Wyoming’s Plains Hotel

This luxury 5-story hotel in Cheyenne was opened in 1911 to provide a comfortable place for oil barons, wealthy ranchers, and Army officers to stay. 

It also catered to tourists headed to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.

Plains Hotel

Sponsored by the Cheyenne Securities Company the Hotel's cost, including décor and furnishings, was $250,000.

It has a grand ballroom and a lobby that is provided with extra light from a spectacular stained-glass skylight. It has a central marble staircase, as well as rich mahogany and leather furniture throughout.

The skylight over the lobby.

When it first opened, the Mezzanine featured an orchestra that played for its distinguished guests. In more recent years, Presidents Truman, Nixon, and Reagan, all stayed at the Plains.

Each of its one hundred guest rooms has plush velvet carpet, phones, private baths, and large brass beds.

Suite

The Plains has been renovated twice, first in the 1930s, and then again in 2002. Many guests today still enjoy the cowboy-themed luxury.

People who promote the Plains Hotel are not shy about another feature it has. The violence that occurred in the hotel in the past has resulted in four resident ghosts.

Soon after the Plains opened its doors, a honeymoon couple checked in. This couple was given a suite on the 2^nd floor. They had an argument stemming from the bride’s nervousness about their marriage bed.

The groom impatient and angry left his bride and went down to the first-floor bar. While there he met a local prostitute.

Wigwam Bar

Rosie, his new wife, became concerned about how long her husband had been absent, she grabbed a gun for protection and headed toward the bar. She entered just in time to see her husband leaving with the shady woman.

She followed them up to the fourth floor and watched as they entered a guest room. Upset, she gathered her courage and barged into the room only to find her husband in bed with this lady.

Rosie angry at this betrayal raised the gun she held and shot them both. Distraught, she then went back to her room and shot herself. This double murder, suicide resulted in an active haunting.

Rosie’s ghost has been seen wandering the second floor. She wears a blue gown, and witnesses state she appears to be lost in thought with a look of disappointment on her face.

Housekeepers state they have heard phantom wailing coming from the newlywed’s room, and guests who have stayed in this suite say they have listened to the actual argument that occurred between the bride and groom before the husband left for the bar.

Rosie’s unfaithful husband is seen finely dressed. He wears 1900s formal attire, with a long black coat and polished black boots. He has on a white shirt with silver buttons.

He is seen on the 4^th floor and throughout the hotel, including the basement.

The prostitute is seen in a short red dress adorned with white lace. She is spotted on the 2^nd floor, and in the lobby area. Several witnesses have stated they have seen her in the balconies above the lobby.

Balconies above the lobby.

She has issues with brides. Several have claimed to encounter her while in the hotel. 

One Halloween, mannequins were displayed as a bride and groom. A witness saw a lady in a red dress push the bride mannequin over, then she just disappeared.

A fourth ghost is seen in the Plains is a man who killed a guest. He was involved in an argument with this guest and shoved this poor soul out of a 4th-floor window.

Witnesses state they feel anger, and a sense of dread in the area where this happened.

When these ghosts are present, guests report doors and windows open without assistance. 

Plains Hotel today.

Casper’s Ivy House Inn

Casper Wyoming

Built in 1916 this beautiful Cape Cod style home is located in Casper, Wyoming. Mr. and Mrs. White had their roomy 3-story house built near the Rocky Mountains.

In the 1940’s they had two grand porches added to their home. Mrs. White died in 1995 at the age of 93.

In 1996, Tom and Kathy Johnson bought the home with plans to turn it into a Bed and Breakfast.

Ivy House

Neither believed in ghosts but they quickly changed their minds.

A Strong Presence

Mrs. White was known to be controlling while alive and in death this did not change.

As the Johnson’s renovated the old home Mrs. White let them know when she was unhappy with the changes.

Renovated Ivy House Inn

At one point as Tom was using a power drill it stopped working. He turned around to see the cord hanging in mid air before it dropped to the floor. On another occasion he saw his hammer move on its own out of the room he was working in.

These experiences changed Tom’s outlook on life and he became a paranormal investigator. The Johnson’s have allowed nine different teams to investigate their inn.

Guest Reports

Since the Bed and Breakfast has opened Mrs. White has been active on a regular basis. She particularly does not like guests to smoke or drink in her home.

Her two Siamese cats also haunt the home. Several guests have reported seeing them running throughout the inn. One female guest stated that a cat slept with her on the end of the bed. She reported it purred contentedly the whole night.

Another ghost seen at the inn is a man. He is often seen in the back parking lot. The inn’s alarm goes off repeatedly in this area. The Johnsons wonder if this might be Mr. White.

One guest reported seeing a male figure by her bed. She then heard him say, “Isn’t it funny how people get lost?”

1 of 5 bedrooms at inn.

In one downstairs bedroom guests all report having the same dream. It involves a young man who wanders back and forth between the closet and the sink.

Aromas

But with all this activity it is felt Mrs. White makes the most appearances.

Many guests have reported as they walk though the inn they smelled old-fashioned aromas. These include: old menthol cold medication, the aroma of baking chocolate and the odor of a scouring pad on a skillet.

Mrs. White’s ghost is seen in mirrors, at windows and she is seen walking down a hall and walking through walls.

