HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
+ 1 further entry on record
California's Oldest Continuously Operating Hotel (1856)
211 Broad St, Nevada City, CA 95959
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Standard guest rooms; restaurant priced separately. 2021 restoration positioned the hotel in the upper-end downtown segment.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Historic brick hotel with elevator access added in renovation
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1856 · California Gold Rush · Oldest Operating Hotel in California · Herbert Hoover · 2021 Restoration
The National Exchange Hotel opened on Broad Street in Nevada City in 1856, at the height of California's Gold Rush, when the town was the third-largest in the state and the richest mining settlement in the West. Built in classical-revival style of locally fired brick, the hotel quickly became the social center of the surrounding hard-rock mining district.
The hotel's guest book over the decades included mine owners, traveling businessmen, theatrical performers touring the Gold Country, and President Herbert Hoover, who had worked as a mining engineer in the region before his political career. Apart from a brief closure following fire damage, the building has operated continuously since its opening, an unusual record among California's surviving Gold Rush hotels.
A major restoration completed in 2021 modernized guest rooms, added elevator access, and restored the main lobby, bar, and dining areas. The hotel today operates as the National Exchange Hotel and is featured in the regional Michelin Guide. Independent ghost-tour operators include the property in Nevada City walking-tour itineraries each fall.
Sources
Guests and staff at the National Exchange describe a recurring set of reports concentrated on the second floor of the hotel. The most-cited spirit is identified as Elizabeth, a young girl who, according to staff and aggregator-collected accounts, died in the building of childhood illness; her presence is reported through the sound of small, padding feet, distant laughter, and the rhythmic noise of a jump rope hitting wooden floorboards.
A published account from a guest in Room 314 describes waking to find men in late-19th-century clothing consulting maps, conversing animatedly, and smoking cigars. Several published accounts describe a woman in formal Victorian dress with a high collar and a stern expression who has been observed by guests and staff before dematerializing.
The hotel does not run an in-house ghost-tour program, but independent Nevada City walking tours include the building in their itineraries. The 2012 episode of Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures series featured the property and brought renewed attention to the second-floor reports.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Book a room at the hotel that has operated continuously since 1856 and is regarded as the oldest hotel in California. Reports cluster on the second floor, where the spirit of a young girl named Elizabeth is associated with the sound of jump-rope hitting wooden floors.
The restored hotel restaurant serves American cuisine with brunch, lunch, dinner, and a terrace and garden seating area. The dining room and bar occupy the original ground-floor public spaces.
Independent operators offer a walking ghost tour of Nevada City's Gold Rush-era downtown that includes stops referencing the National Exchange and other historic hotels.
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Austin, TX
Colonel Jesse Lincoln Driskill, a Tennessee-born cattle baron who supplied beef to the Confederate Army and later the Texas Rangers, opened The Driskill Hotel on December 20, 1886. Its first event, two weeks after opening, was the inaugural ball for Texas Governor Sul Ross. Driskill sold the hotel in 1888 after severe drought devastated his cattle herds and died in 1890. The hotel has hosted every Texas governor's inaugural ball since 1887.
San Diego, CA
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Grass Valley, CA
The Holbrooke Hotel began as the 1852 Golden Gate Saloon, built in Grass Valley, California by Stephen and Clara Smith during the Gold Rush. A neighboring single-story Exchange Hotel was added in 1853. Fires in 1855 and 1862 led to the current two-story stone-and-brick structure. The hotel was renamed for owner D.P. Holbrooke in 1879 and was designated California Historical Landmark No. 914 in 1974.