National House Inn

Michigan's oldest operating inn, built in 1835 before Michigan achieved statehood. The inn is believed to have served as a station on the Underground Railroad and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The National House Inn on Marshall's picturesque Fountain Circle is the oldest operating hotel in the State of Michigan. In 1835, Colonel Andrew Mann built a brick stagecoach inn using lumber from the Ketchum sawmill and bricks molded and fired on the building site itself, creating what has endured as the oldest brick building in Calhoun County. When the railroad reached the region in the 1840s, the inn became a popular railroader's lodge, and its role in American history deepened when a hidden room was built in the basement specifically to conceal runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad. That same hidden room later proved useful to bootleggers smuggling illegal alcohol during Prohibition.

The paranormal activity at the National House Inn surfaced in 1976, when renovations disturbed whatever had been resting quietly within the building's walls. Guests and hotel employees began reporting the apparition of a woman wearing a red dress who floated through the hallways. The Lady in Red, as she came to be known, is the National House's most enduring ghost. She wanders the inn as if going through an old routine from life, walking the corridors with purpose but without apparent destination. Her identity has never been established despite decades of speculation. No one knows who she was, how she died, or why she remains tethered to the inn, and the Lady in Red's mystery is part of what makes her one of Michigan's most compelling ghost stories.

One room in particular harbors its own separate haunting. The Charles Dickey Room is reportedly home to a male spirit who does not appreciate sharing his space. When guests he disapproves of stay in the room, the ghost knocks pictures off the wall, sometimes with enough force to damage the frames. Staff have learned to warn sensitive guests about the Dickey Room's temperamental occupant.

The National House Inn has been investigated by paranormal researchers and featured in multiple publications documenting Michigan's haunted locations. Atlas Obscura has profiled the inn's Underground Railroad history and its paranormal reputation, and FrightFind lists it among the most haunted hotels in the state. The inn continues to operate as a bed and breakfast at 102 South Parkview in Marshall, where guests can sleep in rooms that have hosted travelers for nearly two centuries, some of whom appear to have checked in permanently.