Haunted Places in Oregon: Hot Lake Springs and Six More Ghost Stories, Fact-Checked

Hot Lake Springs, near La Grande: the sanitarium that was never an asylum

Eight miles south of La Grande, steam rolls off a lake beside a long brick building on Highway 203. The brick wing was finished between 1906 and 1908, and under Dr. W.T. Phy it became the Hot Lake Sanatorium, a hospital and health resort billed as the "Mayo Clinic of the West." After a 1934 fire it limped on as a wartime flight school and nurse training site, became a nursing home by 1953 and sat empty after 1991. The La Grande Observer reported in 2009 that vandals broke more than 300 windows in those years, and that the ghost stories spread while the place stood abandoned.

Historian Dick Roth grew up there; his parents owned Hot Lake from 1942 to 1974. He told the Observer in 2015 that there's no evidence it was ever a mental health facility. "In fact this was never the case," he said. A 1920s brochure he quotes says the sanitarium treated everything except tuberculosis of the lungs and acute infectious diseases. The piano said to play itself was donated by a La Grande church in the nursing-home years. On ghosts he's blunt: "There is no basis of fact for ghosts, none at all."

Former guests have reported a gardener's ghost and patients' screams, according to the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin. The best part is that you can sleep here now. Mike and Tamarah Rysavy, who run the RV park next door, took over in 2020, reopened in 2021 and now run it as Hot Lake Springs Resort.

Visit: 66172 Highway 203, La Grande. (541) 226-3944. hotlakespringsresort.com. Overnight guests get the nine outdoor mineral pools. Day soaks are booked online: $20 Monday through Thursday, $29 Friday through Sunday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. You'll need to be 18 to reserve. The Thermal Pub & Eatery is open daily 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and the 60-seat theater shows films Thursday through Sunday for $5. Lodging, soaking, the pub and the theater are the ways in. The old hotlakesprings.com address now belongs to an unrelated business.

Pendleton Underground Tours: a bordello, a basement and a myth check

About an hour up I-84 from Hot Lake, Pendleton keeps its rowdy past below the sidewalks. Pendleton Underground Tours, a nonprofit founded in 1989, leads you through old card rooms under the street, then up 31 stairs to the Cozy Rooms bordello. Ghost Adventures filmed with the group in March 2024, the East Oregonian reported, and the special streamed in November 2025.

Now the paper trail. A 2025 Oregon Encyclopedia essay by Renae Campbell and Priscilla Wegars says claims of a tunnel network built by Chinese residents "are not supported by historical evidence" and perpetuate racist stereotypes. The tour's core is the basements of the 1907 Empire Block and the 1897 Hendricks Building, and the tour has moved walls over the years. The operator's own Halloween listing warns that "not everything you hear down here is to be believed." Take the tour, then read the essay.

Visit: 31 SW Emigrant Ave., Pendleton. (541) 276-0730. pendletonundergroundtours.org. The 90-minute tour runs year-round except Tuesdays and Sundays, $20 or $15 for ages 6 to 12, by reservation; it has stairs and isn't wheelchair accessible. The adults-only Halloween tour on October 31 leaves every half hour from 5 to 8 p.m. and costs $30.

Bush House Museum, Salem: the museum that corrected its own ghost

Asahel Bush's 1878 house stands in Bush's Pasture Park, just south of downtown Salem. The online legend says a young daughter with mental illness was hidden in the basement, died there and now plays with the thermostat. In a 2008 blog post, museum staff set it straight. Eugenia Bush's illness began while she was a college student in Massachusetts around 1880, and her family paid for care from East Coast specialists and traveled to visit her. She came home in 1914, at 52, lived in the house with her sister Sally and a nurse, and died in 1932 at 70. The heating is erratic, staff admitted, "but we blame that on the machinery and not on ghosts."

We like this stop because the true story is kinder than the legend, and more interesting.

Visit: 600 Mission St. SE, Salem. bushhousemuseum.org. Free 45-minute tours run Thursdays, Fridays and the first and third Saturdays at 12:15, 1:15, 2:15 and 3:15 p.m. Pick up passes at the Bush Barn Art Center behind the house.

