109 East Exchange Avenue
Fort Worth, Texas
Stockyards Hotel is located in the Fort Worth Stockyards, close to almost everything you could need. Perhaps that is why some guests who have stayed here simply do not want to leave. Guests have been coming and going since 1907, and even today the lobby evokes a bygone era. Better yet, a Fort Worth ghost tour led by Paula Schermerhorn departs from here.
From cowboys and cattle barons to country music stars and outlaws, the Stockyards Hotel has seen it all and has plenty of stories to tell, as do many of those who work here. Famous guests have included Willie Nelson, George Strait, and Garth Brooks.
As for ghosts, it seems that a gunslinger once stayed here and decided he was not yet ready to leave. Perhaps it has something to do with the long history of this place. Schermerhorn said that many people from the rodeo circuit always stayed at the hotel. One of them, who truly took a liking to the place, was named Booger Red. She added that he got the nickname Booger Red as a child when he was making a homemade explosive from a hollowed-out wooden log and the black powder exploded right in his face. On top of that, he had red hair. He was a very popular rider, and the hotel’s saloon is now called Booger Red's Saloon. He loved staying here and had a suite on the third floor. Schermerhorn conducted some investigations and says she detected cold spots in the suite, the bathroom water turns on and off by itself, and there has also been a great deal of orb activity.
Clyde Parker (of Bonnie and Clyde fame) also liked to stay on the third floor, perhaps so he could keep an eye on Exchange and Main Streets. What is interesting about Bonnie and Clyde is that people either loved or hated them, and according to the stories, many people in this area looked after them when they passed through. Of course, it should be noted that their stay at the hotel is only a legend, as there are no official records of their visits—they would never have registered under their real names anyway.
Schermerhorn said she spoke with a woman who had previously worked at the hotel’s front desk. She died at about the age of ninety-three and said she remembered Clyde arriving and staying at the hotel. She even once called his room and warned him that the Rangers were on their way and that he needed to get out quickly. The Bonnie and Clyde Suite is the large room number 305, and ghost hunters have recorded activity there.
There is a great deal of activity on the second floor. The original elevator goes up and down by itself, and there have been multiple reports of a little girl dressed in 1920s style who gets off on the second floor, takes three steps, and then disappears. I have personally seen the elevator arrive by itself, but I did not see the apparition.
Also on the second floor, it has been reported several times that when women stay there alone, they feel someone lie down in bed beside them in the middle of the night. The women then usually go downstairs and ask for another room.
There is another room in the hotel that housekeeping often has to enter, even when no one has been staying there, to turn off the television and radio because they switch on by themselves.
On the ground floor, there is a basement room and the hotel’s smallest banquet room next to the marketing office. The women from marketing told Schermerhorn that they feel as if someone is in that room. She says she has taught ghost-hunting classes there, and they discussed how they could sense someone’s presence in the room. Once during one of her classes, everyone was talking about various stories from the area, and just as she was telling them about the man who is said to haunt the room, the fire alarm suddenly went off.
A night clerk once said he was sitting at his desk when the phone rang and no one was there. It rang again, and once more there was no one on the line. He noticed that the call was coming from the phone in the lobby, so he decided to find out who was playing a joke on him. He leaned over the desk while the lobby phone was ringing and looked out at it from behind the grille. No one was there, and the receiver was on the hook, even though the phone at the desk was ringing and showing that the call was coming from that very phone. He thinks it was probably a ghost simply reminding him of its presence.
Schermerhorn said that, as far as she knows, no deaths have occurred in the hotel. “You’ll find that a lot of hauntings occur in old hotels because many spirits return to places they loved,” she explained. “This is a lovely place, and they did a good job with the renovation while preserving its historical accuracy. There are no known deaths here, and because it was a better hotel, it did not attract undesirable elements.”
The Stockyards Hotel was built when Fort Worth was still wild. Colonel William Thannish constructed this three-story building at the corner of Main and Exchange Streets to meet those needs; guests could rent a room for the night, with indoor bathrooms on every floor.
Over the years, the hotel was known as the Chandler Hotel and the Plaza Hotel before receiving its current name. In 1910, long before it acquired its present name, a cowboy—the hotel staff call him Jesse—settled in here and is said to still haunt the place. The story of his death says that he came to town, got into a gunfight after a wild night—which was common in Fort Worth at the time—and was shot in front of the hotel. He often wanders the hallways and has also been seen on the landing of the stairs leading down from the first floor to the lobby. On quiet nights, footsteps can sometimes be heard in the hotel corridors.
Another ghost mentioned is named Jake, a former hotel employee who apparently does not want to leave his job. He was a maintenance worker and died after working there for twenty years, but he still lives on through the strange things that happen at night. For example, he is believed to be responsible for the elevator going up and down by itself.
