1850s East Texas Hotel with Diamond Bessie Lore
211 W Austin St, Jefferson, TX 75657
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Room rates typically $130-$220/night. Check venue website for current rates.
Access
Limited Access
Historic two-story hotel with stairs and uneven floors
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1858 · National Register Historic District · Texas Historic Hotel · Antebellum Architecture
The Excelsior House was built in the 1850s during Jefferson's peak as the second-busiest port in Texas. Steamboats reached Jefferson via the Red River and Cypress Bayou, and the town's hotels served a steady flow of cotton merchants, politicians, and travelers. The Excelsior's guest registers, preserved on-site, record stays by Ulysses S. Grant, Oscar Wilde, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Lady Bird Johnson, among other notable visitors.
The Jefferson Historical Society acquired the hotel in the 1960s and has operated it as a working inn and historic site since. The building retains nineteenth-century furnishings, an antique guest registry, and a ballroom used for community events. The Excelsior anchors Jefferson's National Register Historic District.
Jefferson lost much of its commercial importance after rail lines bypassed the town in the 1870s, but tourism preserved the historic building stock. Today Jefferson markets itself as one of the most haunted towns in Texas, with the Excelsior at the center of its ghost-tour economy.
Sources
Diamond Bessie Moore was found shot in the woods outside Jefferson in January 1877. She had checked into a Jefferson hotel with Abe Rothschild, who was later acquitted of her murder in a sensational trial. Local tradition has tied her presence to several Jefferson properties, including the Excelsior, though primary records place her stay at a different hotel in town. Her annual mock trial remains a Jefferson civic event.
The most-cited Excelsior haunting report is Room 215, where Steven Spielberg reportedly cut short a 1974 location-scouting trip for The Sugarland Express after an unsettled night. The anecdote has been repeated in regional newspapers and tourism features for decades, though Spielberg has not commented publicly. Other guests have described a woman in a long dress moving past their room carrying linens, and a woman dressed in black walking with a small child along the upstairs corridor.
The Jefferson Historical Society, which operates the hotel, has documented these accounts in guest logs but presents them with archival neutrality rather than confirmation. Staff have reported intermittent cold spots and the smell of perfume in unoccupied rooms.
Notable Entities
Stay at one of the oldest continuously operating hotels in East Texas, dating to the 1850s. Past guests include Ulysses S. Grant, Oscar Wilde, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Lady Bird Johnson. Room 215 is most often associated with the property's haunting reports.
Day tours of the Excelsior's lobby, ballroom, and historic guest registers are offered by the Jefferson Historical Society, which operates the property.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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