TUOLUMNE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, USA -- In area with as much history as Tuolumne County, CA, hub of the historic California Gold Rush, it's hard to avoid ghost stories. Nearly every hotel and many restaurants in the area had some sort of tale to share.

After taking in Tuolumne County's plethora of sites and activities by day, Weird Wanderers can come home to the elegant comfort of haunted locales by night. Some of the county's best food and drink are also offered in these establishments, so whether you need accommodations or not, you might want to cross check this article with our Dining in Tuolumne County feature and plan some memorable culinary experiences at the same time.

The City Hotel
The historic City Hotel is actually part of Columbia State Park. More than a "park" in the way you'd normally imagine a state park, Columbia is an actual old west town just like it was back in the days of the California gold rush. You not only get to read what it was like, you get to wander the same historic streets, stay at the same hotels, and eat at the same restaurants. Along the way you'll interact with trained guides and costumed docents who really know what life was like back then.

Each room at the City Hotel is decorated with authentic period antiques reflecting the town's heyday -- 1850-1870. Many of the furnishings were originally imported from Europe to fill some of San Francisco's finest mansions. More than a century later they made their way to Columbia. One of the hotel's furniture focal points is the ornately carved bed in room 1, for in addition to its fine craftsmanship and artistic design, it came with a tragic history. It seems a woman, who hotel guests and staff came to name Elizabeth, actually died in childbirth in the bed. The hotel never was haunted before the bed came to rest there in the 1970's. But ever since strange happenings go on, especially in room 1. Doors open and close randomly, and often a perfumed " scent of a woman" will waft through the room with no apparent cause.

According to City Hotel dining room manager Kathi Ann Harvey a repeat guest once told her that that on a previous visit her young son woke her and said he saw a woman in a white dress at the end of his bed. Not finding anything there, the guest dismissed the child's claims -- three times -- putting him back to bed each time. Kathi says the guest later came back to Columbia for one of their historic ghost tours. "She heard about Elizabeth and felt so guilty."

City Hotel; 22768 Main St., Columbia, CA; 800-532-1479 or 209-532-1479; www.cityhotel.com.

Hotel Charlotte
Ever since they took over the Hotel Charlotte in 2003, owners Lynn and Victor Upthagrove have grown accustomed to guests asking if their building is haunted. Two weeks after moving into the hotel, a parapsychologist came in off the street and asked Lynn if he could look around. She took him into room 6, and even though she'd never thought about ghosts before, his energy convinced her that the ghost of former owner Charlotte still inhabited the hotel.

"He took photos into the mirror -- it was so interesting and he was so very convincing that he saw a ghost, it made me believe," says Lynn. While looking through the ghost hunter's camera, pointed towards the bathroom mirror in room 6, Lynn saw the room behind her, including a hanging lampshade, and the face of Charlotte floating in front of it! When she turned around, there was no one there.

Lynn never heard from the investigator again and doesn't know if the photo ever came out, but she's been a believer ever since.

In Charlotte's day, the hotel was a rooming house built to house middle management staff from the nearby Hetch Hetchy Dam building project. History tells us that proprietor Charlotte (photo at right) never married. Local legend says she was in love with the man who regularly rented room 6, although he never saw her as anything other than a friend. It's said her ghost haunts room 6, and has been known to nurturingly check that the guests sleeping there (especially the male guests) are comfortable and tucked in at night. Charlotte is so popular, some repeat guests come back just to experience her again and again.

With a smile in her voice, Lynn says "I always put single male guests in room 6 so Charlotte will feel comfortable and the guest will be well cared for. I want to keep my ghost happy. I never want a mad ghost."

The Hotel Charlotte - 800-962-6455 or 209-962-6455 or go to www.hotelcharlotte.com.

The Groveland Hotel
Like the Hotel Charlottle, the Groveland Hotel was originally built as rooming house for management personnel sent from San Francisco to oversee the Hetch Hetchy Dam building project. After the project was completed in 1827, the building became a residence hotel for miners and prospectors working in the now defunct gold mine and creek running behind the hotel.

The Groveland's resident ghost, Lyle, was a prospector who died of natural causes in 1927. Current owner Peggy Mosley was lucky enough to obtain the hotel's colorful parapsychological history from local resident Ernie Greenbeck, who passed away in 1998 or 1999 the age of 104.

