Are the Ghosts Bigger in Texas?

Location: The Jefferson Hotel; Jefferson, TX

Date: July 21-22, 2007

The time came for another weekend getaway, but this time our destination wasn’t inspired by Ghost Hunters. We found out about The Jefferson Hotel from a book, and since the town itself was only a few hours away, we decided to give it a try. Jefferson, TX is supposedly the most haunted town in east Texas, and the hotel had some interesting stories told about it. For example, a young blond woman likes to walk up and down the staircase and there is a man in one of the rooms who likes to smoke. His cigar smoke often lingers around upstairs despite it being a nonsmoking hotel. While we never saw the young woman taking a stroll, we did encounter the gentleman and his cigars both nights.

Our first night we stayed in room 5. When we first got in the room my mom did a sweep with the EMF detector. The only odd energy spikes (from a base of around 1 up to 4 and even 5) were coming from the bed I was laying on at the time. Using the divining rods, I got the same results. The energy over the right half of the bed actually made the rods vibrate in my hands; I could literally feel the energy pulsing through them. Later that night we pulled out the EMF detector again and found that the energy spikes over the bed were gone; they had moved into the bathroom. Despite our attempts, we got no voice recordings or strange appearances in our pictures, only some odd readings and the occasional scent of cigar smoke lingering in the air.

That night we went on a “ghost train” tour of the Cypress Bayou. While my dad made some convincing banjo noises to humor the guide, we had no personal experiences on the tour. I got an over abundance of orb photos though, some more intriguing than others. We also heard some interesting stories of the town hauntings, several of which came from our hotel.

Energy readings in the hallway.

Room 1 was our home the second night. Nothing paranormal actually happened in the room itself though… most of it came from the far end of the hallway. My dad reported smelling cigar smoke and getting large EMF spikes centering around a chair at the opposite end of the upstairs hall. When my mom went down there with him, they tried talking to the gentleman who reportedly goes with the cigar odor. My mom suggested that my dad try sitting in the chair where they assumed the man was located. After my dad asked if he could sit in the chair, something interesting happened. The strong smoke presence shifted from the chair and became overwhelmingly strong a few feet away by my mom. On and off throughout the night we tried to communicate with the gentleman, but got no solid proof of his presence. Several times when we searched for him he wasn’t to be found, our EMF meter would hardly register at all when he wasn’t around, and the smoke would disappear. Apparently the guy likes to sit and smoke in peace.

Hayley.