The Haunted Gage Hotel, Marathon: Alfred Gage and Room 10

The Gage Hotel stands on the highway through Marathon, a small railroad town on the road to Big Bend National Park. Rancher and banker Alfred S. Gage had it designed by Trost and Trost of El Paso, the firm behind the Hotel Paisano in Marfa, and it opened on April 1, 1927. Gage died a year later. The hotel struggled through the decades that followed, was boarded up by the 1970s, and was restored by J. P. Bryan and his wife Mary Jon into one of the best-loved hotels in West Texas.

For years, the hotel’s own history says, it offered little more than haunted hallways. The ghost stories survived the restoration. Local lore says three spirits walk the halls of the original building and the front porch, and that one of them might be Alfred Gage. Room 10 in the main building is the one said to turn skeptics into believers, and Room 39 has its own reputation. The hotel does not promote its ghosts, which makes this a beautiful desert stay with a quiet haunted side, and a standout in our guide to haunted hotels in Texas.

The ghosts of The Gage Hotel

Is Alfred Gage still checking in?

Alfred Gage built this hotel as his Marathon home and the headquarters of his ranching and banking business, and he only had a year to enjoy it. Local lore, as retold by NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, says the Gage is haunted by three spirits, one of which might or might not be old man Gage himself.

OnlyInYourState’s retelling says his ghost is not malicious and simply checks up on things, and that guests describe other spirits sitting on the porch, strolling the patio gardens and walking the hallways. None of the sightings is documented, and the hotel does not tell ghost stories, but a founder who died so soon after his hotel opened is exactly the kind of figure such stories gather around.

Room 10

Room 10 in the main building is the room with the reputation. NBC 5’s travel writer was told that it converts doubters, and it is the room most guests ask for when they come looking for a haunted night.

The original 1927 plans show 21 guest rooms over two floors, with Room 7 used as Alfred Gage’s office, according to the hotel’s National Register nomination. Rooms have been merged and renumbered over the years, so Room 10 today may not match the 1927 layout exactly.

Room 39 and the voice at the door

The same NBC 5 article, written by Frank Heinz in 2010, suggested that Room 39 might also have a few tricks up its sleeve. He saw no ghosts himself, but his travel companion woke in the night to someone screaming her name outside the door, and nobody was there.

It is one guest’s experience, told in a light travel piece, but it is the most specific account of the Gage on record, and later retellings name Rooms 10 and 39 as the most active rooms in the hotel.

The haunted hallways

The hotel’s own history page admits that for many years the Gage offered little more than haunted hallways. It means the building was nearly empty during its long decline, but it is a phrase ghost hunters enjoy. The hallways of the original 1927 building are where most reports come from.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Room 10: In the main 1927 building. The room said to convert doubters. Ask for it by number when you book the Historic Hotel.
• Room 39: Where a guest heard her name screamed outside the door in the night.
• The halls of the Historic Hotel: Where guests describe spirits walking back and forth, and the heart of the 1927 building.
• The front porch: Said to be one of the places the spirits stroll. Quiet and very dark at night, with remarkable stars.
• The patio gardens: Another spot where retellings place a strolling spirit. Lovely in the evening either way.

History of The Gage Hotel

Alfred S. Gage left Vermont for Texas in 1878, aged 18, with a twenty-dollar gold piece, and built a ranching empire of more than 500,000 acres in the Trans-Pecos, the largest ranching operation in the region. He became a prominent banker in San Antonio, but he wanted a base in Marathon, the railroad town that grew up after the tracks arrived in 1882, named by railroad surveyor Captain Albion E. Shepard after the plains of Marathon in Greece.

In August 1926 Gage commissioned the El Paso firm Trost and Trost to design a hotel that would also serve as his Marathon residence and the headquarters of his cattle and banking interests. It was the smallest of the roughly 26 Texas hotels the firm designed, which also include the Paisano in Marfa, the Holland in Alpine and the El Capitan in Van Horn. Construction began in October 1926 with H. T. Ponsford and Sons as contractor, at a cost of about $45,000, and the two-story brick hotel opened on April 1, 1927, with 21 guest rooms. Gage died in San Antonio in June 1928.

The hotel survived the Depression, and from 1946 until at least 1967 it operated as the Hotel Parkway. Marathon’s population dwindled, owners changed every few years, and the building was eventually boarded up.

In 1978 J. P. Bryan Jr., an oilman, rancher and descendant of Stephen F. Austin, bought the long-vacant building for $30,000 with his wife Mary Jon. They reopened it in 1982 and have spent decades restoring the hotel and much of the town around it, adding the Los Portales wing in 1992, the Captain Shepard House and casitas, gardens, a spa and the 12 Gage restaurant; today there are about 45 rooms across the historic hotel, Los Portales and nearby historic homes. The Gage became a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1981 and was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places in 2020.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Book the Historic Hotel, not Los Portales or the casitas, if you want the original 1927 rooms, and ask for Room 10 or Room 39.
• Sit on the front porch after dark. Marathon is tiny, and the desert sky out here is famously dark.
• Have a drink at the White Buffalo Bar, which the hotel says Texas Monthly named one of its top hotel bars, and ask the staff what they have heard.
• Combine your stay with the Hotel Paisano in Marfa, another Trost and Trost hotel with its own ghost stories, about an hour west.
• If you are bringing a dog, check the hotel’s pet policy first; pets are not allowed in every room type.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Hotel Paisano, Marfa: another Trost and Trost hotel, an hour west
• Hotel De Soto, El Paso: El Paso’s haunted hotel story
• Haunted places in El Paso: the nearest big city’s ghost stories
• Haunted places in Texas: more of the state’s ghost stories
• Haunted hotels in Texas

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.

• The Gage Hotel: History
• The Gage Hotel (official site)
• Texas Historical Commission Atlas: Gage Hotel historical marker
• Texas Historical Commission Atlas: Gage Hotel National Register nomination (2020)
• NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth: Worth the Drive, Marathon and the haunted Gage Hotel (2010)
• OnlyInYourState: The history behind this remote hotel in Texas
• El Paso Inc.: The Gage Hotel

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