Grand Midway Hotel – Pennsylvania: the haunted Hotel with the world’s largest Ouija board on the roof.

This hotel, which still houses a few invite-only guests, is no longer in full operation and has a lot of history hidden within it. It was bought by its current owner before it was going to be torn down by the mayor, and was transformed into a sort of museum containing all kinds of supernatural and interesting items. Each room has its own intricately decorated theme: there are the Monkey Room, the Gypsy Tarot Room, the Demon Room, the cemetery suite and more.
Located in the very center of Windber Pennsylvania (USA), the imposing building is home to film maker Blair Murphy, his family, and the world’s Largest Ouija board.
Built by Blair himself with the help of eight artists, the massive supernatural game board, measuring 121.01 m², rests on the flat roof of the hotel, and is visible also from Google Maps.

The Grand Midway Hotel dates back from the late 1880s, and it was one of the earliest businesses in Windber, providing a central station for arriving coal mining immigrants. Over the years it served as a brothel, a setting for weddings, for funerals, and for fine dining. There are 32 rooms, and there are countless ghost encounter stories from folks who have stayed the night there.
Back in the day when “Coal was King”, the Grand Midway Hotel, along with a few of the other local hotels, was a brothel, and there are endless ghost stories pop up about prostitutes who worked here as well as ghost coal miners still hanging around. It must have been a hard life, and old timers describe the start of Windber like the Wild West.
The first coal miner ghost story speak about a Hotel worker, who placed flowers in the hotel dining hall, and then she flew home, to California. That next morning she work up shocked to see a man dressed as a coal miner standing at the foot of her bed. She described him as seeming nice, that he simply seemed to be saying ‘thank you’ to her for her flowers gesture. Then he vanished.

One of the most popular ghosts is that of a girl, Martha, presumably victim for a tragic accident. Locals would mention a terrible death that happened at the Grand Midway Hotel many years ago: a young woman had been watching fireworks on the 4th of July, 1911 from her balcony and, supposedly, a rocket suddenly shot up and struck her in the neck, knocking her throat off. She died right there on the balcony. Some said you could still see her image in one of the third floor windows all these years later.
However, there are no records of any unusual fireworks death, and no newspapers sought reported the supposed accident. Maybe some witnesses but, curious fact, all records of that season were missing from the files, apparently “moved” into a private person’s home. And to this day have not resurfaced. However, it seems that the fact was really happened, and the girl was Martha Minnie Cerwinsky, Born Jan 4 1893 and Died July 4, 1911.
There are, in addition, very distinct ghosts who haunted the third floor that appear as dark wisps in the shadows, and over the years a sort of a professor-like spirit keeps turning up. And it seems there is a little girl’s body buried in the basement….

For more info and stories: look at hotel’s official website.