McMenamins Grand Lodge, Forest Grove: the Lavender Lady

The Grand Lodge opened in 1922 as the Masonic and Eastern Star Home, for elderly Masons and their widows and orphans. Its orphanage closed in 1932, the retirement home moved out in 1999, and McMenamins reopened it as a hotel in 2000.

The house ghost is the Lavender Lady, a kind-looking older woman in a print dress who's said to leave the scent of lavender behind and once left books for residents. McMenamins says a construction worker named Tony saw her walk the first-floor hallway during renovation, and that a list of 22 books turned up later; the attic rooms are named for them. The history department told that one with a wink, adding, "Make sense? No? Good, because it doesn't have to."

Visit: 3505 Pacific Ave., Forest Grove. (503) 992-9533. mcmenamins.com/grand-lodge. The restaurants and bars are open to everyone. Ghost tours run Thursday, October 22 and 29, at 7 and 9 p.m.: $20 for ages 3 and up, 60 to 75 minutes, starting in the foyer.

White Eagle Saloon, Portland: legends graded true and false

The White Eagle opened on North Russell Street in 1905 to serve Portland's Polish immigrants, and it still pours downstairs with 11 hotel rooms above. Its ghost, Sam, has paperwork. Sam Worek was a friend of the owners who lived upstairs, and his framed immigration papers record his arrival from Bremen on June 27, 1905. Stories credit him with a chill in Room 2.

McMenamins' historians graded the rest. A brothel upstairs? False; the 1920 census lists nine Polish men in those rooms. A basement opium den? False; the vault door that hints at one dates to the 1970s. A 1906 anarchist plot against Theodore Roosevelt? True that the owners got swept up in the scare, down to a police raid on June 18, 1906. On ghosts, they hedge: "it is a proven fact that ghosts are hard to prove as fact."

Visit: 836 N Russell St., Portland. (503) 282-6810. mcmenamins.com. The ghost tour is Friday, October 23, at 7 and 9 p.m., $25 for ages 3 and up, with pub music included for those 21 and over.

Flavel House Museum, Astoria: perfume in the bedroom

Captain George Flavel made his money as a Columbia River bar pilot and built this Queen Anne house to retire in. It was finished in 1886, and he lived there with his wife, Mary, and daughters Nellie and Katie until he died in 1893.

In 2008 The Astorian noted that the captain, his wife and one daughter died in the house, and it passed along visitor reports: flowery perfume in Mrs. Flavel's room, a "female presence" in the kitchen and a former historical society director who "saw" a Flavel daughter in the hall. The Clatsop County Historical Society, which owns the house, keeps its own page to architecture and family history. Go for the faux-grained woodwork and six tiled fireplaces, and count any perfume as a bonus.

Visit: 714 Exchange St., Astoria. (503) 325-2203. astoriamuseums.org. Self-guided visits start at the Carriage House, daily 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through April (last entry 3:30). Adults $7, seniors $6, ages 6 to 17 $2.

Jacksonville's Haunted History walks

Each fall, the nonprofit Historic Jacksonville, Inc. walks people through the gold-rush town after dark. The Britt Hill route covers murder, arson, saloons and what the group calls Oregon's first Chinatown; the Courthouse route covers brothels, epidemics and hangings. Of everyone here, this group leans hardest toward belief. Its page says some pioneers "are still with us in the forms of spirits and ghosts" and promises history tours with no special effects. Go for the history and the old brick, and let the costumed guides make the case for the rest.

Visit: Tours start at the Jacksonville Visitors Center, 185 N. Oregon St. (541) 245-3650. historicjacksonville.org. The last 2026 dates are October 23 and 24, starting at 6, 6:15, 6:30 and 6:45 p.m.; each one-hour walk costs $10 and needs an online reservation by 4 p.m. that day. Tours return on second Fridays starting in June. Our unusual small towns guide covers Jacksonville by daylight.