The Driskill Hotel, Austin: Haunted or Not?
Posted: January 4th, 2010 | Author: Shawn | Filed under: Uncategorized | 6 Comments »
For several years I’ve been wanting to stay at the Driskill Hotel. Not only is it a beautiful hotel, but it’s also buried in heaps of spooky history. Of all the web sites that talk about how crazy haunted the Driskill is, no one site seems to have all the ghost stories. So if you really want to read them all you’d better get googling. [Edit: The following death accounts were told to me by taxi drivers and folks around town, plus a couple web sites. For a less fantastical and more accurate summary scroll down to Monica's comment below. Thanks, carry on] There’s the owner who hung himself after losing the hotel in a poker game, the two little girls who committed suicide after being abandoned there, plus a weird history of women killing themselves in the same bathroom. Anyways, when I was passing through Austin this week I went for the chance to spend 3 nights at the storied Driskill.
Well, is the Driskill haunted? Or for that matter, was it even a nice place to stay?
Haunted? Beats the hell out of me. By which I mean that my experience was sort of inconclusive. The whole building is a perfect haunted setting. 
High ceilings, giant windows, and loads of unique character make it the ideal place to get spooked out. Even though the building is very well maintained there’s still plenty of random creaks and bumps that are surely just from age. While sitting in my room at night waiting to experience something supernatural I heard loads of weird little noises that I attributed to it being an old building.
That said, I’ll tell you about the one sort of strange moment I experienced. My room was one large bedroom plus a bathroom. The bedroom had one large 15 foot high window, and the bathroom had two windows, one 15 feet by 10 feet and the other a smaller stain glass window. I was taking an afternoon nap (it’s not my fault, the bed was super comfy), so I had the heavy curtains drawn in the bedroom. With the curtains drawn it was very dark in the bedroom. However, with two windows in the bathroom, quite a bit of natural sunlight came in through the bathroom door. While lying on the bed I suddenly noticed the light coming through the bathroom door was blocked. I looked over to see almost the entire bathroom doorway blacked out. Except for a little bit of sunlight at the top and bottom of the doorway. About as suddenly, it was back to normal. Logically, there was nothing that could block both large bathroom windows, and also account for the bits of light at the top and bottom of the doorway. Were I to say it looked like something, it looked like the silhouette of a person standing in the doorway. Take from that what you will.
Was it a nice place to stay? Totally. The Driskill is an absolutely lovely hotel. Brilliant architecture and great decor, all of which perfectly display its storied history. Many historical hotels are nice in appearance, but are a pain in the ass with old plumbing and electrics. Fortunately, all of the amenities here are high quality and in great working order. Plus, the icing on the cake – the bed in my room was quite possibly the most comfortable I’ve ever experienced. I can’t imagine a way to say that I’ve tried tons of beds that doesn’t make me sound like the whore of Babylon, but I’ve just moved a lot and stayed in a lot of hotels. Okay? So anyways, altogether a great hotel and a great piece of history.
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// shawn
ps: The bed was much tidier when I arrived, but I wasn’t in love with it then, so it didn’t occur to me to take a photo.
Dude, you totally got haunted.
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I agree — You caught a ghost!
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Great recount of your experience at this fine hotel, but I don’t know where you got the other stories. I work for Austin Ghost Tours and Haunted Texas and have done extensive research on the hotel, its history and mystery. What you’ve posted is incredibly inaccurate and would be interested in knowing how such stories originated so I can set them straight!
Col. Driskill died from a stroke. Although it’s very “Texan” to believe he lost the hotel in a poker game, he, in fact, sold the hotel to his brother-in-law Doc Day.
ONE little girl fell down the stairs to her death but she was hardly abandoned.
And two brides did commit suicide there (although one story is still to be proven) one on the 4th floor and another on the 5th floor. They were NOT in the same room.
There are many intriguing stories connected with the Driskill. feel free to contact Austin Ghost Tours for these and other well-researched stories of our city’s hauntings.
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Shawn Reply:
January 14th, 2010 at 07:55
Thanks for taking the time to let me know, Monica. I edited the post to direct folks to your info. I heard the poker story a few times in the past years ago and then if I recall correctly it was one of the stories that came up in my google search. A very knowledgeable sounding taxi driver told me most of this stuff also. He had all the names and dates and was really into it.
I guess it says something for the allure of the hotel itself that so many folks exaggerate the stories. Hell, no one makes up stories about the Quality Inn down the street I bet. Thanks again for commenting and setting the record straight, I appreciate it.
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I ran across this article while trying to research the haunting stories of the hotel and found it rather interesting. This past weekend my husband and I decided to get away for a night to celebrate our anniversary. We currently live in SETX due to work and I had suggesting go to New Orleans for the weekend since we are familiar with the area. My husband convinced me that we needed to go somewhere we had never been together because going to NOLA was like going home, not going on vacation. One of my co-workers suggested getting away to Austin to see the sites and maybe do a little shopping. Various people told me that 6th St and 4th St were fun places to be at night. With this information I went to an online hotel booking site to book our stay. My research of hotels was limited to which seemed to be located nearest to 6th and 4th. This is how we ended up staying at The Driskill. The hotel was quite beautiful and the room was very comfortable. We arrived late in the evening, so we quickly changed and headed out to get a bite to eat. Then we walked around 6th for a little while. I was tired, so we headed back to the hotel. We stayed in a room on the 4th floor (room 442) and aside from the occasional intoxicated patron the floor was very quiet. Everyone seemed to either be still out partying or fast asleep, yet I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched even in our room. While in the middle of celebrating our anniversary (I will leave it at that) I heard a chuckling and two voices talking to each other. Initially I thought it was just people in the hallway, but then I heard “Well it is their anniversary” followed by laughter. Needless to say I was no longer feeling very romantic. I didn’t say anything to my husband about it that night. The next morning we checked out and decided to walk around SoCo. It was here that we learned about the supposed haunting of the hotel. On our drive home I brought the subject up to my husband and he told me that he also had been hearing whispering and laughter that seemed to be in our room. I cannot say for sure that this was a supernatural source, but it was more than a little creepy all the same. Next time we go to Austin I think I will try the Quality Inn.
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