Montana's tallest hotel, opened in 1980 as the Sheraton Billings, where staff have long reported an elevator that calls the front desk in the dead of night with no one inside.
27 North 27th Street, Billings, MT 59101
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Operating full-service hotel; standard room rates apply. The haunting is associated with guest and staff experience and is featured on Billings ghost tours.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Modern downtown high-rise hotel with elevators and full accessibility.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1980 · Tallest hotel in Montana (opened 1980 as the Sheraton Billings) · Second-tallest building in the northern Rocky Mountain region · Associated in local lore with the historic Billings red-light district
Construction on the Sheraton Billings began in 1979, and the hotel opened in September 1980 at 27 North 27th Street in downtown Billings. Rising 245 feet, it is the second-tallest building in the northern Rocky Mountain region and, per Wikipedia, the tallest hotel in Montana. The hotel was rebranded the Crowne Plaza Billings in 2006 and became the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Billings in 2016.
Downtown Billings in the early twentieth century included a notorious red-light district along Minnesota and Montana avenues. The most famous figure of that era was Olive 'Ollie' Warren, the city's best-known madam, who operated a celebrated brothel called the Lucky Diamond. Warren and the Lucky Diamond are well documented in regional histories and have been the subject of programs at the Western Heritage Center and features by Yellowstone Valley Woman and Montana Public Radio. A restaurant inside the hotel once carried the Lucky Diamond name and reportedly displayed a portrait of Warren.
It is important to note that, while the Lucky Diamond and Olive Warren are real and historically documented, available sources do not establish that the hotel tower stands on the brothel's actual site or that there is any factual connection between the two beyond the themed restaurant and local storytelling. The 'built near the old brothel' explanation for the hotel's haunting is folklore rather than documented history, and is presented here as such.
Sources
The hotel's signature legend, recounted by Cat Country 102.9, billings365, and the Billings Gazette's roundup of the city's supposedly haunted places, centers on one of the elevators. According to the story, every morning around 2:30 the elevator places a call to the front desk. When the clerk answers, the line is silent. The clerk and the security guard go to the elevator and find it empty, with no one having ridden it.
In the most-repeated version, after the calls had continued for many nights, a front-desk clerk decided to turn the tables and call the elevator at 2:30 a.m. This time someone picked up the phone inside the car, yet when staff checked, the elevator stood empty. A variant account places the timing slightly later, around 3:25 a.m., with the elevator stopping on the first floor and its doors opening as though to let off a passenger who is never there.
Local storytellers connect the activity to the history of the surrounding blocks, once part of the Billings red-light district, and in particular to the legacy of madam Olive 'Ollie' Warren and her Lucky Diamond brothel, after which a hotel restaurant was named. As noted in the history above, this connection is folklore: the Lucky Diamond and Warren are documented, but no source establishes that the hotel sits on the brothel's site. The elevator story is best understood as an atmospheric in-house legend that has circulated among staff and in local media, rather than a claim anchored to a specific verified event at this address.
Notable Entities
Stay at the DoubleTree by Hilton Billings, the tallest hotel in Montana, which opened in 1980 as the Sheraton Billings. The elevator legend is associated with the early-morning hours, around 2:30 a.m. The hotel operates normally; the ghost story is part of local lore rather than a marketed attraction.
The hotel's elevator legend is recounted on Billings ghost tours and in local 'haunted Billings' features. The story is experienced from the publicly accessible lobby; the building is a working hotel.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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