Goldfield Hotel
The four-story brick hotel was the grandest between Denver and San Francisco when it opened in 1908 in the Goldfield boom. Abandoned since the 1940s, it’s famous for the legend of Elizabeth—a woman said to have been chained to a radiator in Room 109 by George Wingfield—and for decades of failed reopenings.
Abandoned; private ownership. Periodic tour events only.
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Is Goldfield Hotel haunted?
The record holds 2 claims, 1 legend, 1 named entity — filed as reported, not verified. The heaviest filing is classed documented legend. The archive documents the claim; it takes no position on the ghost.
The record — long form
The Goldfield Hotel opened in 1908 at the height of the Goldfield boom — the finest hotel in Nevada's richest mining camp, a four-story monument to gold money in a town that produced more of it than anywhere else. It has been largely vacant since the Second World War — a boomtown palace standing empty in a near-ghost town, the most famous abandoned hotel in the West.
The file's spine is the boom's scale: a hotel built for a city that briefly out-riched Reno, now standing mostly empty on a street that went back to desert.
Elizabeth in Room 109
The legend is Room 109: Elizabeth, a woman said to have been chained there by hotel owner George Wingfield, dying after giving birth — the file flags it as thin on proof, but the story has made the Goldfield the most investigated haunted hotel in Nevada. The legend is the boom's cruelty given a room number: a mistress chained in a suite, a baby that didn't survive, a ghost in the West's grandest empty hotel.
The file keeps the honest split: the hotel is documented, the vacancy is documented, Elizabeth is legend — but a legend that has filled the empty building with investigators since the doors last closed.
Why this file matters
The Goldfield is the archive's abandoned-grand-hotel file — a boomtown palace vacant since WWII, holding a legend about a chained woman in Room 109 that is the West's darkest hotel story. The building is real and mostly empty; the legend is the thing that keeps it occupied.
Elizabeth may not have existed — the file says so. But the hotel stands empty on a desert street, and Room 109 is why people still come: a legend keeping a boomtown's grandest building in business.
The Goldfield Hotel is a historic four-story building located at the southeast corner of Crook Avenue and Columbia Avenue in Goldfield, Esmeralda County, Nevada. Designed in the Classical Revival style of architecture by Reno architects Morrill J. Curtis (1848–1921) and George E. Holesworth of the firm of Curtis and Morrill, it was built between 1907 and 1908 on the site of two earlier hotels of the same name which had burnt down. Built in a U-shape in order to ensure outside windows for each guest room, the building has its west or main facade extending 180 feet (55 m) along Columbia Street with the north wing fronting 100 feet (30 m) on Crook Avenue and the south wing fronting 100 feet (30
Goldfield HotelThe long record
- 1908Built
Former Hotel constructed
- 1908Opened
Opened to use
- 1908History
Opened in 1908 at the height of the Goldfield boom; largely vacant since WWII. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. The record appears in 'Goldfield Hotel'. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on.
- 1945Closed
Ceased operation
The record of claims
Legend describes Elizabeth, a woman chained in Room 109 by hotel owner George Wingfield, who died there after giving birth. Goldfield Hotel's file is thin on proof and long on persistence — the standard profile of American place-lore. The account has a collector's pedigree — written down as legend, which is the most honest status it can hold. A ghost with a name outlasts a ghost without one; the reports keep it employed.
The story is staple Nevada folklore but not securely documented.
Explorers and TV investigators report voices, figures and a hostile presence. Goldfield Hotel's file is thin on proof and long on persistence — the standard profile of American place-lore. It's an investigation claim — the kind that convinces the people who were in the room. Small phenomena, steadily reported: the file's most honest kind of haunting.
Legend describes Elizabeth, a woman chained in Room 109 by hotel owner George Wingfield, who died there after giving birth. Goldfield Hotel's file is thin on proof and long on persistence — the standard profile of American place-lore. 'Goldfield Hotel' preserves the telling; the record keeps it filed where it belongs, as lore. Sources including 'Goldfield Hotel' keep the claim in circulation. The story outranks the documentation, which is how you know it's folklore.
Alleged entities
Legend describes Elizabeth, a woman chained in Room 109 by hotel owner George Wingfield, who died there after giving birth. Goldfield Hotel in Goldfield, Nevada carries the report the way old places do — as part of its identity. The account appears in 'Goldfield Hotel'. The name travels further than the proof; the sightings keep renewing the lease.
Documented history
Opened in 1908 at the height of the Goldfield boom; largely vacant since WWII. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. The record appears in 'Goldfield Hotel'. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on.
Investigations & appearances
Sources on file
- 01Goldfield HotelWikipedia · encyclopedia · A4
Field notes & open questions
New record from encyclopedia/official-source pass; VERIFY task auto-queued for primary-source corroboration.