HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
+ 1 further entry on record
Iowa's oldest continuously operating hotel, tracing to 1839, where Abraham Lincoln slept and Al Capone allegedly kept a suite during Prohibition
200 Main Street, Dubuque, IA 52001
Research updated August 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Full-service hotel; room rates vary by season. Overnight stays required for full access.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Downtown hotel with elevator access; standard hotel amenities
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1915 · Iowa's oldest continuously operating hotel (origins 1839) · Abraham Lincoln stay documented · Al Capone Midwest connection during Prohibition · 1913 fire and 1915 rebuild
The site at 200 Main Street in downtown Dubuque has operated as a hotel since 1839, in the same decade that Iowa achieved territorial status. The original building burned in a 1913 fire that destroyed much of the structure. The current hotel was built in its place and opened in 1915, retaining the name that honored Julien Dubuque, the French-Canadian lead miner who was among the first European settlers in what would become Iowa.
Abraham Lincoln stayed at an earlier incarnation of the hotel during his western Illinois and Iowa political travels in the 1850s, a connection documented in the hotel's historical materials. Al Capone's association with the property is described in hotel records and regional reporting: Capone allegedly maintained a suite at the hotel during Prohibition, using Dubuque as a Midwest waypoint given its river crossing position and proximity to bootlegging networks. This connection has been reported by multiple outlets covering the hotel's history, though the precise documentation of ownership is not independently verifiable in public records.
The hotel has undergone multiple renovations over its history, most recently a significant upgrade in the 2000s that restored the lobby to a period-appropriate aesthetic while modernizing guest accommodations. It remains a full-service hotel and one of Dubuque's primary lodging addresses.
Sources
Reports of anomalous activity at the Hotel Julien concentrate on the upper floors, particularly the eighth. Guests have reported apparitions described as figures in period dress — an observation common in hotels with documented late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century occupancy history. Staff members have described shadowy figures in corridors and unexplained sounds in areas with no occupants.
Elevator irregularities — the car moving between floors without a call, doors opening at non-selected floors — are among the more consistently reported experiences by staff over long tenures. Whether these represent mechanical behavior or something more difficult to categorize, the hotel's own historical consciousness about Lincoln and Capone gives the building an unusually layered cultural texture for a reported haunting.
Regional media, including KROC, has covered the hotel under the 'most haunted hotel in Iowa' framing, a designation the property does not appear to actively resist in its own marketing. No dedicated paranormal investigation program is offered; the experience is framed as an atmospheric overnight stay with notable historical credentials.
Notable Entities
Guest rooms on the upper floors — particularly the eighth — have the heaviest concentration of reported anomalous activity. The hotel's own history materials acknowledge the Al Capone suite and Lincoln connection, making it a legitimate dark-history overnight destination.
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