The Union Hotel

Guests and staff at the Union Hotel have long reported a woman's apparition in the hallways and at a window facing the street after dark, crying and talking heard when the building should be empty, growls, dark apparitions, scratches, shadowy figures and objects moving on their own, and some say they feel depressed or angry on walking through the doors. The woman is known as Crying Mary, said to have been a sex worker who hanged herself in one of the rooms after a customer who promised to leave his wife never came back for her. A housekeeper who worked there for 18 years recalled hearing dishes break in the saloon with nobody there, and former employees describe Victorian-era couples, a chef and at least one woman who either hanged herself or was thrown down the stairs. The hotel was featured on Ghost Adventures in 2019. By its own account the Union Hotel has taken in travellers on Benicia's First Street since the early 1850s, when the town was briefly California's capital, and it lived through the waterfront's era of saloons, gambling and brothels, a smallpox outbreak, a spell as a flophouse and both World Wars; it still operates as a small hotel. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.