1860s Old Town Eureka commercial building that housed an upstairs Victorian-era brothel run by 'Madame Ruby,' featured on the Old Town Haunted History Ghost Tour and on Travel Channel's Most Terrifying.
516 2nd Street, Eureka, CA 95501
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
The Oberon Grill restaurant closed December 31, 2022; The Greene Lily restaurant (chef-owner Charity Desbrow) moved into the building in April 2023. The building remains a stop on the Old Town Haunted History Ghost Tour.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Old Town sidewalks; building exterior viewable from 2nd Street.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1865 · Contributing structure in the Eureka Old Town Historic District · Site of an upstairs Victorian-era brothel run by 'Madame Ruby' · Connected to a 1910 brawl between Stanwood Murphy and author Jack London · Featured on Travel Channel's Most Terrifying with Jason Hawes (episode 'Blackbeard's Vengeance,' aired January 16, 2021)
The Oberon Building was constructed in the 1860s by Eureka builder and merchant C.S. Ricks and stands as one of the earlier commercial buildings in what is now the Eureka Old Town Historic District. Over more than 160 years it has cycled through an unusually wide range of tenants: a hardware and tin-smith store, a saloon, a Prohibition-era speakeasy, a YMCA branch, an antique store, a pet shop, a housewares store, and the Oberon Grill restaurant.
From roughly the 1880s through the 1930s the upper floor operated as a brothel run by a madam known locally as 'Madame Ruby,' a use consistent with the broader Old Town Eureka pattern of upstairs vice operations above downstairs saloons during the lumber-boom decades. The space known today as 'Ruby's Room' takes its name from this period.
The building is connected to one of Eureka's most-circulated literary anecdotes: a 1910 letter recounts a knockdown fight inside the building between nineteen-year-old Stanwood Murphy — son of the owner of the Pacific Lumber Company — and visiting author Jack London. Per the letter, the brawl was sparked by a political argument between Murphy, a conservative Republican, and London, a Socialist; both men were hospitalized but the fight never reached the local papers because of both men's prominence.
The Oberon Grill restaurant, operated by Nicholas Kohl, served as a popular Old Town fine-dining destination for fourteen years before closing on December 31, 2022 following pandemic, inflation, and supply-chain pressures. In April 2023 the building was re-occupied by The Greene Lily, a breakfast-lunch-and-dinner restaurant relocated to the larger Old Town space by chef-owner Charity Desbrow from a smaller location next to the Romano Gabriel Sculpture Garden. The building itself remains a contributing structure in the Eureka Old Town Historic District and a stop on the Old Town Haunted History Ghost Tour.
Sources
The Oberon Building is a recurring stop on the Old Town Haunted History Ghost Tour — an Eureka Old Town walking tour promoted by Visit Redwoods — where guides describe two principal phenomena: a chandelier reported to spin or turn on its own, and the apparition of a woman in Victorian-era dress appearing in the upstairs former brothel space known as 'Ruby's Room.' Per the Haunted Humboldt blog (2015), the haunting is locally attributed to 'the only person killed in the building during the early 1900s.'
The paranormal reputation drew national attention when the Travel Channel filmed the building for Most Terrifying with Jason Hawes; the resulting episode, 'Blackbeard's Vengeance,' aired January 16, 2021 and was covered by the local North Coast Journal in an arts-scene writeup.
With The Greene Lily restaurant moving into the building in April 2023, the property is once again a working public-access space; the ghost tour continues to feature it as a stop. The lore is best treated as a moderately well-documented Old Town tradition with one episode of televised attention.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
The Oberon Building is a featured stop on the Old Town Haunted History Ghost Tour, where guides recount the Madame Ruby's brothel era and the building's reported chandelier and Victorian-woman phenomena.
View the 1860s commercial facade in Old Town Eureka. The building, now occupied by The Greene Lily restaurant since April 2023, remains a contributing structure to the Eureka Old Town Historic District.
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