HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
An 1851 Gold Rush hotel on the road to Yosemite, host to John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt, with an attached saloon and reports of a miner's ghost in Room 22.
1 Main St, Coulterville, CA 95311
Research updated August 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Overnight room rates vary by season; the Magnolia Saloon is open to the public. See the hotel's website for current rates and reservations.
Access
Limited Access
Historic multi-story Gold Rush building in the small town of Coulterville; stairs to upper-floor rooms.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1851 · 1851 Gold Rush saloon and hotel in Coulterville · Stage stop on the road to Yosemite · Hosted John Muir, Mark Twain, and Theodore Roosevelt · Magnolia Saloon among California's oldest
Coulterville grew up as a Gold Rush camp in Mariposa County, and the building now known as the Hotel Jeffery dates its history to 1851. It began as a saloon and fandango hall, built with rock and adobe walls roughly thirty inches thick. Fires repeatedly damaged the structure over the following decades, and it was rebuilt and remodeled more than once, eventually taking on a Victorian-influenced character.
The town sat on the stage route to Yosemite, which made the hotel a stopping point for travelers heading into the mountains. Its guest ledger and local history credit visits by naturalist John Muir, author Mark Twain, and President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt's party stopped at the hotel on the way to camp with Muir in Yosemite in 1903; local accounts hold that the building's present form was completed in part to accommodate the presidential visit, and that the trip helped shape Roosevelt's conservation decisions.
The attached Magnolia Saloon is described by the hotel and by regional tourism sources as one of the oldest saloons in California, retaining traditional swinging bat-wing doors. The hotel and saloon have continued to operate as a Gold Rush landmark and remain a fixture of Coulterville, a community recognized for its preserved historic main street near the western approach to Yosemite National Park.
Sources
Coulterville's Hotel Jeffery carries a dense haunting reputation for a building its size. Local and regional accounts describe it as home to roughly seventeen spirits, most of them characterized as benign. The most repeated story attaches a Gold Rush–era miner to Room 22, on the hotel's upper floor.
Other named figures appear across the accounts. A ghost called Lyle is tied to Room 15, and an apparition known as Flo is reported throughout the building, blamed for flickering lights, slamming doors, and the occasional overturned suitcase. The hotel itself does not shy from the reputation; it maintains a page about the reported activity, and the building's age and fire-marked history give the stories a ready frame.
The History Goes Bump podcast devoted an episode to the Hotel Jeffery, walking through both the documented Gold Rush history and the catalog of reported phenomena. Regional travel writers and California haunted-site listings repeat the Room 22 miner and multiple-spirit claims. As with most lodging hauntings, the accounts are anecdotal and promoted in part as part of the guest experience, but the consistency of the named figures across independent sources sets the Hotel Jeffery apart from sites carried by a single rumor.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Where this legend is told
Book a room in the 1851 Gold Rush hotel, including the upper-floor rooms tied to its haunting reputation such as Room 22. The attached Magnolia Saloon—one of California's oldest—is open to guests and the public. Reservations are made through the hotel's own website.
See current room rates and availability at Hotel Jeffery & Magnolia Saloon.
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