Guests report they heard someone knocking at their doors but when they went to answer it no one was there. Others report if they took their time answering the door they saw the doorknob twist.

It appears Mrs. White likes attention. Several photographs taken at the inn have an extra figure in them--Mrs. White.

Andrew Pixley: Takes Longer to Kill Evil

On an August night in 1964 Andrew Armandoz Benavidez, aka Andrew Pixley, brutally killed two young girls in a hotel in Jackson, Wyoming. His crime is considered the worst ever committed in the state. 

He was the youngest prisoner, 22 years old to be executed in the Wyoming gas chamber. 

It takes the average condemned prisoner three minutes to die after the pellets hit the acid; Pixley lived twice as long, it took him six minutes to die. 

The Wyoming Frontier Prison or Wyoming State Penitentiary is considered to be very haunted. Pixley’s ghost is just one spirit that haunts this former prison. Tragically, it appears his two young victims also haunt the building.

Pixley born in Las Cruces, NM was a misfit. He dropped out of high school and never held a job. He served two years in the U.S. Army after a warrant for his arrest for passing bad checks was issued. 

After his short stint in the army, he mostly worked as an itinerate dishwasher in the Pacific Northwest. Just two weeks before the murders he was arrested for possession of a stolen car--he was cleared of these charges.

Judge Robert McAuliffe’s family from Illinois were vacationing in Jackson on the night of August 5/6, when he and his wife Betty left their daughters in their second-floor motel room to watch a show put on by the resort. 

Pixley broke into the hotel by climbing a stack of firewood in the back and breaking a screen out of a window. When the couple returned they found Pixley lying in a drunken daze on the floor. Mr. McAuliffe grabbed and pinned him down. His wife found two of their three daughters dead in their beds.

The girls Debbie 12 and Cindy 8, had been sexually assaulted. Debbie was bludgeoned with a rock, and Cindy was beaten and had been strangled. Their youngest child Susan 6 was unharmed but she witnessed the assault of her two sisters. 

Some sources also state that Pixley cannibalized the two young girls as well. 

When arrested he told police despite being covered in blood, “ I didn’t do it.” An angry mob outside the motel called for him to be lynched, so he was taken to Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlings, Wyoming where he could be held securely.  
Up to his execution, he claimed that he didn’t remember anything.

At his trial, Dr. William Karn Jr. who had examined Pixley stated he was sane but an “incurable sociopath”. 

When he mentioned “that it meant a lot more to Pixley to kill the girls while they were awake” Robert McAuliffe flew at Pixley at which point he was restrained. 

Pixley laughed after the judge announced he was to be executed on December 10, 1965. This judge did not allow an appeal to be filed to commute his sentence to “life imprisonment”. 

The McAuliffe’s divorced, and the father remarried and had a son. Both parents have passed. Susan their youngest child is married and has five children.

The Wyoming Frontier Prison closed down in 1981. Today it is run as a museum. 

Many paranormal investigations have been conducted in this former prison. Before Pixley was executed he was considered a very violent prisoner. Today many have picked up his very "angry energy". 

One lit candle that sits under his photo in his former cell never flickers but when tour guides mention him the ones around it do. Some wonder if his ghost is trapped in his former cell. EVP's have been recorded in this cell and in and around the gas chamber.

One female sensitive, who joined an investigation sat on the gas chamber chair. She asked the spirits she sensed if they knew how they died. She didn’t hear a response, but later in a recording, she was disturbed to hear the voice of a young female child wail and reply to her question, “no”. 

Other witnesses have heard the sounds of young girls crying coming from this gas chamber. 

Another spirit that is seen is that of a ghost cat. This black cat was executed in the gas chamber as a “test run” to make sure the chamber had no leaks before Pixley’s sentence was carried out.

The following video has interviews with several people who work at the museum who have encountered both the cat and Pixley’s ghosts.

North Platte River's The Death Boat

This is a classic story about a boat * that is seen rising out of a strange mist on the Platte River in Wyoming. 

North Platte River

It has been seen near several towns along the North Platte River in the late autumn. 

As it rises out of the sometimes-dangerous waters of the Platte, a massive expanse of fog always precedes it.

Witnesses who have seen this ship up close state that it appears to be covered with frost—from the sails to the mast. 

They report seeing a crew on board also covered with frost. These men are seen huddled around a corpse lying upon a canvas sheet. 

This disturbing legend states when witnesses see this it foretells death. The crew steps back from the corpse, revealing to the witness, the body of someone they know. In each case, that person dies the same day.

Leon Weber, a trapper, reported the first sighting of this ship in 1862. 

He saw the crew step back, revealing the corpse of his fiancé who died later that same day. 

Gene Wilson, a cattleman, saw the body of his wife laid out on the canvas in 1887. 

Yet another witness, Victor Heibe, while chopping down a tree by the riverbank, spied the ship in 1903. Laid out on the deck was the body of his close friend. Who died that same day.

This ghost story, like many, has been told and retold for years. The basic story changes but the intent--to scare-- remains the same. 

* This modern legend refers to this vessel as a "ship." But in the original myth, this vessel was probably a flatboat or boat instead--for the Platte River like most western rivers is too narrow and shallow for this type of vessel.