by Walter Bissell
The once bustling city of Goldfield, Nevada is now little more than a “ghost town.” When gold was discovered in the early 1900’s, Goldfield quickly became one of the largest cities in Nevada.
In 1908, gold-made millionaire George Winfield, owner of the Goldfield Consolidated Mines Company built the Goldfield Hotel, “on top of an abandoned gold mine.” Designed by Architect George E. Holesworth, the 154-room hotel stood in the heart of the city as a symbol of its success. The 35,000 residents of Goldfield frequented the surrounding saloons, shops, banks, and of course the local mining stock exchange. However, like many other gold-rush cities it dried up when the mines dried up. The Goldfield Hotel was bought and sold many times over the years. The latest purchase was made in 1985 by a San Francisco investor named Lester O’Shea who planned to restore and reopen the hotel. O’Shea’s company went bankrupt before the restoration was completed. The hotel sits sadly amidst the ashes of defeat, haunted by its illustrious past.
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1976 photo of the Goldfield Hotel
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Goldfield Hotel flying brick video.
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Flying brick video stills from the Goldfield Hotel...
The George Winfield Room, on the first floor is reportedly haunted by his ghost. The smell of cigar smoke and piles of fresh ashes has been found there. His presence has been felt near the lobby staircase along with that of a midget and two small children. The children are said to be pranksters, “sneaking up behind people and tapping their backs before giggling and dancing away.”
Psychics have claimed that room 109 is haunted by the presence of a pregnant woman chained to a radiator. Rumors say that George Winfield had an affair with a prostitute named Elizabeth. When she became pregnant, she begged George to leave his wife and marry her. Unwilling to do so George chained Elizabeth to the radiator until she gave birth. She was left in the room to die and “the baby was thrown down the old mine shaft at the northeast end of basement.” Photographs show the ghostly image of “a woman having long flowing hair, wearing a white gown, and looking terribly sad as she paces the hallways, calling out to her child.” Hotel employees have said that they sometimes heard the cries of a baby coming from the basement area.
The “Gold Room,” on the third floor, is reportedly haunted by a ghost of a man called “the stabber.” The ghost is said to lunge at visitors with his arm raised, clutching a large kitchen knife. He seems to only want to frighten people away. He has never harmed anyone and disappears immediately after the “attack.”
Two other ghosts have been seen in the Goldfield Hotel by “more than a dozen people.” One is thought to be a woman who hanged herself in a room on the third floor and the other is that of an unidentified man who reportedly committed suicide by jumping from the roof of the hotel.
Some say the hotel is one of several portals to the other side that exist in the modern world. Ghost hunters digging for paranormal “gold” may find that the Goldfield Hotel is a real “nugget.”
Ghost Pictures Taken at the Goldfield Hotel:
(see video crop of flying brick in the gallery on this page)