Historic Anchorage Hotel
Anchorage, Alaska, United States
Hotel · established
The Story
In downtown Anchorage, a 1936 hotel annex preserves the name of an earlier landmark and a guest log of strange experiences. Curtains move, corridors acquire unexpected company, and stories of murdered police chief Jack Sturgus circulate near the site where he died in 1921.
The Hauntings
The Historic Anchorage Hotel stands in the heart of a city founded along the railroad. Its halls retain the atmosphere of early Alaska travel, and the staff have made room for an unusual sort of guest record: a log of reported ghost encounters. The best-known story concerns Jack Sturgus, an early police chief shot near the old Anchorage Hotel in 1921. The building visitors sleep in today is a later annex, opened in 1936. That difference makes the story more interesting, not less: this is a haunting attached to a historic place whose physical form has changed. The hotel’s most frequently named figure is John J. 'Black Jack' Sturgus, Anchorage’s first chief of police. He was shot near the Anchorage Hotel in February 1921, and the operator recounts a tradition that his spirit returns to the area as though still searching for an answer to his death. Because the present guest building opened later, the story should be understood as attached to the wider historic hotel site, not as proof that the event happened in a room of the existing annex. The hotel also keeps a guest 'ghost log.' Its official history says travelers have recorded incidents such as curtains and shower curtains moving, objects shifting and unusual presences in corridors and rooms. These are guests’ stories preserved by the hotel in its own collection. One of the hotel’s pleasures for a paranormal reader is this continuing exchange between past and present. Guests can stay in an operating hotel, see ordinary rooms in an old commercial building and encounter stories that staff preserve as part of the property’s identity.
The History
The original Anchorage Hotel opened in 1916 at Third Avenue and E Street during the city’s rapid early growth. The hotel expanded in 1936 with a new annex across an alley, connected to the earlier structure by a skybridge. The original building was later sold and demolished; the surviving annex is the hotel that operates today. After periods of decline and different identities, the annex underwent a revival under new ownership beginning in 1989. Its architecture and role in the city’s development are documented in the National Register nomination for the Anchorage Hotel Annex. The hotel’s public history includes notable early guests and its former function as a gathering place for the young city.
A sense of place.
Visitor Experiences
Have you experienced something here?
This future chapter will bring together stories from the PHASM community. An unexpected encounter, a lingering feeling, or a quiet visit—your experience will be welcome.
Submissions are not open yet.
Sources & further reading.
Plan Your Visit
This is an operating hotel: use the official property website for room reservations and current guest policies. The hotel describes a ghost log available for guests to read. No standing public paranormal-investigation program or admission to occupied rooms was established during this check. The map refers to the surviving annex at 330 E Street, not the demolished original building.