Haunted California: Ghostly Hotels, Cursed Landmarks And Places With Dark Pasts

Some places have a history so haunting that, according to local legend, the spirits of the past never truly leave.

From a former island prison in San Francisco Bay to a beachfront hotel in San Diego County, California is filled with landmarks where ghost stories, mysterious deaths and unexplained encounters have become part of local lore.

For Halloween, Patch is revisiting some of the Golden State's most notoriously haunted places and the chilling tales that continue to surround them.

Here's a look at some of California's spookiest spots.

Alcatraz Island

Arguably one of the most famous haunts in the San Francisco Bay Area, Alcatraz Island and its eerily abandoned prison cells hold history that apparently lingers still today.

Inmates and guards died on The Rock, and many visitors have reported rattling chains, cell doors swinging open and a ghostly draft.

Arroyo del Valle Sanitarium

Haunted houses and paranormal spaces abound in the Tri-Valley cities of Dublin, Livermore and Pleasanton, according to local lore and history. Many residents claim old buildings and streets hum with paranormal activity, either captured on camera or witnessed on ghost tours.

One of the area's spooky places is the Arroyo del Valle Sanitarium, which has served as a haunt in Livermore for decades. The foundations of the buildings one-time tuberculosis sanitarium, now leveled, remain under the current Camp Arroyo, a children's youth camp. Some say ghosts of patients still roam the ruins, according to reports from WeirdCalifornia.

There's an urban legend about a former groundskeeper who killed all the patients in the children's ward before taking his own life. The sounds of the children's screams can still be heard at night, according to the campfire ghost story for the visitors to Camp Arroyo.

Read more: Livermore's Haunted, Paranormal History Par For The Course For Locals

Beaumont Library

From mysterious knocking to unexplained noises in locked rooms, Beaumont Library in Riverside County has a long history of alleged paranormal activity.

One of the library's best-known ghost stories involves an employee who heard loud knocking coming from a locked storage area beneath the stairs of the original Carnegie library, built in 1911. Police were called to investigate, but when the door was opened, the room was empty.

Library employees told Patch in 2025 that they believed the historic building was haunted, even as it underwent a major renovation.

Read more: Ghosts Still Haunt The Beaumont Library Historic Building Amid Remodeling Project

Big Bear's Captain's Anchorage

Opened in 1947 by Western movie star Andy Devine, Captain's Anchorage in Big Bear was once a popular hangout for Hollywood stars and gamblers. Today, the restaurant is known for a different kind of haunting.

According to local lore, a former bookkeeper named George died under mysterious circumstances in an upstairs office. Employees believe his ghost still roams the restaurant, along with an unidentified woman.

Employees have reported unexplained footsteps, ghostly apparitions, and even the sensation of having their hair pulled, according to the restaurant's general manager.

Read more: Big Bear's Haunted Hot Spot: Captain's Anchorage Restaurant and Bar

Black Star Canyon

Located deep in the heart of the Santa Ana Mountains, Black Star Canyon has been called one of the strangest paranormal locations in Orange County, with some hikers certain they are being watched.

After nightfall, there have been many deadly crashes on the roadways, as well as cases of missing hikers located at the witching hour. Most residents who are familiar with Black Star Canyon call it "the darkest place" in the OC.

Nighttime hikers have heard eerie real-time sounds of music. Conversation in the bushes, screams and howls, and tribal drums have also been heard in the area.

According to record, Black Star Canyon was where a group of trappers searching for their stolen horses fought a band of Tongva natives in a massacre in 1831.

Hikers may come across an old, abandoned bus and unexplained outbuildings, find homeless people, and run into cult activity.

Read more: Haunted Black Star Canyon Still A Mystery In Orange County

Blue Boy

From generation to generation, students at Dominican University in San Rafael have passed down ghost stories. None may be more bone chilling than the tale of Blue Boy from Meadowlands.

The de Young family owned the Meadowlands building before the college acquired it, according to the Dominican University website. The wealthy and influential family reportedly had a son who had some mental health issues.

One day the mother of the boy snapped and while she was bathing him she drowned the boy in the bathtub. In her dismay, she cut herself and decided to hang herself.

From then on, the boy was known as Blue Boy due to the color he turned after the drowning.

Read more: Marin County Ghost Story: Blue Boy

Claremont Hotel

The Claremont Hotel and Spa is a historic property located in the Claremont District that straddles the city limits of Berkeley and Oakland.

While the hotel that sits there now was constructed in 1915, the original building, a home which early settler William B. Thornburgh called his "castle," burned down in 1901.

