A 1914 downtown Great Falls building that began as the Davenport Hotel, with a Prohibition-era past and three closed upper floors that local ghost tours say hold a dozen or more lingering spirits.
518 Central Avenue, Great Falls, MT 59401
Age
21+
Cost
$$
Standard bar pricing for drinks. The historic upper floors are closed to the public; the haunted building is featured on the seasonal Great Falls Ghost Tours operated by the Downtown Great Falls Association.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Ground-floor bar at street level in downtown Great Falls; upper floors are closed and not accessible.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1914 · 1914 Davenport Hotel, downtown Great Falls landmark · Prohibition-era speakeasy and brothel tradition · Featured on Great Falls Ghost Tours
The four-story brick building at 518 Central Avenue in downtown Great Falls, Montana, was constructed in 1914 by J.G. Anthony and opened as the Davenport Hotel. For decades the building combined ground-floor commercial space with hotel rooms on the upper floors, and it passed through a long series of names and uses, including the Jockey Club around 1947, the Lobby Lounge, the Lobby Bar, and most recently The Wild Hare.
According to accounts gathered by Great Falls Montana Tourism and local media, the hotel earned a colorful reputation during Prohibition as a rumored speakeasy and brothel, and later as a jazz club in the 1940s. In November 1925, a fire broke out and destroyed part of the hotel; local tradition holds that at least one of the women working there died in the blaze. After the hotel closed, the upper floors were used over the years by transients and drifters, some of whom are said to have died there, and the floors were eventually sealed off from the public.
The building is recognized as one of downtown Great Falls's notable historic structures and is a regular stop on the city's organized ghost tourism. Great Falls Montana Tourism and Montana Right Now have both profiled it, and the Downtown Great Falls Association includes it among the locations on its seasonal Great Falls Ghost Tours. The closed, dust-covered upper floors, largely untouched for decades, are central to both the building's history and its reputation.
Sources
According to Great Falls Montana Tourism and local reporting, the Lobby Bar building is considered one of the most haunted places in Montana, with the three sealed floors above the bar said to hold a dozen or more spirits accumulated across the building's many incarnations. The most-cited figure is the woman said to have died in the November 1925 fire; audio recordings made in the building are claimed to capture screams attributed to the women who worked there.
Several distinct apparitions appear in the accounts. A lean cowboy is described looking out from a second-floor window in the afternoon, and staff report hearing the footsteps of someone in cowboy boots on the upper floors, yet find no prints across the thick dust on the closed levels. In the restroom, patrons describe the presence of an elderly woman in a beaded 1930s dress and hat, announced by the scent of her perfume and the sound of running water.
The bar itself is the setting for smaller, repeated incidents. Bartenders, as recounted by Great Falls Montana Tourism, describe leaving a shot and a quarter on the bar as an offering, only to return and find the shot gone and the empty glass turned upside down over the coin. In the basement, where liquor was stored, vodka bottles are said to fall from shelves despite a rail installed to prevent exactly that. Staff also report the scent of cologne, cabinets opening on their own, and other unexplained sounds. These stories are carried by the venue's own promotion and by the city's organized ghost tours, and are presented here as local tradition.
Notable Entities
The Lobby Bar building is one of the stops on the Great Falls Ghost Tours, operated seasonally by the Downtown Great Falls Association, which visit the city's most storied haunted locations, historically by trolley. The tour covers the building's run as the Davenport Hotel, its Prohibition-era reputation, and the reported activity in the closed upper floors.
Visit the ground-floor bar in the historic 1914 Davenport Hotel building at 518 Central Avenue. The three upper floors that figure in the ghost stories are closed to the public, but patrons and staff have reported phenomena in the bar and basement.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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