Haunted hotel guide · Baraboo, Wisconsin

The Haunted Ringling House, Baraboo: Ghost Hunts and Overnight Stays in a Circus Mansion

Charles Ringling’s 1901 mansion in Baraboo, the old winter home of the Ringling Bros. circus, is now a six-room bed and breakfast. It is also one of the places Haunted Rooms runs its own Wisconsin ghost hunts and sleepovers.

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

3.2/5Haunted Rooms Score

1901Completed for Charles Ringling

6Historic guest rooms

Book our ghost hunt hereMeet the ghosts

The easiest way to spend a night in Ringling House after dark is with us. Haunted Rooms runs the Ringling House Ghost Hunt and Sleepover, where you take a guided historical tour, investigate Sally’s room, the library, the music room, the parlor and the basement vault from 8 PM, and then, with an Overnight VIP ticket, sleep in one of the mansion’s six private rooms and come down to a cooked breakfast at the Ringling family’s dining table. General Admission tickets run from 8 PM to 2 AM if you would rather head back to your own hotel.

The house stands on a two-acre estate at 201 8th Street, a few blocks from downtown Baraboo, the small Sauk County town where the five Ringling brothers founded their circus and kept its winter quarters for decades. It was the first of the Ringling mansions built in Baraboo, it stayed in the family for most of the twentieth century, and it is now one of the most atmospheric places to stay among the haunted hotels in Wisconsin.

The ghosts of Ringling House Bed & Breakfast

Sally Ringling, the house's leading lady

Almost every conversation about the ghosts of Ringling House begins with Sally Ringling. As her story is told in the house, her life was a run of losses: her father died when she was young, her brother was killed in a car crash at 23, her fiance, a racing driver, died before their wedding, and her husband, an RAF pilot, was killed in a plane crash. She is said to have died of a stroke in the doorway of the bathroom of her own bedroom, the room that guests and investigators now describe as the most active in the house.

The bed and breakfast confirms that the Sally & Richard Room was Salome “Sally” Ringling’s bedroom, and it is named for her and Richard Clayton-Jones, the last Ringling descendants to own the house. The details of her losses come from family history as it is retold at the house rather than records we have checked ourselves, so treat them as the story behind the haunting rather than a documented biography.

The light bulbs that go out at her name

The experience people mention most is simple and strangely specific. Guests and investigators on our events report that brand new bulbs go out at the moment Sally’s name is spoken, sometimes more than once in a night. Others describe feeling someone sit down on the end of the bed and lean in, as if about to say something.

Old houses have old wiring, and a bulb that fails at a dramatic moment is easy to remember and easy to retell. We would rather you judge for yourself: on the night, ask about the room’s wiring, try the same experiment with a different bulb, and see what happens.

Alfred Theodore Ringling in the library

The library, with its Honduran mahogany woodwork, leaded-glass bookcases and green marble fireplace, is linked with Alfred Theodore Ringling, a circus performer and published author in the family. Guests say the room has a quiet, studious feel, and investigators tend to sit here for longer, calm sessions with voice recorders rather than the busier experiments of Sally’s room.

Otto Ringling and Room Six

Otto Ringling was the brothers’ businessman, the one who kept the money side of the circus in order, and a lifelong bachelor. Local storytelling says he stayed in the house on his visits, and the room our team calls Room Six is where people say he still makes himself known, usually through knocks and the sense of someone standing in the room.

The maid in period dress

The least known ghost of the house has no name. Several people have described a woman in an old-fashioned servant’s dress who seems to be going about her work, glimpsed in a hallway or a doorway and then gone. With a house this size, the Ringlings would have had staff, but nobody has put a name to her.