Since the hotel opened, guests have reported that room 422 is haunted by the ghost of a little girl. Other complaints have included the faint smell of smoke and the distant sounds of a baby crying.

Also see: 10 Bay Area Haunts To Visit This October

Griffith Park

Griffith Park has been the stomping grounds of killers and the final resting place of victims, but some say the municipal park is haunted or perhaps just cursed.

The supposed curse stems back to 1863, when Dona Petronilla, the teenage niece of wealthy land baron Don Antonio Feliz, found herself cut out of his will. She famously cursed the land, vowing it would never be profitable and that its owners would meet untimely or violent ends. The spooky thing about her curse is that it quickly came true.

According to creepyla.com, the man who negotiated the ranch's water rights was killed in a saloon, and the land's new owner was murdered by banditos in Mexico. Then along came Colonel Griffith J. Griffith. The wealthy industrialist bought 4,000 acres of the land known as Rancho Los Feliz in the 1880s but was plagued by natural disasters and misfortune. Some said it was the curse of Dona Petronilla. Ultimately, he gifted the land to the city of Los Angeles but couldn't quite escape the curse. He shot his wife during a drunken rampage at a hotel in Santa Monica. She survived, but he was sent to San Quentin to serve two years thanks to an "alcoholic insanity" defense. He was released from prison and died from liver disease.

Petronilla's vengeful ghost is said to haunt the land, a lady in a white dress appearing to hikers and visitors over the years. But according to folklore, she is not alone in haunting the hills. Actress Peg Entwistle, who infamously leapt to her death from the 'H' in the Hollywood sign in 1932, is said to startle hikers, appearing in all her 1930s Hollywood garb.

Read more: Griffith Park — The Haunted And Cursed — Heart Of Los Angeles

Haskell House

The historic Haskell house, located at the corner of Franklin Street and McDowell Avenue in Fort Mason, has a long history of ghoulish sights. It's where U.S. Senator David Broderick was shot in a planned duel over a political disagreement with State Supreme Court Justice David Terry on Sept. 12, 1859.

The duel sent Broderick limping back into the Haskell house, where he died of his gunshot wounds days later.

Legend has it, Broderick continues to wander the home. Some who have dared to sleep in the house have said they felt a presence of some sort, especially in the kitchen.

Hotel Cecil

Few California hotels have a darker reputation than the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, where a history of murders, suicides and mysterious deaths has fueled decades of disturbing stories.

Built in 1924, the hotel became notorious for its troubled past, including stays by serial killers Richard Ramirez and Jack Unterweger.

The hotel gained renewed attention in 2013 after 21-year-old Canadian tourist Elisa Lam disappeared. Her body was later discovered in a rooftop water tank. Her death was ruled accidental, though the circumstances fueled widespread speculation.

The hotel's unsettling history helped inspire a season of the television series "American Horror Story." Despite its reputation, the building was designated a historic-cultural monument by the Los Angeles City Council in 2017.

Read more: Macabre Hotel Cecil Gets Historic Status

Horton Grand Hotel

Located in the heart of downtown San Diego, the Horton Grand Hotel is one of the most charming urban boutique hotels in the city — and some say one of the most haunted.

The hotel is a reconstruction of two separate historic hotels: the Grand Horton Hotel and the Brooklyn-Kahle Saddlery Hotel. Both hotels were built in the mid-1880s and were originally located where the former Horton Plaza mall was later constructed.

Room 309 has long been a "hotbed of paranormal activity," with stories of inexplicable events such as the bed shaking and lights flickering, according to Historic Tours of America and the Ghosts & Gravestone Tour.

Some believe the ghost of Roger Whitaker haunts the room. Whitaker was a gambler who was reportedly shot to death in the room at the original Grand Horton, according to Historic Tours of America.

Hotel del Coronado

Having opened in 1888, Hotel del Coronado has a long and rich history. The beachfront resort has welcomed presidents, celebrities, royals and beachgoers for more than 135 years. The resort also has its own resident ghost.

As the story goes, Kate Morgan checked into Hotel del Coronado in 1892 but never checked out.
According to the hotel's book, "Beautiful Stranger: The Ghost of Kate Morgan and the Hotel del Coronado," the young woman was married but estranged from her husband. It is believed that she arrived at the hotel hoping to rendezvous with a lover.

A man never arrived. After five lonely days, the 24-year-old took her own life.

Guests and employees have reported ghostly going-ons — or creepy coincidences — since her death, including seeing a woman in a black dress in hotel hallways and along the beach.

