The Driskill Hotel Investigation

Date:  March 6th

Address: 604 Brazos Street, Austin, Texas

History: This beautiful hotel was opened by Jessie Driskill in the late 1800s. Despite the hardships he had, the Driskill became one of the prestigious locations for the upper class and political figures of Austin.  There are several reports of ghosts that roam the halls of this building, including Colonel Driskill himself who is said to make his presence known by the smell of cigar smoke and turning lights on and off in the guest rooms on the top floor.  Another spirit rumored to haunt this hotel is that of a four year old girl, the daughter of a US senator. She was playing with a ball on the grand staircase and fell tragically to hear death. She is said to haunt the staircase and many have reported the sound of a ball bouncing in the empty halls and restroom. Probably the most recent event that caused reports of a haunting was the suicide of a young woman from Houston.  She reportedly was very upset when her soon-to-be husband announced that he no longer wished to marry her. She drove to Austin, went on a large shopping spree with his credit cards.  Along with other purchases, she acquired a gun.  She reserved a room on the 4th floor of the Driskill, methodically laid out her purchases, grabbed a pillow, laid in the bathtub and shot herself in the stomach.  This has been reported to be in room 29 or 27. (Austin Ghost Tours reports it to have occured in room 27) I plan on doing some research to find out for sure.  Why would I care?  It just so happened by coincidence that our group got that same fated room on the fourth floor, room 27.  Creepy!

On March 6th we decided to stay the night in this beautiful hotel and do some investigations into these rumored ghosts.  Like I said, amazingly, without requesting it, we got the room we wanted. The Houston Bride Suicide room.

Equipment used:  Digital and 35m cameras, Video camera, digital voice recorders, IR thermometer.

The investigation:  This location was a little more difficult to investigate due to the high number of people present. The halls were lit up all night so it was difficult to find a dark place to take video footage.  We did not detect any abnormal temperature changes anywhere in the hotel that night.  We took several pictures in the halls, in our bedroom and bathroom, in the lobby, and on the grand stair case. While we were out of our room we placed digital voice recorders and video cameras around the room.  This proved to be the most interesting.

What we found:  On reviewing the pictures from the digital cameras and the 33mm cameras we found ~15 pictures with possible orbs in them.  Most were in the lobby or next to the picture of Colonel Driskill himself. Interesting.  One of them seemed interested in following Crystal, one of our members.

Our videotape from our room revealed a moving stream of light, possibly a moving orb that went across the screen from left to right. There was no one in the room at the time.. This same video revealed that two glasses that were sitting on the small table in the room clanked together for no apparent reason.  Non of the video or pictures in the bathroom revealed anything unusual.  There was one picture that was taken of me near the bathtub that had a possible orb but it was impossible to tell if it was a reflection so I will not post that picture.

Our reviews of the voice recorders also left us with some questions about whether or not we got some EVP. I am still looking into that at this time.

See some pictures below.

Very bright energy near right column. This is in the lobby of the Driskill.

This is a large painting of Colonel Driskill himself on the grand staircase.  Look just behind Crystal!

There are several of what could be orbs in this picture of the same staircase. One large one appears above the picture, then there are several as well on the stairs.

Is there really the spirit of a little girl on the stairs?  This orb looks like it's headed right up the stairs. If you look closely, there are also some near the top vertical post of the hand rail.

We are still awaiting a few more pictures from some of our other members. Check back soon!