Murphies Hotel March 3rd History

In the Gold Rush of 1849, two Irishmen, the Murphy brothers staked a claim and established a diggings near the Stanislaus River in the Sierra Nevada foothills, the diggings came to be a town named after them, Murphys, California. Located on Highway 4 from Stockton in Calveras County, a few miles from Sonora and Columbia (see Columbia) to the south and near Angels Camp on the 49er Highway (famed for Mark Twain’s Jumping Frog). On the way to Calaveras Big Trees Seqouias and home to underground caverns (see Moaning Cavern), Murphy’s became a popular stopover for travelers in the Motherlode gold country and a hotel was built in 1856, originally the Sperry & Perry Hotel. It went under many names over time, but eventually became known as the Murphys Hotel.

Historic Hotel Pres. U.S. Grant slept here room photo Over 150 years, the Murphys Hotel has had a host of illustrious guests, including a president, famous authors, a “robber baron” industrialist or two, and probably one stage coach highway man. Perhaps unique among gold rush hotels the rooms are named after guests who stayed in them. The Ulysses .S. Grant room still has the actually bed the former Civil War general turned president slept in. He may be Murphys California hotel balcony view photoburied in his tomb in New York but he slept in Murphys. Other rooms are named JP Morgan, John Jacob Astor, Samuel Pillsbury, Horatio Alger, Mark Twain, Black Bart and many more. (See also Hotel Jeffery). The John Jacob Astor Room has a main street balcony one can emagine the banking magnate puffing his cigar watching the wagons pass where now cars sometimes crawl during popular event weekends.

The Hotel’s bar, the Miners Saloon with its iron window shutters is still reminiscent of the gold rush pioneer days when panners from the diggings would come to tip a drink and spill gold dust on the floor. Across the street the Murphy’s Museum will take you back even closer to the early days and Murphy’s main street is loaded with eclectic art galleries with works of local artists, some unknown and some historically significant like Charles Surendorf who lived in nearby Columbia, known for his depiction of the California cannery period and gold rush country images.

From Another site

Eleanor, the Murphys Historic Hotel’'s ghost, came to work at the Hotel somewhere around the time when the Hotel was still called the Sperry and Perry House in the early 1860s. She was employed at the Hotel as a chambermaid. She met and fell in love with a gold miner who went off to seek fame and fortune to provide a comfortable living for himself and his new wife. But he was never to return. It is said that Eleanor lived her life at the Hotel waiting for him to come back. Eleanor kept the Hotel running doing odd jobs from kitchen work, serving food, running the front desk and cleaning rooms. Eleanor died some thirty years later; this is when Hotel guests and employees started noticing strange things. None of these events ever hurt anyone. They are usually thought to be Eleanor trying to go from one place to another or come into a room.

Eleanor is mostly noticed in the kitchen and wait station when small objects fly through the air with no one close by. Our maintenance man was standing in the kitchen fixing something when a handful of coffee beans flew by his head. He stood up to say something, but there was no one in the kitchen with him. When doors are locked with a Master Lock, Eleanor will try to gain access to the door by swinging or wiggling the lock. This movement can go on for hours. The owner was talking with his front desk manager at closing time when a lock to an inner door started swinging. The owner stopped the lock from moving, and they both watched as the lock started swinging again. This scene repeated three times before the two of them left the building.

Eleanor loves to join in meetings and will push open closed doors to come into a room, especially upstairs in the Mark Twain ballroom during staff meetings as if she is interested in what goes on and in the plans for the Hotel. It’'s been said that you can see her in the mirror of the hutch in the Gold Room, an area off of the main dining room where Eleanor’'s likeness hangs just inside the door.

Recently, two guests planned to spend the night in Room 9 and wait up to see if Eleanor would walk the hallways or enter their room. Evidently, their wish came true because by 10:30 pm, they said they had spooked themselves so much that they had to leave the Hotel and without asking for their money back.

Halloween weekend is spent by well wishers and ghost seekers hoping to catch a sighting or feel a whiff of cool air caused by Eleanor as she walks down the halls of the Murphys Historic Hotel.

Couldn't find pics inside maybe Anna can find some for us.