It seems Lyle was somewhat of a recluse, preferring to spend a lot of time alone in his room. He was dead for several days before folks thought to look for him. Lyle was found in his room (#15) with a box of dynamite -- a tool of his prospecting trade -- under the bed.

Peggy says that long before she bought the hotel, in 1990, locals had been talking about the building being haunted by the ghost of Lyle.

"He doesn't like women's cosmetics on his dresser -- he removes them," Peggy says.

"I first became aware if it one time when we had we had 4 couples staying here for 3 nights. On the 2nd day the lady asked if I would prefer if she would not put her cosmetics on the dressers. She said that every time she came back to the room she found them on the sink. I told her I no problem with the cosmetics being on the dresser and even checked that the staff hadn't moved them."

Peggy says these guests enjoyed their experiences with Lyle so much, they return every year or so and always request room 15 (also known as "Lyle's Room"), because the woman with the cosmetics bag always like to "play games with Lyle."

And according to Peggy, he never fails her.

Another time Peggy was hosting a dinner for a group from Delta Airlines. They had arrived at the hotel late and dinner wasn't finished until about 11PM. Peggy was regaling the group with the building's history. She had just gotten to the part of the story about Lyle when, all of a sudden, the dining room's lights started to go up and down. Suddenly the lights stopped fluctuating and everyone in the rooms felt of "whoosh" of cold air rush past them. According to Peggy everyone in the room gasped at once. "It was definitely a hair-raising experience," she says.

Peggy enjoys the Groveland Hotel's resident ghost. She says he's a fun character, a prankster who has even been helpful. One night the chef had bread baking and forgot to set the timer, the oven doors flew open at the right time for perfectly baked bread.

Several guests have recounted Lyle encounters in the hotel's guest books. One said that, while sleeping, one the room's high backed chairs was pulled against the side of her bed -- it's high back towards the bed. Another guest in a downstairs suite reported a tall shadowy figure walking by the bed as if checking on everybody, before vanishing into thin air.

Peggy says lively breakfast discussions about Lyle are frequent occurrences at the hotel's dining room tables and that just about every staff member at the hotel has had at least one Lyle encounter.

But, she warns, sometimes Lyle disappears for weeks. "We always laugh and say that he and Charlotte are out somewhere enjoying a tryst."

The Groveland Hotel; 18767 Main St., Groveland, CA; 800-273-3314; www.groveland.com.

Gunn House Hotel
Sonora's Gunn House Hotel started life as a hospital for the old gold rush town. Owner Shirley Sarno says odd little things happen around the hotel all the time. "Things will fall off kitchen shelves for no reason, and the housekeepers always report lights going off and on at random. They also sometimes have trouble opening doors to rooms, as if someone's pulling on the other side -- but there's nobody in the room."

Shirley says guests have experienced different presences different rooms. Just last weekend (July 2004) the husband half of a couple of repeat guests found himself thrown out of bed and tossed around the room. Shirley says the couple were fine about their nocturnal wake up calls and plan to return. Other guests through the years have reported seeing the image of someone standing at the foot of the bed in 12.

Nonetheless, when a team of parapsychologists evaluated the room with electronic ghost hunting equipment, Shirley says they got the highest readings in room 3.

The Gunn House Hotel; 286 S. Washington St.; Sonora, CA; 209-532-3421; www.gunnhousehotel.com.

Jamestown Hotel
First built in 1858 as a wood-frame boarding house, the Jamestown Hotel has, at various times during its existence, operated as a bordello, a bus depot and the Motherlode Hospital. The Hotel burned down twice, along with the rest of Jamestown. During the 1970s, the exterior was remodeled with San Francisco brick, and in the 1980s, the hotel underwent a major restoration, transforming it into the 11-room bed and breakfast it is today.

The hotel's downstairs houses a fine dining restaurant and old-time bar open to the public as well as hotel guests. The Jamestown Hotel also comes with a ghost story has all the elements of a pulp romance novel.

It seems that Mary Rose, granddaughter of Frank Sullivan -- a Jamestown prospector who struck it rich in the 1850's -- fell in love with a handsome British soldier. They wished to marry, but both families were adamantly against it, and Mary's lover's influential parents arranged to have him shipped off to India. Unfortunately, while there he was captured during a Hindu-Muslim uprising, chained, tortured and killed. Naturally Mary Rose took the news hard, especially since she was carrying her lover's child. One spring morning, she arrived in Jamestown and checked into the then Mother Lode Hospital's room number 7. The melancholy woman didn't speak much to anyone, preferring to spend her days forlornly gazing out the window. When the time came to give birth, something went terribly wrong and neither mother nor child survived. They were interred in the nearby cemetery, overlooking the town of Jamestown.

