HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
An 1890s Queen Anne Victorian built by Springfield businessman Charles McCann — guests report a woman in period dress, concentrated in the Rosen Room.
900 E Walnut St, Springfield, MO 65806
Research updated September 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Overnight stays in nine guest rooms across the Main House, Carriage House, and Cottage Inn. Rates vary by room and season; see website for current pricing.
Access
Limited Access
Victorian-era multi-story home with stairs; contact inn for specific accessibility accommodation availability
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1895 · Built mid-1890s by Charles McCann, founder of Springfield Grocery Company · Early ownership by Harry S. Jewell, publisher of Springfield News-Leader (1917-1945) · Springfield's first bed and breakfast, opened 1987 · Situated in nationally registered historic district
Charles McCann arrived in Springfield from Indiana in 1879 and established himself in the city's wholesale grocery trade, eventually founding the Springfield Grocery Company. He was active in developing Springfield's commercial infrastructure through the latter decades of the 19th century. In the mid-1890s, despite an economic panic that kept wages low — McCann himself noted in personal records that 'good carpenters were paid only two dollars a day' — he built this Queen Anne Victorian home for approximately $6,000.
McCann's first wife died; he had remarried Katherine Ashworth in 1891, and the house they built together gave rise to the haunting tradition that now attaches to the property. The home passed through several notable owners over the subsequent century. In 1917, newspaper publisher Harry S. Jewell — owner of the Springfield News-Leader — acquired the property and later divided it into apartments after his wife's death. Dr. Max and Barbara Rosen owned the home from 1953 to 1987, removing original balconies and adding a deck during their tenure; their name was attached to the most-reported room.
In 1987, Gary, Nancy, and Karol Brown converted the property into Springfield's first bed and breakfast, earning recognition from Country Inns Magazine as one of the top twelve inns in the country. The property passed to the Blankenships in 1996 and to the Faucett family in 2021. It now operates with nine guest rooms across the Main House, Carriage House, and Cottage Inn, and is situated in a nationally registered historic district on Walnut Street.
Sources
The haunting tradition at the Walnut Street Inn centers on a figure described as a woman in Victorian-era dress, attributed by local paranormal tradition to Katherine McCann, the wife of the original builder. Guest reports describe the figure appearing seated at tables in the dining areas and on the edges of beds in guest rooms, with no direct interaction. Local Springfield tourism accounts treat the Rosen Room — named for the 1953-1987 owners — as the most active area in the building, though the biographical connection between the room name and the reported figure is not clear: the Rosen family postdates the McCann era by more than half a century.
The inn's current operators do not market the property's haunted reputation prominently on the venue's official website, and the paranormal accounts circulate primarily through local travel writing and regional tourism listings. The building itself operates as a functioning bed and breakfast and does not offer organized paranormal investigations or ghost tours.
The Queen Anne architecture — original staircases, period-appropriate room configurations in the Main House, and the layered ownership history — has sustained local interest in the property as a haunted Springfield landmark for several decades.
Notable Entities
Book one of nine guest rooms in the 1890s Queen Anne Victorian. The Rosen Room — named for previous owners Dr. Max and Barbara Rosen, who lived here 1953-1987 — is considered the most active area for reported paranormal phenomena. The Main House contains the original rooms from the McCann era.
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