Central City's 1872 grand hotel hosted President Grant and survived the 1874 fire — its barroom floor still bears the painted face that locals say whispers on anniversaries
120 Eureka St, Central City, CO 80427
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Access typically through dining, bar, or opera events; check website for current operations
Access
Limited Access
Multi-story Victorian mountain hotel; stairs throughout; Eureka Street is steep
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1872 · President Ulysses S. Grant's 1873 Colorado visit · Gilpin County gold rush era · National Historic Landmark District — Central City · Face on the Barroom Floor — H. Antoine D'Arcy connection
The Teller House was constructed in 1872 at a cost of $84,000 — an extraordinary sum for a mountain mining town — as Central City's premier hotel. Its construction reflected the optimism of a community that believed the Gilpin County gold strikes would sustain a permanent city. The hotel's appointments included the amenities expected by the mining executives, investors, and public figures who passed through.
President Ulysses S. Grant visited Central City in 1873 during his Colorado tour, staying at the Teller House. The visit was commemorated with bricks of silver laid in the walkway leading from his carriage to the hotel entrance — a gesture of welcome and regional pride that generated national press coverage. The building survived the 1874 fire that gutted much of Central City's commercial district.
In 1936, Denver artist Herndon Davis painted a woman's face directly into the tile floor of the barroom as part of a theatrical production. Davis modeled the face on his wife, Edna. The painting became known as 'The Face on the Barroom Floor,' referencing an 1887 poem by H. Antoine D'Arcy about a painter who sketches his lost love on a saloon floor. The painting's connection to the poem's romantic tragedy became part of the attraction's framing, and the face is now a widely cited Colorado curiosity documented in Atlas Obscura and featured on regional tourism itineraries. The Teller House is managed by Central City Opera.
Sources
The Face on the Barroom Floor has accumulated its own ghost tradition independent of the building's other paranormal accounts. Local lore holds that the painted face whispers on certain anniversaries and that visitors have reported hearing the murmur of a couple conversing in the vicinity of the portrait when no one else is present. The reports are consistent with the painting's romantic framing — the poem it references concerns love and loss — though the accounts are not documented in historical records in the sources reviewed.
Legends of America documents a former caretaker named Billy Hamilton as the Teller House's other reported haunt. The specific nature of Hamilton's haunting — what witnesses have described, which areas of the building are associated with his presence, and when the reports began — is not elaborated in the available sources. The name appears in the paranormal literature without the kind of biographical grounding that the Grant visit and the Davis painting carry.
The combination of a verified President's visit, a nationally recognized floor painting, and an unresolved ghost tradition has made the Teller House one of the more visited dark tourism stops on the Central City walking corridor.
Notable Entities
The Face on the Barroom Floor — a woman's portrait painted in the bar's tile in 1936 by artist Herndon Davis — is one of Colorado's most widely publicized roadside curiosities and a featured entry on Atlas Obscura. The bar area where the face appears is accessible to patrons during operating hours.
Tours of the Teller House may be available through Central City Opera, which manages the property. The building includes the barroom with the famous painted face, original Victorian-era rooms, and the spaces associated with President Grant's 1873 visit.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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