HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Park City's 1904 Main Street boarding house, now Riverhorse Provisions, carries the legend of Lizzie, a resident said to have been killed by her husband.
221 Main Street, Park City, UT 84060
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
The building operates as Riverhorse Provisions, a café and market; menu and grocery pricing apply. The Imperial no longer operates as a hotel.
Access
Limited Access
Steep Main Street block; historic building with a street-level café and an upstairs marketplace reached by stairs
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1904 · 1904 Main Street boarding house / Imperial Hotel · Emergency hospital during the 1918 influenza pandemic · Now Riverhorse Provisions café and market
The building at 221 Main Street dates to 1904, when John Bogan completed a boarding house on Park City's principal commercial street. In a silver-mining town with a transient workforce, boarding houses were common, and the structure later took the name by which most residents know it, the Imperial Hotel.
Like much of Old Town, the building passed through the events that shaped early-20th-century Park City. During the 1918 influenza pandemic it was pressed into service as an emergency hospital, and it survived a fire in 1940 that threatened the block. It continued as lodging across the decades, operating as the Imperial Hotel until roughly 2006.
After the hotel closed, the property was acquired by the owners of the nearby Riverhorse on Main restaurant. The building reopened as Riverhorse Provisions, with a street-level espresso bar seating about 25 and an upstairs marketplace selling produce, prepared foods, and gourmet goods. The Park City Museum and the Park Record have documented the building's run as one of Main Street's long-standing addresses. It no longer operates as a hotel, but the historic structure and its name remain a fixture of the Main Street streetscape.
Sources
The Imperial's ghost story centers on a woman remembered only as Lizzie. The Park Record explored the legend in a 2007 feature on the hotel, and the story resurfaced when the building reopened as Riverhorse Provisions: co-owner Seth Adams told Park City Magazine that the ghost's name is Lizzie, that she lived in the boarding house, and that she was shot by her husband when he found her with another man.
The legend appears on Park City ghost-tour routes, where guides recount the betrayal-and-shooting story and, in some versions, point to a room numbered 8 as the site of her death. Reported experiences are atmospheric rather than dramatic: an uneasy sense of presence in the older parts of the building, the feeling of being watched, and the general unease that visitors and staff describe in a building that has served as a boarding house, a brief flu-era hospital, and a hotel.
Lizzie is a folklore figure rather than a documented individual; no surname or contemporary record of the killing has surfaced in publicly available sources. The story is presented here as the legend told about the building, not as an established event.
Notable Entities
The historic Imperial Hotel building at 221 Main Street now houses Riverhorse Provisions, a street-level espresso bar with about 25 seats and an upstairs marketplace. Visiting the café and market is the way to see the interior of the 1904 building tied to the Lizzie legend.
Park City ghost-tour operators include the Imperial Hotel building on Main Street walking routes, recounting the Lizzie legend and the building's history as a boarding house and brief 1918 flu hospital. Check current Main Street tour operators for schedules.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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