Voices, moved furniture and paranormal Pictionary

Beyond the named ghosts, reports from our events include voices from rooms that were empty, furniture that had moved by morning, and one story the team still tells: during a game of paranormal Pictionary in the house, guests watched a pencil move on its own. As with any haunted house, many guests have a lovely night and nothing more.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Sally & Richard Room: Sally Ringling’s own bedroom, with an antique queen brass bed and original tile work. The center of most of the house’s stories, and the first stop on our investigations.
• The library: Honduran mahogany, leaded-glass bookcases and a green marble fireplace. Linked with Alfred Theodore Ringling and known for quieter EVP sessions.
• The parlor: Where three Ringling family funerals were held, according to the history shared on our tours. One of the rooms we investigate on every event.
• The music room: Home to Henry Ringling’s original Steinway grand piano, and one of the places guests report hearing voices from empty rooms.
• Room Six and the basement vault: Room Six is the room tied to Otto Ringling; the basement holds the house’s vault and the remains of its very modern 1901 services.

History of Ringling House Bed & Breakfast

The Ringling brothers started their circus in Baraboo and kept its winter quarters in the town for decades. As the business grew into one of the largest circuses in the world, the brothers built themselves fine houses in Baraboo. Charles Ringling’s house on 8th Street was the first of those mansions, begun in 1900 and completed in 1901 by the local builders George and Karl Isenberg, who, the county historian wrote, built all of the Ringling houses.

It was a showpiece of modern comfort for its day: bathrooms with tiled walls and marble sinks, electric and gas lighting, an intercom system (a few of the original phones survive) and a fire hose system in the service hall. An Otis elevator was installed in 1917 to 1918 because of Henry Ringling’s illness, with a tower behind the hipped roof designed to match the original cornice. Inside, the dining room is paneled in dark quarter-sawn oak and the library in varnished Honduran mahogany around a fireplace of green Wisconsin marble. The yellow clapboard exterior, with its Ionic-columned porch, is largely unaltered.

Charles and Edith Ringling made Baraboo their main home until 1912, when they followed Charles’s brother John to Florida and began dividing their time between a winter house there and a summer house in Evanston, Illinois. In 1916 Charles sold the Baraboo house to his brother Henry. It then passed to Henry’s widow Ida, to their son Henry Ringling II (who died in 1956), to his son Henry III (who died in 1962) and Henry III’s widow Jean, and then to Henry II’s daughter. The 1997 National Register nomination names Sally Clayton-Jones as the owner, and she and Richard Clayton-Jones were the last Ringling descendants to own the house, which stayed in the family for more than a century.

The house was listed on the Wisconsin State Register in 1996 and on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997 as the Charles Ringling House. Today it is the Ringling House Bed and Breakfast, with six guest rooms on the second floor, each named for members of the family or for the circus’s star performers, such as Lillian Leitzel and Alfredo Codona and the Bradnas. Breakfast is served at Henry Ringling’s own dining table, and the innkeepers offer daytime tours of the house and grounds in season.

Tips for a haunted stay

• For the full experience, book an Overnight VIP ticket on a Haunted Rooms night: check-in from 6 PM, the guided tour and ghost hunt from 8 PM, your own ensuite room and a cooked breakfast at the Ringling family dining table.
• Overnight VIP tickets are for two, and some rooms sleep three. If you are a group of three, book the ticket for two and then contact our team to add the third guest.
• There are only six rooms, so Overnight VIP tickets sell out first. Book early, and check the listing for other dates.
• Bring photo ID and your booking confirmation. Photos and voice recorders are welcome in free investigation time, but video is not allowed at any point.
• If you visit outside an event, staying at the B&B gets you a free tour of the house; daytime tours run at 10:30 AM from May through October.
• Make a weekend of it: the Circus World museum on the old winter quarters site is in town, and Devil’s Lake State Park is a short drive south.

More haunted hotels nearby

• The Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee: The hotel big league ballplayers will not sleep in, two hours east
• Hotel Retlaw, Fond du Lac: Room 717 and Walter Schroeder’s 1923 hotel
• The DeSoto House Hotel, Galena: Galena’s 1855 hotel, about two and a half hours southwest
• 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.

• Ringling House Bed and Breakfast
• Ringling House: Guest rooms
• Ringling House: Tours
• Ringling House: Policies
• National Register of Historic Places nomination: Charles Ringling House (NPS)
• Wisconsin Historical Society: Charles Ringling House, 201 8th St
• Wikipedia: Charles Ringling House
• Haunted Rooms: Ringling House Ghost Hunt & Sleepover

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