Haunted Indiana: The Ghosts of the Barbee Hotel
While I already posted a quick look at haunted hotels in Indiana, I wanted to take a deeper look at the Barbee Hotel in Warsaw.
Known as both the Barbee Hotel and the Barbee Hotel & Restaurant, it opened in 1897 as the Hotel Ormond. Barbee Lake was a popular tourist spot at the time and a man named Davidson wanted to appeal to visitors. He came from Muncie to construct his new hotel. In 1922, the old hotel burned to the ground, leaving barely anything behind. A couple related to President Abraham Lincoln rebuilt it and renamed it Lincoln's Barbee Hotel in honor of him.
During the early days of the new hotel, Al Capone became a frequent guest. Though the gangster lived in Chicago, Warsaw gave him the chance to relax and get away from it all. The owners grew accustomed to seeing him swagger through the door, demanding other guests clear out for the day, and give him and his buddies a place to hang out. Keep in mind this was during the Prohibition and the Barbee Hotel was one of the few local places still serving alcohol.
Not only did Capone love relaxing in the bar, but he was also a regular overnight guest. After a night of carousing with his pals, having a little too much to drink, and spending time with a few local women, who could blame him? Capone stayed in a few rooms before settling on Room 301, the same room many believe he now haunts.
Many photos of him show the smug gangster puffing away on a cigar, which might explain why employees often detect the scent of smoke – despite the Barbee Hotel no longer allowing guests to smoke. Servers and other workers often detect the smoky smell coming from Room 301, but they also smell a think odor early in the morning, as if someone chain-smoked the night before.
Capone is likely the same man guests see in the restaurant and in its windows. A server helping set things up one morning saw an older man sitting in one of the booths. She held up a finger to let him know she would help him shortly, turned around to grab utensils, and turned back to find him gone. He would need to walk past her to get outside, but she never saw him move. When she told her coworkers, they laughed about old Capone being up to his old tricks.
And what about the guest seen looking out of the windows? He always appears in the same window on the third floor, which is ironically Room 301. At least a few locals contacted the hotel's owners to ask about him or mentioned him the next day, only to learn they had no guests the night before.
Greg Steffe, who heads up the Kosciusko County Historical Society, smelled the cigar smoke for himself during a visit. As he only smelled it on the third floor, he tried to find its source and eventually decided it was a guest of the bar. One of the servers let him know that most workers detected the same odor and that the bar did not allow smoking.
Another ghost of the Barbee Hotel is allegedly a former girlfriend of Capone. Capone often headed to Indiana when the heat was on and he needed to escape the fuzz. Other trips happened when he was in the midst of a losing battle with other gangsters. On one of those trips, he makes the fateful decision to bring his girlfriend. While in the bar, a rival knocked on her door and brutally slaughtered her when she opened it. Guests sometimes hear the sound of the woman screaming as she lives through her final moments again.
Rita Hayworth may haunt the hotel, too. Hayworth fell in love with the area and would often stay on filming breaks. Hoping to avoid the hassles of Hollywood, she often stayed hidden inside her room and arranged for employees to bring her meals and essentials. Ever since her death, guests and workers reported seeing a glowing light coming from under the room's door. I've also heard of guests taking photos inside that show strange orbs in the background and workers hearing footsteps racing up the stairs when the hotel is empty.
Capone wasn't the only famous face around the Barbee Hotel though. Less than two weeks after divorcing his second wife, Clark Gable married Carole Lombard. While Gable was from nearby Ohio, Lombard spent her early years in Fort Wayne. It seemed natural the two would enjoy their honeymoon in a place far removed from Hollywood. The couple rented a cabin on the banks of the lake after their quick wedding and would occasionally stop by the hotel for lunch or dinner.
During the Prohibition days, visitors came from other states to enjoy the bathtub gin and other alcohol made under the cover of night. Though some guests stayed at the Barbee Hotel for a few days or weeks at a time, though with more money would sometimes stay for months. It became common for locals to sneak over to the hotel to pick up gin and bee, some of which the owners trucked in from other cities.
During the COVID pandemic, the owners of the Barbee Hotel & Restaurant announced they plan to shut it down and launch a major renovation. I initially assumed the hotel never opened back up as the official website is dead, but they have an active Facebook page with nearly daily posts that show they still do a booming business.
The Barbee Hotel & Restaurant is located at 3620 N. Barbee Road in Warsaw, Indiana. Stop by for a drink and a meal, stay for the night, and see if you encounter the hauntings.
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