Sunday, October 11, 2009

Kate Morgan, Hotel del Coronado’s longest-term guest – er, ghost

You’re relaxing in your hotel room, the windows are shut, and you feel a sudden, inexplicable breeze. Or your TV set turns on and off suddenly, seemingly of its own accord. Or you’re lying in bed when, out of nowhere, in the dark of night, your covers are ripped right off of you by the most unexpected of roommates: a ghost.
Welcome to Hotel del Coronado’s Room 3327, where the spirit of the long-deceased Kate Morgan is believed to be resident. In 1892, the young woman — likely 24 years old at the time of her death — spent five days at the San Diego hotel, waiting, it is thought, for her lover, who never arrived.
Her death at the landmark hotel was declared a suicide. But “rumors persist about it being a murder,” said Hotel del Coronado historian Christine Donovan, who wrote the book “Beautiful Stranger: The Ghost of Kate Morgan and the Hotel del Coronado.” Another theory currently being investigated by Donovan and others is that Morgan’s death actually might have been accidental.

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