Alaskan Hotel and Bar
Alaskan Hotel and Bar is a hotel in Juneau, Alaska, opened in 1913. Historic Juneau hotel with attributed ghost stories. The presence its accounts keep returning to is the one they call the bride. The dossier holds 3 reported claims, 1 legend, 2 documented facts and 1 named or described presence — documented record and retelling kept side by side. It still takes guests.
· in your passport — stamped · open it
Is Alaskan Hotel and Bar haunted?
The record holds 3 claims, 1 legend, 1 named entity — filed as reported, not verified. The heaviest filing is classed anecdotal. The archive documents the claim; it takes no position on the ghost.
The record — long form
On Tuesday, September 16, 1913, the Alaskan Hotel opened its doors on South Franklin Street in Juneau with a gala champagne night, two bands, and free ferries running between Douglas and Juneau. At six o'clock the management formally unlocked the doors and attached the keys to a toy balloon, which carried them out of sight — the declared intention, reported in the Dispatch, being that the doors would never close. They largely haven't: the Alaskan is the oldest operating hotel in Alaska.
The men who built it had timing. Jules B. Caro, a promoter, partnered with the McCloskey brothers, James and John — veteran miners who had struck their pay-streak in the twenty-five-million-dollar diggings at Atlin, over the mountains in British Columbia. Construction began in April 1913 and took five months. The result was a forty-room Victorian with bay windows and an ornate stringcourse, one year after Alaska became a territory. Juneau had saloons and rooming houses enough, but few hotels; the Alaskan was built to be the exception, and the price tag showed it.
The documented record
The hotel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 25, 1978, and designated a contributing property of the Juneau Downtown Historic District in 1994. It was briefly condemned in the 1970s before new owners rehabilitated it; Mike and Bettye Adams have now run it for more than forty years, restoring the Victorian interior. The bar in the basement dates to the building's era as the Northlander.
One incident in the modern record deserves its own paragraph. On May 19, 2007, a sailor from the guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill, in port and due to leave the next day, emailed ahead to request the hotel's haunted room and was put in Room 315. What followed is documented in police terms: the man went through the window and fell between the buildings, breaking more than one window on the way down, and somehow lived — he made it to the street, cut head to toe. A responding officer described walls covered in blood. Whatever happened inside Room 315 was never explained to the record's satisfaction.
The legend layer
The haunting narrative that has attached itself is the frontier-town standard. The story goes that a woman was driven to prostitution while her husband was away mining the hills; when he returned and learned how she had paid the rent, he killed her in the hotel. Guests report her presence especially in rooms 218 and 219. Another standing report concerns a restroom whose fixtures are said to alternate between period and modern, depending on the visit. No death in the hotel appears in the record that would account for her, which places her firmly in the legend column.
What guests file
Bettye Adams, when asked about Room 315, has said she would think there is just as much haunting on the second floor — in the bar, in the basement, all kinds of things. The filed reports run to footsteps, voices, and the particular attentions of the murdered woman. A ballpark key is the house's founding gesture, and the archive notes it as the appropriate emblem: a hotel that threw away its keys at opening and has spent more than a century collecting stories about who kept copies. Room 315 remains on the books and remains, by all accounts, reservable.
The Alaskan Hotel and Bar, also known as the Northlander Hotel and The Alaskan, is a historic establishment and the oldest operating hotel in Juneau, Alaska. It was opened in 1913. The owners, three miners who struck it rich in the nearby Coast Range, tied the hotel's keys to a helium balloon and released it, signifying that the hotel would never close. The building was briefly condemned in the 1970s, but was rehabilitated by the new owners.
Alaskan Hotel and BarThe long record
- 1913Opened
Opened to use
- 1913History
Opened 1913; the hotel’s history is documented. Alaskan Hotel and Bar's documented history in Juneau, Alaska is the record the rest of the file stands on. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. The record appears in 'Alaskan Hotel'. It anchors the timeline the rest of the file hangs from.
- 1913Opening
Hotel opened
The record of claims
The haunted-directory entry recounts a woman's ghost near rooms 218 and 219 — associated in the lore with a killing the record doesn't independently confirm. The two-room specificity is the claim's distinctive detail: the legend knows exactly where she stays. The killing is lore; the rooms are real.
The Alaskan Hotel's bride is reportedly seen — the woman in wedding dress associated with the hotel's most-told legend, said to have been abandoned (or worse) at the altar in the hotel's early decades. She's Juneau's signature hotel ghost, reported near the upper-floor rooms. The rooms near 218 are where she's reported.
Alaskan Hotel guests report figures in the hotel's halls and rooms — the ambient claims attached to Juneau's oldest operating hotel (1913), whose bar once served the mining camp's rough edge. The reports concentrate on the upper floors where the bride legend lives. The bar keeps its rough history too.
The bride is reportedly seen at the Alaskan Hotel and Bar — Juneau's oldest operating hotel keeps a bridal ghost in the lore attached to its Victorian rooms. The bride is the hotel's signature presence: the figure staff point to when guests ask why the bar stays interesting after midnight. It remains the site's standing claim.
Two accounts on file
Historic Juneau hotel with attributed ghost stories.
The 1913 hotel—where the miner’s bride reportedly stayed.
Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite.
Discovery pass; historical, geographic, and access enrichment remain queued. Confidence describes source provenance, not supernatural reality.
PNW batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.
Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite.
Discovery pass; historical, geographic, and access enrichment remain queued. Confidence describes source provenance, not supernatural reality.
Event enrichment; VERIFY task auto-queued.
Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite.
Alleged entities
The bride is reportedly seen at the Alaskan Hotel and Bar — the named presence of Juneau's oldest hotel, a bridal apparition in the Victorian rooms above the bar. She's the establishment's signature resident: the ghost the staff introduces before the guests even ask. The report keeps its place in the record.
Documented history
The operator dates the hotel’s opening to 1913. A hotel with this much documented history gives the dossier real substance underneath the lore. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. The record appears in 'The Historic Alaskan Hotel and Bar'. The date is part of the site's documented spine.
Verified historyAlaskan Hotel and BarOpened 1913; the hotel’s history is documented. Alaskan Hotel and Bar's documented history in Juneau, Alaska is the record the rest of the file stands on. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. The record appears in 'Alaskan Hotel'. It anchors the timeline the rest of the file hangs from.
Planning a visit
Visitor details change. Confirm with the site before travelling.
Sources on file
- 01The Historic Alaskan Hotel and BarAlaskan Hotel and Bar · official site · A2
- 02Alaskan Hotel and BarHauntedPlaces.org · directory · A4
- 03Alaskan HotelWikipedia · encyclopedia · A4
- 04The Alaskan Hotel — official siteThe Alaskan Hotel · official site · A4
Field notes & open questions
Discovery pass; historical, geographic, and access enrichment remain queued. Confidence describes source provenance, not supernatural reality.