Mary Rose and her British Lieutenant are the hotel's oldest and most constant tenants. Guests have heard moans from room 7 (think it but don't say it folks), as well as seen misty apparitions -- one wrapped in chains.

The Jamestown Hotel; 18153 Main St.; Jamestown; 209-984-3902; www.jamestownhotel.com.

National Hotel
Besides being our favorite place to dine in Tuolumne County (their wine list is awesome -- exclusively featuring wines from the Sierra Nevada foothill wine region) the National Hotel is also home to one the area's most famous ghosts.

A perusal through the guest books in each room -- which welcome guests to share their comments about the hotel -- reveals numerous accounts of doors slamming, lights going on and off, clothing being dumped from suitcases onto the floor, and a woman's sobbing coming from the hallway in the middle of the night.

Housekeepers report going into rooms only to be greeted by icy cold air, even though the heater was working.

Stephen Willey, the hotel's current owner, has been hearing tales of "Flo" from staff and guests for over 28 years now, although he has never personally encountered her. But many a non-believer has left here with a whole new attitude, he says.

Willey says the National Hotel's resident ghost generally stays upstairs, seemingly favoring the rooms in the front of the building, although she has, on occasion, been seen early in the morning downstairs, floating through the dining room and right through the walls.

For more information or reservations visit www.national-hotel.com or call 800-894-3446 or 209-984-3446.

Snowshoe Brewery
The building that now houses this casual restaurant, which makes some of the best micro-brewed beer we've ever had, started life as the Pickering Lumber Co. Built in 1820, the office building which houses the Snowshoe Brewing Co. is one of only 3 originally buildings left from the mill town of Standard. A walk through the restaurant and brewery will reveal many relics of the building's past, including photos, old lumber company tokens (used in lieu of cash), townsite maps, and old business documents.

Marketing manager Al O'Brien said, "When we started renovating the building we found all sorts of old office equipment, records, survey maps and other stuff including some baseball memorabilia from the company baseball teams of the early 1900's. We even found spots where carpenters had signed boards and dated them under plaster walls 100 years ago."

Al spent many hours alone in the basement excavating for structural support for our brewery equipment. While he says he always experienced the assorted creaks and noises many old buildings make, he personally never experienced anything he would consider "unusual."

However, Snowshoe's master brewer Mike Hastings has had experiences with an unidentified entity. Brewers usually make an early morning start to mill the 1000 pounds of grain needed for a fifteen barrel brew. According to O'Brien, the brewer had several visits from a man in a bowler hat and black suit who walked in front of the brewery to the former President's office -- now a banquet room. After conversations with friends and family about this apparition and how he should react, Mike decided to confront the presence. The next time the man made a visit, Mike asked him who he was and what he was doing or looking for. The entity stopped, looked around and moved on. That was the last time Mike saw the man.

Snowshoe Brewing Company; 19040 Standard Rd., Sonora, CA; 209-536-1445.

Sterling Gardens B&B
While this B&B was built relatively recently -- in the 1980's -- it was built on top of the old Kincaid Gold Mine. Owners Charlotte and Carl Tucker have seen a presence on occasion, but not usually in the building.

"Most often we see this man down by the road, where our mailbox is now located. He's there and then just gone," says Charlotte.

"He seems friendly and we like to joke that he is waiting for the mail."

There are two entrances to the old Gold Mine on the property, although they have both been blasted shut so people can no longer go down into the mine, which is now filled up with water anyway. There is a vertical air shaft can be found at the bottom of property's 90 foot deep, two plus acre pond.

"We've thought that the ghost might be an old miner from the 1849 gold rush," Charlotte theorizes. "If that was the case, he might then be waiting for a coach there by the side of the road."

Sterling Gardens B&B 18047 Lime Kiln Road - Sonora, CA 95370 (888)533-9301 www.sterlinggardens.com.

Practicalities:
You can learn more about visiting all the attractions in Tuolumne County by calling the Convention and Visitors Bureau at 800-446-1333 or 209-533-4420 or visit their website: www.tcvb.com