HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
1927 Italian Renaissance Revival landmark on the National Register where local folklore places a drowned bride in Room 1102 and her son in the adjacent 1101
2510 Washington Blvd, Ogden, UT 84401
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Hotel room rates apply for overnight stays; event venue pricing for the renovated ballroom and parlor spaces.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Elevator access; historic hotel interior with standard accessibility
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1927 · National Register of Historic Places · Italian Renaissance Revival Architecture · Utah Grand Hotel History · Ogden Downtown Heritage
The Bigelow Hotel opened in 1927 as the flagship property of Ogden banker Archie P. Bigelow. Architects Hodgson & McClenahan designed the 10-story structure in Italian Renaissance Revival style at a construction cost of $1.25 million—a substantial sum for a Utah city in the late 1920s. The interior featured thematic rooms including an Arabic-style coffee shop, a Florentine Palace ballroom, and the Shakespeare Room with murals by artist LeConte Stewart.
In 1928 the hotel hosted the Western States Democratic convention, drawing national attention during Alfred E. Smith's presidential campaign. Ogden's position as a railroad junction made the Bigelow a natural center for regional political and business gatherings.
Financier Marriner S. Eccles renamed the building the Ben Lomond Hotel in 1933, a name it kept until 2017 when a renovation project restored the original Bigelow designation. The Utah Community Foundation for the Arts has recognized the building's significance to Ogden's historic downtown.
The hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 19, 1990, under reference number 90000637. After operating as an active hotel for nearly a century, the building converted to a residential and event venue property around 2019. The Bigelow's ballroom and wedding parlor completed a renovation and held a grand reopening in May 2024.
Sources
The Bigelow Hotel's ghost tradition locates two linked figures on the 11th floor. Room 1102 is associated with a bride who, according to local lore, drowned in the bathtub sometime in the hotel's early decades. The specific circumstances—who she was, when this occurred—are not documented in official records; Visit Utah's page on Ogden's myths and legends explicitly notes the absence of confirming records.
Guests and investigators who have stayed in Room 1102 describe sounds of water running in the bathroom when the room is empty, cold spots that do not correspond to any mechanical cause, and in some accounts, a sensation of being pushed by an unseen presence. The accounts have circulated in Utah paranormal communities since at least the 1990s.
Room 1101 carries the companion legend: the bride's son is said to have died by suicide in the adjacent room, overcome by grief. Visitors to 1101 report cold spots and the impression of a male figure standing in the room. The two legends are consistently presented as connected—a mother and son pair on the same floor.
The hotel itself does not officially market these stories as attractions, though the rooms remain bookable and the accounts are widely repeated in Utah's paranormal tourism literature. American Ghost Stories and Haunted Rooms America both document the 11th-floor tradition in detail.
Notable Entities
Rooms 1101 and 1102 on the 11th floor are the focal points of the hotel's ghost folklore—a bride alleged to have drowned in the Room 1102 bathtub, and her son in Room 1101. Both rooms are available for standard booking. The hotel does not stage or manufacture paranormal experiences; guests book through normal hotel channels.
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