The Haunted Delta King Hotel, Sacramento: Ghosts of a 1927 Riverboat

The Delta King is a sternwheel riverboat permanently moored at 1000 Front Street in Old Sacramento. She and her twin, the Delta Queen, were among the most lavish riverboats ever built, running a ten-hour overnight service down the Sacramento River to San Francisco from 1927. Today her old staterooms are hotel rooms, her lounges hold the Pilothouse Restaurant and the Delta Bar & Grill, and her theater stages shows and murder mystery dinners.

She is also one of the best-known haunted places in the city. Staff describe a small girl who giggles along the second-floor corridors, a man in a navy cap who walks the lobby before dawn and an old captain who seems to like the theater balcony. The boat’s river years also left real tragedy behind, including the 1932 death of Dorothy Millette, the secret first wife of Hollywood producer Paul Bern. For more ghosts in the city, see our guide to haunted places in Sacramento.

The ghosts of the Delta King

The little girl on the second floor

The Delta King’s most talked-about ghost is a child. Local ghost-tour guide Shannon McCabe told Comstock’s magazine in 2025 that staff regularly describe a girl of about eight to ten, with long blond hair and a full-length cotton dress, running, hiding and giggling, usually on the second floor.

Staff have also told of hearing a little girl talking or singing in parts of the boat that nobody can get into, and of small, child-sized footprints appearing on the deck in the morning dew before any guest is up. Nobody knows who she might be. Ghost-tour companies have built theories around her, but there is no record that names her.

The man in the navy cap

The second regular is a middle-aged man in a light button-up shirt, dark trousers and a navy blue cap. He is said to wander the lobby and the hallways in the early morning hours, which has led some to guess he is a crewman still doing his rounds.

Sacramento TV station ABC10 has reported a similar figure under the name of the “old captain”. Employees say they have seen him lounging in the theater balcony during shows and heard his footsteps on the deck above when nobody was there. In one story, a glass of water tipped over onto the sound board in the middle of a performance.

The theater and the lower decks

The theater, which seats about 160, is often named as the most active part of the boat. Staff have reported the sound of a glass shattering near the mystery theater room when nothing was broken. A waiter told Comstock’s that his supervisor will not go down to the bottom of the ship alone and takes a colleague with her whenever she leaves the parts of the boat other people can see.

Guests have their own stories of footsteps in empty corridors, a feeling of being watched on the lower decks and a ghost heard singing. Most of these are guest reviews and staff anecdotes, so treat them as part of the boat’s lore rather than evidence.

Dorothy Millette and the river years

The darkest chapter is real. Paul Bern, the MGM producer who had married Jean Harlow that summer, was found shot dead at his Beverly Hills home on September 5, 1932. Within days it emerged that he had long supported a common-law wife, Dorothy Millette, who was then living in San Francisco. She boarded the Delta King for Sacramento and went overboard during the trip. Her body was later recovered from the river.

Tour company US Ghost Adventures, which stops at the boat on its Old Sacramento walks, says its research found several other deaths connected to the boat in the 1930s, including a passenger who threatened to jump and was never found and a man discovered dead in his cabin in 1934 under a false name. We have not been able to confirm those cases in contemporary records, but they help explain why so many people believe the Delta King has more than one restless passenger.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Second-deck staterooms: The corridor where the little girl is most often heard running and giggling. Ask for this deck when you book.
• The Delta King Theater: The balcony is where staff say the old captain sits during performances. Book a show or the murder mystery dinner to spend an evening there.
• The lobby: Where the man in the navy cap is seen in the early morning. Early risers have the best chance.
• The open deck: Look for small footprints in the dew on a cool morning, and enjoy the view of the Tower Bridge.

History of Delta King Hotel

The Delta King began life in Scotland. Her steel hull and steam engines were ordered in 1924 from William Denny and Brothers of Dumbarton, shipped to California in pieces and assembled by the California Transportation Company at its Banner Island yard in Stockton, with a paddle wheel shaft and cranks from Krupp in Germany. She cost $875,000 and was christened on May 20, 1927, alongside her twin, the Delta Queen.

For thirteen years the two boats ran a nightly ten-hour service on the Sacramento River between Sacramento and San Francisco, with excursions to Stockton on the San Joaquin. Passengers had private staterooms, a dining saloon and lounges, and the pair were among the most expensive sternwheel passenger boats ever commissioned. A new highway between the two cities ended the service in 1940.

The Navy took the Delta King in November 1940. She became a receiving ship for naval reservists on San Francisco Bay and, from 1944, a naval ferry around the bay until she was struck from service in 1946. In the 1950s she was towed north to Kitimat, British Columbia, where she housed workers building the Alcan aluminum smelter.

Back in California she passed through several owners, lost her engines and paddle wheel and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. In 1981 she sank at her moorings in Richmond for reasons that were never fully explained. She was raised about a year later, and a five-year, $9 million restoration followed.

The Delta King came home to Sacramento and reopened on May 20, 1989, exactly 62 years after she was christened. She now has 44 guest rooms, the Pilothouse Restaurant, the Delta Bar & Grill, a theater and private dining rooms, all on the Old Sacramento waterfront.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Ask for the second deck. Most of the little girl stories come from the second-floor corridors.
• Go in October. The boat runs a Haunted Happy Hour on weekday evenings through the month, a good excuse to explore the public decks.
• Book a show. The theater and its balcony are where the old captain is said to sit, and the murder mystery dinner makes a fun night aboard.
• Walk Old Sacramento after dark. Local ghost tours stop beside the boat and cover the Gold Rush gunfights and cholera years that gave the district its reputation.
• Expect a boat, not a tower hotel. Staterooms are compact and some have small windows, which is part of the charm.
• Want to investigate with a team? Haunted Rooms runs ghost hunts at historic venues across the US.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Historic National Hotel, Jamestown: a Gold Rush hotel in the Sierra foothills with a ghost named Flo
• Claremont Resort & Club, Berkeley: a grand hilltop hotel across the bay with a haunted fourth floor
• Queen Anne Hotel, San Francisco: the city at the other end of the Delta King’s old route
• The Queen Mary, Long Beach: California’s other famous haunted ship you can sleep on
• Haunted hotels in California

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.

• Delta King Hotel (official site)
• Wikipedia: Delta King
• Comstock's: Sacramento's waterfront beckons paranormal tourists (2025)
• ABC10: Haunted Sacramento
• Wikipedia: Paul Bern
• US Ghost Adventures: The haunted Delta King

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