bar and gambling room of 1953, and the only part of the hotel tied to the ghost story. It is not a guest area.
• The guest floors: No rooms are named in the stories. If you want to be close to the action, there is no room to request; this is a stay for the story rather than a specific room.

History of Hotel Mead Resort & Conference Center

Wisconsin Rapids began as a lumber settlement in the late 1830s, when sawmills went up along the rapids of the Wisconsin River. It was called Grand Rapids until 1920, when it changed its name to avoid mail being sent to Grand Rapids, Michigan by mistake.

Paper made the town. By 1902 J.D. Witter and Nels Johnson had combined mills and water rights into the Consolidated Water Power Company, and after both founders died, Witter’s son-in-law George W. Mead took over. Under the Mead family, Consolidated Papers grew into a Fortune 500 company and, in the 1980s, the world’s largest producer of enamel papers. The family’s mansion later housed the Wisconsin River Papermaking Museum, which closed in 2020.

Consolidated Water Power and Paper built the hotel in 1950 to replace the 69-year-old Witter Hotel. It was first to be called the Bel-mead, for “beautiful valley,” but the company renamed it for George W. Mead after he stepped down as president following a stroke that year. Hotel Mead opened in 1951, and the Shanghai Room bar opened in the basement in 1953. The hotel was renamed the Mead Inn in 1962 and went back to Hotel Mead in 1999, and two major remodeling and addition projects have enlarged it over the years.

The paper industry has had a harder time. Consolidated was sold to the Finnish company Stora Enso in 2000, and the big mill in town closed in 2020. The hotel has changed hands several times too: it went to the lender in 2011 after its owners fell behind on mortgage and tax payments, was owned by SKD Hotel Mead from about 2013, sold to Michigan-based Base Hospitality’s Founders Collection in January 2020, and was bought by hotelier Sean Patel in March 2024, who began a three-year refresh of the rooms, lighting and restaurants.

Tips for a haunted stay

• This is a stay for the story, not a staged haunting. Do not expect basement access or a ghost tour.
• Be polite with staff: employees have reportedly been told not to discuss the ghost, and many will not know the story.
• Eat at the Grand Ave Tavern or The Whitney on site, and check the events calendar for live music.
• Families with children are welcome, and the pool is popular, but the person checking in must be at least 18.
• Make a weekend of it with our ghost hunt at Ringling House in Baraboo, about an hour and a half south.
• Around Halloween, check the events calendar: the current owners have planned a Halloween haunted house among their seasonal events.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Hotel Retlaw, Fond du Lac: Room 717 and Walter Schroeder’s 1923 hotel
• The Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee: The 1893 hotel big league ballplayers talk about
• The Ambassador Hotel, Milwaukee: 1928 Art Deco hotel with a dark Dahmer connection
• Haunted hotels in Wisconsin

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 Mead Resort and Conference Center
• Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune (via AOL): Meet the owner of Hotel Mead (2024)
• Rock 94.7: Rapids' Hotel Mead is sold (2020)
• WPR: Historic Wisconsin Rapids hotel to be sold (2011)
• WROK 1440: 5 Wisconsin hotels you shouldn't stay at unless you like sleeping with ghosts
• Wikipedia: Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin

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