See the Blennerhassett Hotel & Spa in a ghoulish new light.
written by CHRISTY PERRY TUOHEY
Photographed by CARLA WITT FORD
SINCE OPENING ITS DOORS IN 1889, Parkersburg’s historic Blennerhassett Hotel has hosted thousands of guests. According to hotel employees, some of them never checked out.
Hotel staff say they’ve spotted a number of ghosts in and around the property over the years, and for that reason, the Blennerhassett began giving historical tours with a twist, including spirits who occasionally show up—and sometimes even speak.
Hotel historian Adam P. Dotson started Spooktacular Tours for Halloween 2021 and leads Halloween-season groups of ghost-seekers through areas where paranormal activity has been detected annually. “We visit two or three rooms where things happened,” he explains.
Paranormal investigator Adra Johnson uses ghost-detecting equipment during the hotel’s Haunted Blennerhassett tours, a year-round tour opportunity taking place on the third Friday of each month. One device measures electronic magnetic fields, known as EMF, and another tunes in white noise to communicate with the departed souls. “It can be used for a question and answer session,” she says. “So we can maybe ask, ‘Are you from this decade?’ or ‘Are you a man or a woman?’”
Dotson figures he could name at least two dozen ghosts who pop up routinely at the hotel. “I saw a full, black-shadowed figure at 1:30 p.m. in the basement one time,” he says. Other hotel employees have spotted a woman in a Civil War–era dress gliding by. In addition to people who may have stayed at the Blennerhassett, Johnson said apparitions seem to drift over from one of West Virginia’s last remaining Union Civil War hospitals, a building of which still stands behind the hotel’s parking lot.
2024 Spooktacular Tours happen Fridays and Saturdays in October, from 6 to 7 p.m. On Friday, October 18, Johnson will lead a special Blennerhassett Hotel & Spa haunted event from 6 to 9:30 p.m. There will be a post-tour cocktail reception featuring the ghost-hunting equipment.
Tickets for the Spooktacular and Haunted Blennerhassett tours are $20 each and may be purchased at the hotel’s front desk. The tours are designed for people 16 and older, with a limit of 15 people per tour.
320 Market Street, Parkersburg, theblennerhassett.com, “Blennerhassett Hotel & Spa” on FB
READ MORE ARTICLES FROM WV LIVING’S FALL 2024 ISSUE
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