Mineral Springs Hotel Investigation Revisited

The Mineral Springs Hotel opened in 1914. Early advertising boasted that the hotel featured the “largest swimming pool in Illinois”, mineral spring “cures”, and the biggest table in the city of Alton, said to seat 26 people. The hotel was started in 1913 by August F. Ratz, local entrepreneur, who purchased the site of the former Illinois Packing Company at the corner of Broadway and Alton Streets. Construction was started in October 1913 with the excavation of the basement swimming pool. The original plans also called for a “summer garden” in the hotel, but the idea was later abandoned in favor of adding 40 additional rooms.

The hotel held its grand opening in September 1914 and was said that at one point, the swimming pool, attracted over 3,000 people in a season. In 1918, Hollywood actress Marie Dressler spoke at the hotel on behalf of the Liberty Loan committee. A number of new rooms were added to the hotel in 1925, the same year that an orchestra was hired to play on Sunday afternoons and for the evening dining.

August Ratz sold the hotel in 1926 and not long after the stock market crash in 1929, things started to deteriorate. Residents remember the hotel as being “seedy” for sometime before it finally closed down. Years later, it would see life again, thanks to renovations by the Love family.

Address: 301 E. Broadway, Alton, Illinois 62002

Telephone: 618-465-3200

Hauntings: A strong scent of jasmine perfume has been smelled in the building from time to time, thought to connected to a woman who was either pulled or tripped down the stairs and fell to her death. One of the ghosts is said to be a man that smells heavily of liquor.

There is an unfinished room upstairs often called the Suicide or Pearl’s Room where a woman named Pearl died. There is also a strong male presence in the room that does not like woman and often calls them names and shouts profanities. In the downstairs ballroom there is a male apparition that does not people to stay very long and also becomes verbally abusive at times.

Allegedly a young girl named Cassandra drowned in the main pool downstairs although that has never been verified. Nevertheless, an apparition of a girl has both been seen and heard in the pool area.

Look to the right of the pillar

Equipment setup: No Command Center was setup as this was a public event and the four groups of around 10 people moved from station to station. The four stations included the downstairs ballroom area, Pearl’s Room, the main pool and the basement down in the deepest part of the building.

Experiments performed: EVP, Ovilus X, and Phasma Box sessions were conducted in the pool area, Pearl’s room, basement area and the downstairs ballroom.

The Ghost Research Society revisited Mineral Springs Hotel on June 9, 2018. Team members included: Barbara Meagher, Mike Rosario and Dale Kaczmarek with help from Dean Thompson from PROSI.

Personal experiences:

Barbara Meagher: Due to the number of people there was a great bit of noise contamination. I attempted two 10 minute EVP sessions; one in the basement, one in the main room. No EVPs were picked up.

Mike Rosario: Introduction: I had a great time at the Mineral Springs Hotel located in Haunted Alton, Illinois! This was actually my second time down in Alton with the GRS; the first was being there as a tourist enjoying the sites, and briefly visiting the main floor of the Mineral Springs Hotel. I was so glad to revisit this site again for a para-con/public investigation/meet & greet event. It was also great to meet up with some old friends of mine, as well as meeting with new ones as well!

Investigation/Equipment Used: Our investigation took off at approximately 8:30pm on Saturday, June 9, 2018. Weather was warm, partly cloudy outside during dusk, with a sprinkle of rain earlier in the day. Equipment used was my K-II meter, a Philips Digital Voice Recorder, a new Sony Super Night Shot Handy-Cam DCR-TRV13 NTSC 560 Digital Hi-8 20X Optical Zoom video camcorder, and a new Police Security Elite Blackout 615 Lumen Hands-free Heavy Duty Flashlight. I also used my Fujifilm FinePix A340 3X Optical Zoom Digital Camera for small snapshots of the place. My Sony Handy-Cam HDR-XR160 AVCHD 42xEZ video camcorder was not needed in this investigation, because we were only limited to certain rooms of the hotel, and didn't need the additional equipment for extra voice recordings/video footage. Dale, Dean Thompson, and myself, first began the investigation on the second floor reception room. There was a little room -- annexed to the main reception room, and that's where we began our EVP sessions. Dean had a neat software program called the Phasma Box, which is like a Mini-Portal, but for his portable Windows device. Dale had his Ovilus X with DTD (digital text display). I began taking EMF readings with my K-II device in and around the enclosed area, and was shocked at the many fluctuations of energies that I had received! It ranged from 1.1mG (in the green or normal area) to over +20mG (red or danger area) in a matter of minutes! I then sat down with the rest of the group, and included myself in the EVP sessions; asking various questions here and there. It was then I noticed many red spikes on my K-II meter that was lying down on the table. Not only mine, but fellow GRS member, Barb Meagher's K-II, as well! They were literally spiking in tandem whilst asking some questions. After this EVP session, we headed all the way into the bowels of the massive old hotel, the basement. Old, cold, dark, and rusty is such an understatement of the kind of appearance this place provided. After a short history session down here from one of the historians of the Alton area, I began filming with my Sony Night Shot camcorder, and perambulated the entire basement looking for anything that warranted any investigative attention for this second location. I also took many snapshots of the basement with my Fujifilm Digital Camera in hopes I would at least capture something that night on camera. After our stay down in the basement, we headed upstairs to the second floor, where an alleged suicide had taken place by one of the hotel's guests a little after the turn of the 20th century. A very sad story, to say the least. But, we wanted to see if we could get some type of a response from this individual in order to try to piece together the claims, and if there was anything that we could do to help. This is where we began our third EVP session. I began taking some video with my Sony Night Shot camera, and filmed in and around this area. I had to conserve whatever battery life I had left in this camera, because we had one last location to visit for the night. This then transitioned to the abandoned underground swimming pool area. As our last stop for the night, I then brought out my own digital voice recorder, and laid it out on the edge of the swimming pools splash guard, near the pool's shallow end, hoping I would pick up some unusual sounds or EVP's. I then took out the Night Shot camera, and began filming with whatever battery life I had left, and got to shoot almost every inch of the place. About a good twenty minutes in, my battery went out, and I began snapping additional pictures with my Fugi-Film digital camera. After the memory on that device was exhausted, I then ended the EVP session on the digital voice recorder, and joined the rest of the group down in the deeper end of the empty pool for additional EVP sessions.

