Miss Molly’s Hotel in Fort Worth, Texas, brings the rough and rustic side of the Wild West to life with eight unique bedrooms. Some come complete with their very own cowboy or lady of the night! No, they don’t offer those types of services—though they did at one time— these Western personalities are long gone and buried, but their spirits remain behind!
As the oldest Bed and Breakfast in Fort Worth, Miss Molly’s Hotel has seen its fair share of violence, sin, and Western debauchery. What began as a cattleman’s boarding house in 1910 quickly turned into the most notorious brothel in Fort Worth.
Apparitions appear in the night as exquisite women and rough-necked cowboys wandering through the small brick building. Some even wait for guests at the end of their beds.
Some guests have taunted the spirits and learned the hard way that they are very much real. Others leave them by and experience them in passing.
It is considered the most haunted location in Fort Worth’s Stockyards, an impressive title for one of the most active areas in the city.
Take a look at Miss Molly’s Hotel with US Ghost Adventures on your next trip!
Miss Molly’s Hotel is the oldest bed and breakfast in Fort Worth. But, like many other Bed and Breakfasts across the nation, it did not start this way.
The most haunted bed and breakfast in Fort Worth initially started as a boarding house called The Palace Room, opening in 1910. This simple building offered room and board for traveling cattlemen coming into Cowtown’s stockyards.
This district, the largest livestock market in the Southwestern United States, was rapidly growing. Weary cowboys needed a place to stay and, after their rest, some entertainment.
As time marched on and major hotels such as The Stockyards began to open, the boarding house began operating as a new business, a brothel and speakeasy. The building rang in the prohibition era under the moniker The Oasis.
The entertainment in the speakeasy below ground, a bar now called The Basement Bar, was only matched by the nightlife happening on the second floor. Young ladies seduced men who lusted after them as much as they lusted after their wallets.
The business changed names again in the 1940s, becoming the Gayette Hotel. Throughout the years, it would change to the Star Hotel, for which the Star Cafe on the first floor is named after, and the Manor Hotel.
Mary “Miss Molly” McAnulty was the headmistress of The Oasis and The Gayette. She died in the mid-1950s, and the current owner of the business, Paula Gowins, named the bed and breakfast after her.
But her namesake is not the only aspect of her that lives on at 105 W. Exchange Avenue. Miss Molly continues to haunt the building where she once worked so diligently. Her apparition has appeared at the foot of the bed of many guests at 3 a.m., and phantom footsteps are heard running down the hallway near her old room, room 214.
One of the more terrifying spirits is an angry man named Jake. One visitor terrifyingly describes her experience with Jake in a telling review. She and her Mom checked into the hotel and noticed shadow figures running across the wall.
They had heard stories of Jake, presumingly an old cowboy, but did not believe them.
The woman asked Jake to make himself known, which resulted in a door slamming shut and locking itself. Her Mom and hotel staff found the woman crying on the floor after ten minutes of trying to get her out of the room. The TVs in the lobby then turned on and began playing at high volume.
Some spirits are better left alone.
Many other spectral entities have been identified in Miss Molly’s Hotel. A young girl has been seen in the old hotel. She is the daughter of a former prostitute and likely died of disease in the building.
There is the “Tipping Ghost,” a spirit that likes to leave coins around clean hotel rooms for the cleaning staff to find. Some employees even quit due to the frequent sightings of this friendly spirit.
Employees of Miss Molly’s Hotel often say that there are more dead guests than living at the old hotel. This attracts a certain type of clientele to the bed and breakfast, the kind that we’d like to meet!
Coming to Fort Worth? Interested in the paranormal and all things spooky? Take a tour with us at US Ghost Adventures, and we will show you the scariest time around! The dark history of the Wild West comes alive on our ghost tours as our experienced tour guides reveal the city’s haunted past.
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Sources:
https://missmollyshotel.com/about/
https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/miss-mollys-haunted/
https://ghosttexas.com/ghosts-and-paranormal-activity-at-miss-mollys-hotel/
