Oxford Saloon

The Oxford Saloon in Snohomish, built in 1890, displays the bathtub where brothel operator Kathleen was decapitated. Three ghosts haunt the building: Kathleen in her purple dress, her worker Amelia found dead in a closet, and Henry, a policeman stabbed breaking up a fight who now pinches guests in the restroom.

The bathtub where Kathleen was decapitated is on display at the Oxford Saloon in Snohomish. It sits on the second floor, in the same building where she ran a brothel, took a bath, and was murdered by a man who cut off her head. The saloon kept the tub.

The Oxford was built in 1890 by the Blackman family as a general store. It served Snohomish's miners and loggers before cycling through identities: pool hall, speakeasy, brothel, and eventually the bar and restaurant it is today. Each chapter left something behind.

Kathleen is the most visible ghost. She appears as an older woman in a purple dress and bow, walking the second floor where she once ran her operation. Her girls worked the rooms upstairs, and at least one of them, Amelia, died there too. Amelia's body was found curled up in her bedroom closet. Nobody determined if she killed herself or was murdered. Her ghost appears alongside Kathleen's on the second floor, two women from the same business stuck in the same hallway.

Henry, a police officer, was stabbed to death trying to break up a fight at the saloon in the early 1900s. He bled out on the premises. His ghost favors the staircase and, for reasons nobody can explain, the women's restroom. He's described as mischievous. Guests report being pinched or getting the distinct feeling of being watched. When someone confronts him directly, he vanishes.

A fourth figure, a tall man in a bowler hat, appears on the second floor but hasn't been identified. Paranormal investigators have recorded EVP on the upper level, including what sounds like a child laughing and a man's voice mocking a female investigator.

The ground floor operates as a normal bar and restaurant. Visitors describe the atmosphere downstairs as positive, even cheerful. The second floor is a different story. Multiple investigators and visitors describe an immediate shift in feeling when they climb the stairs, a heaviness that wasn't there a moment ago.

Snohomish bills itself as the "Antique Capital of the Northwest," but it could just as easily claim the ghost capital title. The Oxford Saloon anchors the town's haunted reputation, and the saloon knows it. The bathtub is the centerpiece. It sits there, a cast-iron antique in a room that used to be a brothel, in a building where three people died violently. Full-body figures show up in guest photographs. Objects move on the second floor. And Henry is still pinching people in the restroom, which is exactly the kind of afterlife a saloon cop would end up with.