Mineral Springs Hotel

The Mineral Springs Hotel in Alton opened in 1914 with "the largest swimming pool in Illinois" and has at least five documented ghosts, including Clarence Blair who drowned in the pool in 1918, Pearl L. Sons who overdosed in her room in 1965, and the Jasmine Lady, a perfume-scented figure whose identity paranormal historian Troy Taylor claims to have solved but won't reveal. Marbles left at the deep end of the dry pool roll to the shallow end overnight.

Visitors to the Mineral Springs Hotel in Alton leave marbles at the deep end of the old swimming pool. By the next morning, the marbles have rolled to the shallow end. Nobody pushes them. The pool has been dry since the building closed in 1971.

The hotel opened in 1914 after German immigrant brothers August and Herman Lure discovered mineral springs beneath the construction site. They built the place around the water, advertising what they claimed was the largest swimming pool in Illinois, mineral spring cures, and a dining table that seated 26. For decades, the Mineral Springs was the fanciest destination in Alton.

It was also where people came to die, though the hotel never planned it that way.

Clarence Blair, a sheet metal worker from Granite City, drowned in the shallow end of the pool in 1918 while taking swimming lessons. His was one of the only recorded deaths during the hotel's operating years, which makes the swimming pool's reputation all the more surprising. Staff and visitors have spotted a figure near the shallow end where Blair went under, and wet footprints appear on the pool deck in a building that hasn't held water in over fifty years.

Pearl L. Sons checked into a room on a Monday in 1965 and was found dead of an intentional overdose on Wednesday. Her former room carries what visitors describe as wild mood swings in atmosphere: heavy and sad one moment, calm the next. People have described a woman matching Pearl's description sitting in chairs in the room, watching them.

Then there's Lou Harwood, whose suicide is backed by historical records. Shortly after the hotel opened, Harwood went to the bar on his checkout day, sat at a table, spread out letters he'd written to family and friends, and shot himself in the chest with a pistol in front of the bartender and janitor.

The ghost with the longest tradition is the Jasmine Lady, a woman smelled before she's seen. The scent of jasmine perfume drifts through the hallways and collects around the main stairwell. The backstory is shaky. One version says a woman named Mary argued with her husband and fell down the stairs. Another version connects the ghost to Sara Reddish, who fell during an arrest at the hotel. Neither story has solid documentation. But EVP recordings captured near the stairwell have picked up the words "Norman," "assault," "fall," and "Mary." Paranormal historian Troy Taylor, who runs a shop in the building and leads tours from there, claims to have solved the Jasmine Lady mystery, though he hasn't shared the full answer publicly.

There's also Charlie, a struggling artist who agreed to paint a mural of Alton in the barroom and (the story goes) killed himself before he could finish. The mural exists. Records of who painted it do not.

Some of the building's bricks came from the old Confederate prison in Alton, demolished years before the hotel went up. Whether recycled prison bricks carry anything with them is a question the hotel doesn't try to answer.

The Mineral Springs closed in 1971 and was condemned for deterioration. It nearly got demolished before being converted into an antiques mall in 1978. Today the building houses an eclectic mix of small shops, a paranormal research center, and Ghost Adventures footage from a 2019 episode. The pool area is still intact, dry and tiled and lit for tours. If you leave a marble at the deep end, check the shallow end before you leave.