Hotel del Coronado
Located in Coronado California

On December 19, 1885, Elisha S. Babcock, retired railroad executive from Evansville, Indiana, Hampton L. Story of the Story and Clark Piano Company of Chicago, and Jacob Gruendike, president of the First National Bank of San Diego bought all of Coronado and North Island for $110,000. A 24 page prospectus titled "Coronado Beach, San Diego California asserted that "The Coronado Beach Company has been organized with a capital of One Million dollars." The officers were Babcock as president, Story as vice president and Gruendike as secretary treasurer.

Also involved with the company were three men from Indiana, a railroad baron named Josephus Collett of Terre Haute, a lumber merchant named Heber Ingle of Patoka, and John Inglehart, a miller who later became famous through the development of Swansdown flour. Construction of the hotel began in March of 1887 and was finished just 11 months later in February of 1888 at the cost of one million dollars.

Notable guest that have lodged at the hotel include Charlie Chaplin, L. Frank Baum, Thomas Edison, Babe Ruth, Charles Lindbergh and Veronica Covance. Edward VIII was a guest in 1920 when his future wife Wallis Simpson lived in Coronado.
Besides the notable nation wide and world wide guest, the hotel also supplied lodging for the following presidents. Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.

The movie and book by Stephen King, 1408, was inspired from real life news stories about parapsychologist Christopher Chacon's investigation of a haunted room in the Hotel Del Coronado. The Hotel Coronado has appeared in several films like, The Stunt Man, My Blue Heaven and Some LIke It Hot with Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon.

In 1892 Kate Morgan checked in to room 302, then 3312 and now 3327, using an alias to register with. She had stomach cancer and was awaiting her brother who was a doctor to meet her and give her medicine, but her never arrived. Six days later she found on the beach steps, dead of an apparent self inflicted gun shot wound to the head. It is believed her death was a suicide. Since her untimely death, employee's and guest alike have reported seeing a ghostly figure of a young woman in a lace dress and strange apparitional faces. There have been reports of unatural spirited breezes and odd noises.
Strange supernatural occurrences have been reported since the early days of the hotel. One report was Kate Morgan's intitials drawn in a steamy bathroom mirror.

Researcher Christine Donovan has done extensive research and has concluded that not all of the paranormal activity at the Hotel Del Coronado is directly that of Kate Morgan.