Haunted hotel guide · Red Wing, Minnesota

The Haunted St. James Hotel, Red Wing: Clara's Room 310 and the Sea Wing Morgue

An 1875 Mississippi River hotel built on wheat money, where guests ask for Room 310 to meet Clara Lillyblad and the 1890 Sea Wing disaster still shapes the ghost stories.

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

4.2/5Haunted Rooms Score

1875Year opened

Room 310Most requested room

Check availabilityMeet the ghosts

The St. James Hotel stands at 406 Main Street in Red Wing, a few steps from the Mississippi River and the bluffs of Barn Bluff. Eleven local businessmen paid for it in 1874 and 1875, when Red Wing was the largest primary wheat market in the world, and it opened with a grand ball on Thanksgiving Day, 1875. It was one of the most elaborate hotels on the upper Mississippi, and in 2025 it celebrated its 150th anniversary. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a member of Historic Hotels of America.

It is also widely called the most haunted hotel in Minnesota. Guests ask for Room 310, the old room of Clara Lillyblad, who ran the hotel for decades. Others tell of a worker who fell to his death during construction, a woman in white, crying babies and faces in the basement, and of the days in 1890 when the hotel served as a temporary morgue after the Sea Wing steamboat capsized on Lake Pepin. It sits at the top of our list of haunted hotels in Minnesota.

The ghosts of the St. James Hotel

Clara Lillyblad and Room 310

Clara Nelson moved to Red Wing from Fergus Falls in 1914 and started at the St. James as a waitress. She married the owner, Charles Lillyblad, ran the front of the house and later the kitchen, and after Charles died in 1931 she owned and ran the hotel alone until her own death in 1972. She raised the standard of the food and was known for her generosity: one story tells of her serving a fancy dinner to a honeymooning couple who could not afford it.

She lived in Room 310, and that is the room guests ask for. As KROC put it in the hotel’s 150th year, rumor has it she still makes her presence known there.

Clara's table

Clara is also said to keep an eye on the dining room. The story goes that she still cares about standards and moves things that are not set the way she likes. The large table known as Clara’s table is reported to move on its own.

Staff and guests treat her as a fussy, protective presence rather than a frightening one.

The worker on the grand staircase

A man is said to have fallen to his death while the hotel was being built in the 1870s. Guests describe a figure in work overalls on the grand staircase who fades away as they watch.

No record of a construction death has been published, so this is a story handed down with the building rather than a documented event.

The Sea Wing victims

On July 13, 1890, a squall capsized the excursion steamer Sea Wing on Lake Pepin, and 98 of the roughly 215 people aboard drowned; many had boarded at Red Wing that morning. Local accounts, repeated by KROC and ghost-walk writers, say the St. James served as a temporary morgue in the days that followed.

Many believe some of those victims never left. The disaster is real and well recorded, and the morgue story is widely told, though we have not found it in a contemporary record; the idea that it left ghosts behind is belief, but it gives the hotel’s stories a weight that most haunted hotels lack.

The darker stories

Not every tale is gentle. American Ghost Walks describes a hostile presence said to roam all floors, slamming doors and even pushing guests. There are also reports of crying babies when no children are staying, whispering, cold spots and floating heads, and older stories add a beautiful woman in a white dress.

Workers who have been in the basement say they have seen faces staring back at them. Another local legend says the hotel was built on Native American burial ground; there is no evidence for that claim, which is attached to many haunted buildings.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Room 310: Clara Lillyblad’s old room and the one guests request most. Ask when you book, not at check-in.
• The third floor: Where most sightings are said to take place. If 310 is taken, ask for another room on this floor.
• The grand staircase: Where the worker in overalls is said to appear and fade.
• The dining room and Clara's table: Where Clara is said to rearrange settings that do not meet her standards.
• The basement: Where workers say they have seen faces. The Port bar on the lower level is the easiest way to spend time down there.

History of St. James Hotel

In the early 1870s Red Wing was the largest primary wheat market in the world. Its merchants wanted a hotel to match, so eleven prominent businessmen raised $60,000 and built an Italianate hotel on Main Street; Wikipedia credits the design to Brink, Williams and Co., while Historic Hotels of America names architect Edward P. Bassford. The St. James opened with a grand ball on Thanksgiving Day, 1875, and became a regular stop for steamboat passengers on the Mississippi.

As the wheat trade declined, T.K. Simmons and Charles Lillyblad bought the hotel, and Lillyblad bought out Simmons in 1909. Clara Nelson arrived as a server in 1914 and married Charles. He handled the money, she ran the dining room and later the kitchen, and after his death in 1931 she ran the St. James on her own until she died in 1972. Their son Art, who was born in the building, managed it for the next five years.

The hotel’s darkest days are said to have come in July 1890, when the steamer Sea Wing capsized in a storm on Lake Pepin on an excursion that had picked up passengers at Red Wing. Ninety-eight people died, and local tradition holds that the St. James was used as a temporary morgue while families came to identify their dead.

In 1977 Art Lillyblad sold the hotel to Red Wing Shoe Company, the city’s best-known employer, which renovated it and added a shopping courtyard and a new wing of rooms and offices. That year, on September 15, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the listing was enlarged in 1982. Rooms were decorated individually, many named after riverboats that once worked the Mississippi.

The hotel marked its 150th anniversary in 2025 with a Thanksgiving buffet, as it opened on Thanksgiving in 1875. Red Wing Shoe Company still operates it, and it calls itself family owned. Today it has 68 rooms, the Scarlet Kitchen and Bar with river views, and The Port, a lower-level bar serving Prohibition-era cocktails. It is a popular spot for weddings and weekend getaways, and a member of Historic Hotels of America.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Request Room 310 when you book directly with the hotel. If it is taken, ask for any third-floor room.
• Have a drink in The Port on the lower level, the closest most guests get to the basement stories.
• Look for Clara’s table in the dining room and see whether the settings stay where the staff put them.
• Join a Red Wing ghost walk that passes the hotel to hear the Sea Wing story in context.
• Climb Barn Bluff or walk the riverfront at dusk; the downtown historic district is compact and easy on foot.
• For a full investigation, the nearest Haunted Rooms event is listed below, and you can see all Minnesota ghost hunts.

More haunted hotels nearby

• The Kahler Grand Hotel, Rochester: about an hour south, with the vanished candy heiress in the elevator
• The Palmer House Hotel, Sauk Centre: often called Minnesota’s other most haunted hotel
• Chase on the Lake, Walker: a lakeside resort with a haunted basement bowling alley
• Haunted hotels in Minnesota

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.

• St. James Hotel (official site)
• Historic Hotels of America: St. James Hotel history
• Wikipedia: St. James Hotel (Red Wing, Minnesota)
• Wikipedia: Sea Wing disaster
• KROC: St. James Hotel in Red Wing at 150 (2025)
• Republican Eagle: Red Wing's St. James Hotel celebrates 150 years (2025)
• American Ghost Walks: Haunted St. James Hotel in Red Wing

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