Cary House Hotel

William Cary built the first Cary House in 1857, after fire destroyed his earlier hotel. It became the Placerville office of Wells Fargo and the Pioneer Stage Line to Virginia City, and an estimated $90 million in Comstock bullion crossed its porch on the way to San Francisco. In 1915 its owner razed the old hotel and put up the brick building that stands today, and workers excavating the basement found enough gold dust in the ground to pay for it. Guests and staff blame a ghost they call Stan, said to have been a desk clerk stabbed to death after making a pass at the wrong person, for pinching people. In Room 212, the most talked-about room, guests describe flickering lights, a heavy sense of unease, and a man seen smoking in a chair by the window, whom tradition makes an old stagecoach driver. No record has been found for either death, and the stagecoach story is hard to square with a room built after the stage era ended. It still operates as a hotel.