Murphys Historic Hotel

Staff and guests at the Murphys Historic Hotel report small objects thrown in the kitchen and the Mark Twain Ballroom, a presence on the second floor, and a strong sense of being watched, and paranormal investigators have visited for years. Two stories are told to explain it: a bookkeeper shot and thrown from the second-floor balcony, and a chambermaid named Eleanor who died in a kitchen fire, though no record has been found for either. James Sperry and John Perry opened the Sperry & Perry Hotel in the Gold Country town in the summer of 1856, and its original register carries the signatures of Ulysses S. Grant, Mark Twain, J.P. Morgan and Charles Bolles, better known as the stagecoach robber Black Bart. It still operates as a hotel, restaurant and saloon.