The Padre Hotel

The Padre Hotel opened in downtown Bakersfield in 1928. From 1954 it belonged to Milton "Spartacus" Miller, an eccentric who fought City Hall for decades with protest banners, a mock missile on the roof aimed at the civic centre, and a sign on top reading "Alamo Tombstone". The hotel reopened in 2010 after an $18 million restoration, and workers on that project reported tools vanishing, which some blamed on Miller. Staff have described a little girl's presence in the lobby who tugs at shirts and aprons, bathroom door handles rattling with no one on the other side, and a tall man in a long white coat seen walking the halls before vanishing. A local paranormal group has reported smelling smoke and seeing a woman on the upper floors. The hotel's best-known story, a fire on the seventh floor that killed a family with children, is told in different versions and years, and no record of it has been found.