Ghostly Guests of the Fairweather Inn - Virginia City, Montana

In the wee hours of the morning hurried footsteps mounted the steps to the second story of Virginia City's Fairweather Inn in south-western Montana. The clap of shoes on the old floor came to a halt. The procession did not encroach nor did they withdraw. Its arrival vanished into the shadows of the night. I returned to my unsettling sleep until a loud thump at the end of the bed caused me to shoot up from my comfortable mattress. It had been a quiet night for the most part other than the comical snoring from one of the inn's guests in the room next door.

Virginia City's walking ghost tour that I had taken that night clouded my mind with spooky tales. I was highly sensitive to every creak and bang that was heard in the night.

Standing out on the old wooden porch in the dark of the night with the lanterns lit and hanging above our heads the guide shared stories of spirit guests of the Fairweather Inn. The night was overcast and the rain pelted down at times. We huddled close to learn of the paranormal accounts. The hotel is located on 307 West Wallace Street in the core of this once bustling mining town of the 1860's. The clean and comfortable hotel offers six rooms with private bathrooms and eight rooms with shared facilities. The lobby is adorned with Victorian period furnishings and antiques.

The Fairweather Inn was once known as the Anaconda Hotel and Saloon. In the 1890's, the newlyweds Frank and Amanda Mckeen took over the saloon and added hotel rooms, a restaurant and also a bowling alley in the basement. In the 1890's, the hotel offered a lovely ladies salon as well as a back entrance for the town's harlots. When Prohibition was enforced in 1918 it ended Frank's livelihood and he died the next year. Amanda was beside herself and went into deep depression. They didn't have any children and so she was left alone. The newspaper, the Madisonian reported that Amanda had shot and killed herself at her home. She is buried in Virginia City's Hillside Cemetery next to her husband Frank. Only the depression of the ground is evident of her interment as her name was not added to the granite stone that bears her husband's name.

The hotel also paid host to many vigilante meetings during the gold rush. Adjacent to the Fairweather is the civic museum where the vigilantes hanged five robbers from the rafters. Rope impressions can still be seen in the original wood beams from the lynching.

The Anaconda Hotel went through many proprietors until the 1940's when Charles and Sue Bovey acquired the structure. They renamed the hotel, the Fairweather Inn after the man who discovered gold in Alder Gulch, Bill Fairweather, who died a penniless drunkard.

The inn is said to house the spirits of children who will pay nightly visits to the first story guestrooms of those who have children in their company.

Visitors who have stayed in room 10 have reported the most activity at the Fairweather Inn. Some hotel patrons have left in the middle of the night. The hotel's housekeepers have shared of their uneasy feelings while attending to laundry in the basement. The hotel's guestroom doors open and close without explanation, unexplained whispers, the sound of fabric from the dress of lady rustling down the hall and footsteps can be heard in the dead of the night.

This historic hotel is open from June 1 -- September 15. The rest of the year it is locked up cold and empty in the frigid Montana winter hills. Or is it? Lie still and quiet in your bed at night and the breath you hear may not be your own, but that of a gold mining spirit from the past. For reservations call toll free 1-800-829-2969 ext 4 or www.aldergulchaccommodations.com . Pleasant dreams.