McMenamins Hotel Oregon

A beautifully restored 1905 hotel operated by McMenamins, featuring 42 uniquely decorated rooms. Hosts an annual UFO convention connected to McMinnville's famous 1950 UFO sighting.

McMenamins Hotel Oregon has stood at the corner of Third and Evans streets in McMinnville since 1905, a four-story brick building that has watched the small Yamhill County city grow from an agricultural hamlet into the heart of Oregon's wine country. The hotel's history runs deeper than its above-ground floors suggest: during the 1800s, the basement contained part of a local underground passage system used for cargo transport, and the upper levels were rumored to have housed a secret brothel at some point in the building's early years. McMenamins acquired and restored the hotel in their signature style, filling it with forty-two uniquely decorated rooms featuring original artwork, and adding the Rooftop Bar, perched five stories above the city with sweeping views of the valley and the Coast Range.

The hauntings at Hotel Oregon are so frequent and well-documented that the front desk maintains a Ghost Logbook where guests and staff can record their experiences. The logbook has accumulated entries over many years, and Room 306 appears in it more than any other location in the hotel, consistently identified as the most paranormally active room.

The hotel's most famous ghost is a male spirit named John, whose identity and era are unknown but whose personality is well established. John is a prankster, a mischievous presence who delights in small disruptions and has been seen often enough that artist Myrna Yoder painted his likeness on the exterior elevator doors of the hotel. Visitors have reported seeing the apparition of a man in an old-fashioned suit walking the rooftop bar area, a figure believed to be John continuing his rounds through the building he apparently considers home. Paranormal teams that have investigated the hotel report that it does not take long for the spirits to begin openly communicating, suggesting an unusually responsive and active haunting.

A woman in a long black dress is the hotel's second most frequently reported ghost. She walks the staircases at night, moving between floors with a purposeful stride that suggests she has somewhere to be. One guest reported waking to find the same ghost rummaging through his luggage, going through his belongings with an unhurried curiosity before vanishing. The woman's identity is unknown, though her clothing suggests she dates to the early twentieth century, consistent with the hotel's founding era.

On the rooftop, where the bar draws crowds for sunset drinks, stargazing, and live music, bartenders have reported a recurring phenomenon that defies easy explanation. The sound of children's laughter drifts across the rooftop, clear and unmistakable, but when staff investigate, no children are present. The laughter comes from nowhere and stops as suddenly as it begins, leaving the bartenders to return to their work knowing it will happen again. The rooftop bar carries its own advisory among those familiar with the hotel's reputation: just be careful up there.

McMenamins Hotel Oregon sits at the center of McMinnville's haunted history. The city offers a ghost tour covering Third Street's most active locations, and the hotel serves as both a stop on the route and a destination in its own right. The combination of a documented logbook, named ghosts, painted tributes, and consistent activity across multiple locations within the building makes Hotel Oregon one of the most thoroughly catalogued hauntings in the McMenamins portfolio, a collection of properties that includes the nationally recognized Edgefield, the White Eagle Saloon, and the Crystal Ballroom.