The Dauphine Hotel is located in the center of New Orleans and is known for being notoriously haunted. So, in our ongoing investigation to figure out if ghosts are real, we investigated the hotel… and I’m not sure if you’re ready for what our experience was like:
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Before we visited the hotel, we wanted to learn a little bit of history about it. It is located a block away from Bourbon street, and some parts of the hotel that still stand date back to 1775, while other parts were built in the early 1800s.
Before 1898, brothels and gambling houses were said to be spread across the city. That is, until a City Alderman named Sidney Story (who was against debauchery), created legislation that made prostitution and gambling legal within a 16-block region.
Eventually, the 16-block precinct would be nicknamed after him and called "Storyville," and was known to be riddled with crime.
During the Civil War, soldiers stayed on the hotel premises while recovering from battle. There are multiple accounts of soldiers seen in different places; visitors and employees of the hotel have claimed that doors lock themselves shut and footsteps can be heard.
Which led us to our first destination, the hotel bar, May Baily's place.
Where confederate soldiers and May's employees are often seen due to the fact that the bar used to be a bordello.
Jennifer Fernandez, a bartender at May Baily's, told us that there have been multiple accounts of supernatural experiences:
So, obviously… we sat at the bar and tried to invite spirits to communicate with us:
Don’t worry, nothing creepy happened. So we decided to check out the next place that had paranormal activity, the bathroom:
And the only thing we found was that Ryan now jumps at any and everything (but we already knew that).
As we were leaving the library, we heard footsteps upstairs in a vacant room where the Bordello was once located… it’s said to be where the most activity takes place.
And when we got upstairs we noticed that the door that was once shut was opened.
The minute we entered the room, Ryan felt an eerie energy. So Shane decided to try and communicate with spirits...
...and a few seconds after he did, his flashlight went out.
Moments after, things started to escalate when our audio recorder picked up what sounded like someone saying, “I’m right there.”
Another famous ghost at the hotel is May Baily's younger sister, Millie. There have been multiple accounts where people have seen her wearing a wedding dress around the hotel due to the fact that her fiancé was shot in a gambling dispute the morning before their wedding.
Which led us to our final phase of the investigation... spending the night in May and Millie's room. And this is where things took a turn for the worst.
At around 4 AM, Ryan kept hearing footsteps above him and Shane.
When he went to go check it out, he soon learned that it led to an empty balcony.
And while Ryan was checking out the place, he picked up an unintelligible noise:
The footsteps continued all night, and in the morning Ryan was so bewildered that he decided to ask the hotel if the two rooms upstairs were occupied, but only one was.
When Ryan asked the person staying the room if he was the one walking around the entire night, the person not only said it wasn't him but also admitted to hearing footsteps and being spooked out by it too.
Ryan learned after his talk with the visitor (and after speaking to a New Orleans ghost tour guide) that there is an angry ghost who was once a Confederate soldier that walks around and stomps all night long.
