1887 Second Empire hotel where Carry Nation famously smashed the barroom in 1900; the 'blue handkerchief ghost' is said to walk the second and third floors lifting receivers and toppling roses.
517 E Douglas Ave, Wichita, KS 67202
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Building is now mixed-use apartments and ground-floor businesses; exterior is free to view from the street. Interior access is private to residents and tenants.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Downtown sidewalks; building exterior is street-facing.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1887 · Carrie Nation's December 27, 1900 hatchet raid on the Carey House barroom · Five-story Second Empire commercial hotel by John B. Carey · Listed on the National Register of Historic Places · 1999 adaptive-reuse rehabilitation into Eaton Place apartments
The Carey House Hotel was completed in 1887 in downtown Wichita and was built by mayor and businessman John B. Carey as a five-story Second Empire-style brick building, a status piece for what was then a booming cattle-trade and railroad city. It anchored the corner of Douglas and St. Francis and quickly became one of the social centers of Wichita's late-nineteenth-century downtown.
On December 27, 1900, the Carey House barroom became the setting for one of the most famous early acts of Kansas's temperance movement. Hatchet-wielding prohibition activist Carrie Nation entered the saloon and methodically destroyed mirrors and decor; she also targeted a controversial painting of Cleopatra hanging behind the bar. The raid drew national press attention and is widely cited as a catalyst for her later, more notorious 'hatchetations' across Kansas.
The Carey House was renamed the Eaton Hotel in the early twentieth century and operated as a working hotel for decades. By the late twentieth century, much of the upper floors had fallen out of use, and the building was acquired for a major rehabilitation. The 1999 renovation, designed by WDM Architects, preserved the Second Empire exterior and converted the upper floors into rental apartments while retaining street-level retail and office space.
The building is on the National Register of Historic Places and is interpreted on-site by a Historical Marker Database plaque describing the Carey House origins, the Nation raid, and the renaming and rehabilitation. Today the property is marketed as Eaton Place.
Sources
The Eaton Hotel's signature legend, as recounted by Visit Wichita and the Pocket Sights downtown Wichita historical-tour stop, is that of a young woman who was killed in the hotel and whose case was never solved. Her ghost is described as the 'blue handkerchief ghost,' and the stories situate her primarily between the second and third floors of the building.
According to Visit Wichita, she 'is said to walk between the second and third floors,' lift telephone receivers off their hooks, brush past people, and knock objects over near the former lobby. She is also described as drawn to roses and rose-colored items — visitors have reported that fresh roses placed in the building are repeatedly disturbed.
US Ghost Adventures includes the Eaton on its downtown Wichita ghost walk and repeats the same blue-handkerchief framing and the unsolved-murder backstory. We have not located primary newspaper documentation tying a specific historic murder to the hotel, so the legend is treated as well-attested local folklore rather than verified event history.
Notable Entities
Read the on-building historical marker, view the Eaton Place facade, and visit it as part of US Ghost Adventures' downtown Wichita walking tour, which features the blue handkerchief legend.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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