Union Station Hotel

This stunning Romanesque Revival train station was built in 1900 and converted to a luxury hotel in 1986. The grand lobby with its 65-foot barrel-vaulted ceiling once echoed with the sounds of travelers - some of whom never departed.

Nashville's Union Station was built in 1900 as a magnificent Gothic-style train terminal designed by architect Richard Montford, servicing eight railroads and streetcars. The Romanesque building with its soaring barrel-vaulted lobby ceiling of Tiffany-style stained glass became the transportation heart of the city. During World War II, thousands of troops departed from Union Station to be deployed overseas, with over sixteen trains stopping daily. The terminal operated until 1979, then sat vacant for seven years before being converted into a four-star hotel in 1986.

The hotel's most famous resident never checked in through the front desk. According to Nashville legend, a twenty-year-old woman named Abigail stood on the Union Station platform and bid farewell to her beau before he shipped out to France during World War II. She promised she would be waiting for him in the same spot when the war was over. When the war ended, Abigail returned to the station -- only to learn that he had been killed in Europe. Consumed by grief, she threw herself in front of a moving train on the platform where she had made her promise.

Abigail's ghost has been seen and heard throughout the hotel ever since, re-enacting the final moments of her life. Guests and staff report seeing the ghostly apparition of a woman in period clothing roaming the sixth and seventh floors, and her footsteps and sobs echo through the halls, particularly late at night.

Room 711 is the most haunted space in the hotel, so well known for its paranormal activity that each piece of decor has been handpicked because, as the hotel acknowledges, Abigail is their permanent guest and they want her to feel at home. The room sits on the seventh floor -- the highest level -- in what was once the building's attic before it was converted into guest rooms during the hotel's construction. Guests staying in Room 711 report phones ringing with no one on the line, lights flickering, and the sound of stomping on the roof directly above them, as if someone is walking on the top floor. The catch is that there is no floor above Room 711. Others describe the sounds of heavy furniture being dragged across the ceiling, especially in the early hours of the morning, and sudden, unexplained drops in temperature that make the room feel as though someone else is in it.

Whether the spirit in Room 711 is Abigail or another soul who passed through the station during its decades of service remains an open question. What is documented is that the phenomena have been reported consistently enough for USA Today's 10Best Readers' Choice Awards to rank Union Station Hotel as the number-one haunted hotel in America. The hotel, last renovated in 2016, embraces its supernatural reputation, and Room 711 remains available for guests brave enough to spend the night with Nashville's most famous ghost.