Investigation Wrap-Up: The investigation ended around 1:00am, June 10, 2018.

Evidence: Upon reviewing all of my evidence, it is very interesting to note that I think I might've captured, on video, the female entity that is said to haunt the pool area. There were two instances where I saw a girl/woman dressed from head to toe, wearing all white clothes. It was clearly a human-like figure down there. The video was shot whilst down in the empty swimming pool looking outwardly about 6 feet from the edge of the pool diving area and shallow area (the very front of the pool). Unfortunately, the photograph stills I took that night didn't reveal any paranormal phenomena. There were, however, some bright, orb-like shapes in the pictures I did take, but nothing clearly identifiable as paranormal. Mostly dust particles that were flying in the areas and various insects were present during the time of photography. However, I did capture some EVPs while in the pool area, our last stop for the night. There were clearly some voices of a young girl crying, laughing, and even pleading. There were some deep whaling voice sounds, and various other weird responses that were picked up with my digital voice recorder. Perhaps this evidence was pertaining to the deceased girl/woman whom I probably saw in the video. Nothing is concrete just yet. There is still a rigorous evidence review procedure that still has to be conducted yet for this to be considered a valid, and genuine haunting/occurrence. For now, I must maintain an open mind. It's all very interesting, though, to say the least!

Conclusion/Overall: As always, it was a very good investigation. I really enjoyed being here, as it's such an amazing location to visit! Truly a wonderful experience, I had! I would love to come back and visit soon for a possible private investigation! We all look forward to another exciting day/night to investigate the hereafter. Such a great tourist attraction as well. It definitely is a little time capsule that holds that part of history, and keeps it alive in a way for everyone to see and experience. It was an honor to be here.

Dale Kaczmarek: This was a public event and the decision was made almost at the last minute to investigate this location. Other possibles included Cheney House, Theater Guild in Webster Grove, MO, a private home in Alton and a hospital. The decision was finally made to redo Mineral Springs.

There were four stations that were visited and the most active seemed to be the downstairs ballroom using the Phasma Box. Rosario, however, did get all of his evidence in the Pool area including a pretty amazing video catch of a little girl.

Pearl’s Room was just too hot and uncomfortable to stay up there very long. I did not catch any audio there and eventually went downstairs where it was cooler to wait for the group to finish. There were numerous K-II and Tri-Field hits in the ballroom area.

There were some interesting responses on the Phasma Box again.

Evidence collected:

Ghost of a little girl mineral.MP4 – while investigating the pool area, Rosario, with his Nightshot camera in Super Nightshot mode while panning from the deep end of the pool over the outside captured what appears to be a small whitish figure standing on the edge. A screenshot was also made.

Girl crying in pool area mineral.MPG – while conducting an EVP session in the pool are, Rosario captured what appears to be a girl crying in the background.

In the kid’s pool mineral.MPG – while conducting a Phasma Box session in the downstairs ballroom, the device says, “In the kid’s pool.”

Kelly mineral.MPG – while conducting an Ovilus X session in the deep basement, a question was asked, “Anyone down here? Can you tell me your first name?” The device responded with, “Kelly.”

Little girl singing in pool area mineral.MPG – while conducting an EVP session in the pool area, Rosario picked up what sounds like a little girl singing in the background.

Low whaling no response mineral.MPG – while conducting a Phasma Box session in the pool area, a question was asked and the device responded with a low whaling, “No.”

This room mineral.MPG – while conducting a Phasma Box session in the downstairs ballroom, a question was asked, “Where you at?” An almost immediate response says, “This room.”

Weird response mineral.MPG – while conducting a Phasma Box session in the pool area, a question was asked, “Can you knock that beach ball down here?” A loud unintelligible response came through the device.

Would you please go mineral.MPG – while conducting a Phasma Box session in the pool area, the device said, “Would you please go?”

Words spoken by the Ovilus X:

Downstairs ballroom: Numb, result, calcium and result. The Ghost Radar words were: Roll, mad and Ken.

Basement area: Kelly, Captain and yet.

Pearl’s Room: No words came through.

Pool area: Members and carbon.

Conclusions: Always an interesting location to investigate with a lot of history, sometimes undocumented and, of course, numerous hauntings. At times the sessions were contaminated by the rest of the group, especially in the downstairs ballroom and the basement area. However, they were quiet and even asked some intelligent questions in Pearl’s Room and the Pool area.

The video footage of the little girl shot by Rosario in the Pool area is interesting however I would never use Super Nightshot in the future. That should never be used while in handheld mode as it streaks what is being videotaped too badly. Mounting the Nightshot on a tripod however with Super Nightshot might be something to be explored.

It was also great being able to investigate with my friends from Alton, Dean Thompson!