Read more: The Resident Ghost At Hotel Del Coronado

Mountain View Cemetery

Perhaps one of the most chilling unsolved murders of California history is actress Elizabeth Short's case, known as "The Black Dahlia." She was laid to rest at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, but Short's body was found in Los Angeles. She was found severed in half, scrubbed clean and drained of her blood in 1947.

Short isn't the only rumored specter inhabiting Mountain View Cemetery. More than 500 people are buried in a mass unmarked grave near the entrance. "Stranger's Hill" is the place where Alameda County officials allegedly buried criminals, suicide victims and others who died gruesome deaths during World War I, according to the SFGate.

Murrieta's Old Mill

A towering concrete grain mill in Murrieta's historic downtown has long been the subject of local ghost stories.

Known as the KEA Mill or Old Mill, the structure was built around 1918 to store grain harvested by local farmers before it was shipped to Los Angeles. Operations eventually ceased, and the building was boarded up in 1991.

Over the years, the abandoned structure developed a reputation for being haunted, even appearing on an online list of California's haunted places. However, a 2005 account suggested the stories could be nothing more than an urban legend.

In 2013, the Murrieta City Council voted to accept the property as a donation, with plans to preserve its historic character and incorporate it into Pioneer Park.

Read more: City to Take Ownership of Historic Mill; Deal Nudges Out Contractor

Queen Mary

Locals have long claimed that ghostly guests still reside aboard the Queen Mary, a retired British ocean liner that sailed its maiden voyage in 1936 from Southampton, England to New York.

Although the ship retired from the sea as an active liner in 1967, the Queen Mary has become an iconic Southern California attraction, hotel and venue for special events. It's also been voted one of the Top 10 Most Haunted Places in America by Time magazine.

The ghosts reportedly still haunting the ship include an engineer who died in the ship's engine room, a "lady in white," and various children located throughout the ship including the 1st Class Pool.

USS Hornet

The USS Hornet, currently docked in Alameda, was commissioned in 1943 at the height of World War II.

Many a sailor died on this decommissioned Navy aircraft carrier, which holds a record for onboard suicides, according to multiple sources. It has been said that it's the vessel's tragic history that keeps spectral sailors toiling below deck, as if carrying out orders from decades past. Visitors have reported doors opening and closing on their own accord and sensations of being grabbed or pushed in empty rooms.

Whaley House

Located in San Diego's Old Town neighborhood, the Whaley House has twice been called the "most haunted house in America," once by Time Magazine and also by the Travel Channel's "America's Most Haunted."

The house was dedicated as a historic museum in 1960 and has been open to the public ever since. More than 100,000 people visit the museum every year, according to the County of San Diego Department of Parks and Recreation.

The Whaley House was the home of early settler Thomas Whaley and his family. The home once housed a granary, a county courthouse, the city's first commercial theater and various businesses including Whaley's own general store.

Visitors have reported encountering a variety of spirits, including Whaley himself, according to the museum's site. The earliest documented ghost at the Whaley House was "Yankee Jim," who in 1852 was hanged on a gallows off the back of a wagon on the site where the museum now stands.

Read more: San Diego's 'Haunted' Whaley House Goes Virtual For Halloween

Whittier Mansion

The Whittier Mansion, built in 1896, is rich with California history and was among the first luxury homes built in San Francisco's early days. The home once belonged to William Franklin Whittier, a prominent pioneer in the railroad and shipping industries.

While the structure certainly looks as though it could be haunted, passersby have witnessed shadowy figures looming in the windows at night.

Visitors of the home have reported sightings of several specters inside and out of the house. A ghostly man has repeatedly been spotted down in the wine cellar. And rumor has it that Whittier, an avid wino, haunts the cellar himself.

Winchester Mystery House

Since its 1923 opening, the Winchester Mystery House has drawn more than 12 million visitors. The house has become an international tourist destination as well as the basis of the 2018 supernatural horror film "Winchester."

As the story goes, Sarah Winchester inherited a massive fortune after her husband, firearms magnate William Wirt Winchester's death in 1881.

According to folklore, she was motivated to build the 160-room mansion after a psychic medium told her she would spend the rest of her life haunted by the ghosts of those killed by the Winchester rifle unless she went out west to build a house with room for all of them. She bought a Santa Clara farmhouse that she converted into a never-ending 38-year construction project to help keep the spirits chasing her at bay.

The legacy of her investment lives to this day as the labyrinth of architectural madness that is the Winchester Mystery House.

Read more: Winchester Mystery House Spooky But History Behind It Is Suspect

Patch editors Paige Austin, Ashley Ludwig and Kat Schuster contributed to this report.