Ghosts of the Holly Hotel (Including a Dog)

If you ever get the urge to search online for “the most haunted place in Michigan” or “Michigan’s scariest place”, don’t bother. Whether a place is scary is totally up to you...and what you personally find frightening.

Point is, no matter what a search engine brings up, it doesn’t mean it’s scary to you.....and besides, you’ll get plenty of answers from varying sites that will list different plavces as the “most scary”,

FOR EXAMPLE: When I searched for Michigan’s Scariest Place, the Holly Hotel popped up. So that’s what this article will be about, whether it’s the state’s scariest or not.

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There are plenty of professional people who believe the Holly Hotel definitely is haunted. And I don't mean ghost hunters or paranormal investigators, but supposedly 'reliable' news reporters. Guests of the hotel and employees have all been witnesses to some kind of eerie happenings.

Like what?
1) Customers have smelled cigar smoke, akin to the constant cigar smoking of John Hirst, the original owner in the late 1800s.
2) The odor of flowery perfume
3) A little girl spirit who plays with a meat cleaver

Nora Kane is the most popular ghost; Nora was a frequent visitor of the hotel, and could be heard playing a piano.

The ghost of John Hirst’s dog is said to rub up against people, bark, and run through the halls.

The Holly Hotel was home to two major fires: one in 1913 and another in 1978. What makes this so odd is the fact that the 1913 fire took place on January 19 and the 1978 fire took place EXACTLY 65 years later, on the same day and time! The hotel suffered a third bad fire on June 21, 2022. Possibilities exist that anyone who died in one of those fires haunts the hotel.

Aside from any possible paranormal activity, there are plenty of historic facts about the hotel that include the infamous visit by temperance advocate Carrie Nation and the fights in Battle Alley. The hotel has been entered on the National Register of Historic Places.