The Occidental Hotel, Wyoming
Before Buffalo, Wyoming had paved roads, it had the Occidental Hotel. Built in 1880, it’s still running with its original saloon intact.
The guest list reads like a Western history book: Butch Cassidy, Calamity Jane, Buffalo Bill, and Hemingway all checked in.
Some say they never quite checked out, along with several other ghostly guests. Here’s more of the story.
There’s a ghost that likes to scare off bad guys
Staff and guests often run into a playful ghost named Emily who died from cholera on July 7, 1912, when she was just 6 years old.
Emily’s mom, Mariah, worked at the hotel as a “soiled dove” after her husband died on their journey to Buffalo.
You’ll most likely spot Emily near the Bordello Suite where she lived with her mother. Many people have seen Emily with the ghost of an orange tabby cat following her around.
Hotel staff have noticed Emily seems to target guests who are up to no good.
In one case, a wanted criminal ran away in the middle of the night after Emily kept bouncing on his bed.
You can count 23 bullet holes in the ceiling
The fancy tin ceiling in the saloon has exactly 23 bullet holes from real Wild West shootouts.
These marks came from high-stakes poker games that sometimes turned violent.
Workers found the original hand-struck tin ceiling hidden behind a fake ceiling put up during 1950s renovations.
You can also spot bullet holes in the antique back bar, and one hotel room door still shows marks from a cowboy’s gun from over a hundred years ago.
The bar counter traveled 4,500 miles to get here
The impressive back bar in the saloon traveled all the way from Glasgow, Scotland to Wyoming by ship and wagon in 1908.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed this piece with beautiful stained glass in the Art Nouveau style.
It cost about $1,200 in 1908 (that’s around $38,000 today), which was a huge amount back then. The bar made its way across the Atlantic to New York, then by train to Wyoming, and finally by wagon to Buffalo.
Amazingly, it arrived mostly intact with just minor damage during setup.
A worker once chased a ghost during renovations
During the big 1997 renovation, a construction worker saw a young girl in a nightgown walking across exposed beams and building debris.
Worried about a child in the dangerous work zone, he followed her across the unstable framework.
When he turned a corner, she had completely vanished even though there was nowhere she could have gone. This happened in the north wing where most ghost activity happens.
The worker, who didn’t know about the hotel’s haunted reputation, described a girl that matched previous sightings of Emily perfectly.
You can listen to old-time radio in every room
Since February 2007, the hotel has run its own small AM radio station. Mike Shanley, a radio fan who lives 25 miles north of Buffalo, donated his collection of fixed-up vintage radios from the 1920s-1940s.
The broadcast system runs at exactly 1000 kHz on the AM band and only reaches the hotel property.
The station plays different things throughout the day: old-time music during the day, dinner music in the evening, and classic radio shows like “The Shadow” and “Gunsmoke” after 10 PM.
Every guest room has a working antique radio tuned to this special station.
Someone saved this place with just weeks to spare
In January 1997, Dawn Dawson happened to look right while driving through town and spotted the run-down Occidental.
The building was set to be torn down just eight weeks later to make way for new development.
Dawson bought the crumbling structure for $180,000 and ended up spending $1.6 million on repairs over the next ten years.
The restoration project uncovered original features that had been covered up by 1950s renovations, including intact tin ceilings, original hardwood floors, and beautiful woodwork that had been hidden behind fake walls and drop ceilings for decades.
Ghosts sometimes crawl into bed with you
If you stay in the Herbert Hoover or Teddy Roosevelt Suites, you might feel someone slide into bed between you and your partner during the night.
Unlike Emily’s playful tricks, this particular ghost targets adults and has been reported by dozens of different guests.
Room 19 has documented ghost activity where closet doors open by themselves, which was captured during a formal investigation in February 2011.
Hotel staff have collected similar stories from skeptical visitors, with many describing the same feeling of the mattress sinking down and covers moving despite being alone in the room.
Musical instruments play tunes by themselves
The old piano in the hotel lobby sometimes plays single notes when nobody’s around. Staff member Penny Ramirez saw piano keys press down all by themselves while standing nearby.
In the bar area, wine and whiskey bottles pop their corks or fall from shelves even though they’re placed securely.
The ghostly activity involving musical instruments increases during the popular Thursday Night Bluegrass Jam sessions, which have been running non-stop since 2005.
Many guests have recorded strange sounds of spurs on the back stairs and mysterious fiddle music in empty hallways after midnight.
The spirits here protect hotel guests
The Occidental’s ghosts seem to act as guardians for guests and the property.
Besides Emily chasing away the wanted criminal, staff have seen instances where troublemakers experience increasing ghost activity until they leave.
Wine glasses have broken when picked up by certain visitors who seem suspicious. Cold spots and sudden temperature drops happen near people who disrespect the hotel’s history or the ghosts.
Staff member Vanessa Vann saw a whiskey bottle fly off a shelf straight at a rude customer who was bothering other guests, yet somehow the bottle landed without breaking.
Fixing this place was a real challenge
The 1997-2007 restoration required solving tough preservation problems without modern building plans.
Original blueprints for the hotel were lost in a courthouse fire in the early 1900s, so workers had to discover the building’s structure as they went along.
The dance floor in the saloon had sunk about five inches over time and needed special jacking techniques to level it without damaging the original woodwork.
Between 2015-2017, the owners spent $78,000 just on fixing the exterior brick, with $10,000 coming from the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund.
This hotel has won some major awards
The Occidental has earned impressive recognition beyond regular travel awards.
True West Magazine named it both “The Best Hotel in The West” and “The Best Saloon In The West” in back-to-back years.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation gave the hotel its “Preservation Honor Award” for the careful restoration work.
In 2019, the Occidental joined the exclusive Historic Hotels of America program, which requires buildings to be at least 50 years old, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and recognized as historically important in their community.
Four different owners helped save this place
Several dedicated owners worked over twenty years to preserve this hotel.
Margaret Smith ran the hotel for an amazing 58 years, from 1918 until she died in 1976 at age 92, after her husband won part ownership in a poker game.
Dawn Dawson bought the abandoned building in 1997 for $180,000 and started the ten-year restoration process. David and Jackie Stewart first invested as partners in 2005 to help pay for renovations of the North Wing, increasing the guest rooms from 6 to 18.
The Stewarts became majority owners in 2011 and sole owners in 2015, continuing preservation work while adding modern comforts.
Visiting The Occidental Hotel
The Historic Occidental Hotel is located at 10 North Main Street in Buffalo, Wyoming. Room rates range from $125-$285 depending on season and room type.
- Open year-round with 18 uniquely furnished rooms
- Live music Thursday nights (Bluegrass Jam), Friday and Saturday
- Historic walking tours available on request
- For reservations call: (307) 684-0451
The property includes the historic 1908 Saloon and the Busy Bee Cafe, serving breakfast and lunch since 1927.
The post Wild West Legends Drank at This 1880s Wyoming Hotel Where Bullet Holes Still Mark the Walls appeared first on When In Your State.