Hotel Ottumwa has been part of the city’s history for more than a century — and over the years, it has also become the subject of some mysterious local folklore.
Construction on Hotel Ottumwa began in 1916, and the six-story hotel officially opened in September 1917. Designed by the Des Moines architectural firm Proudfoot, Bird and Rawson, the building was intended to provide Ottumwa with a modern, first-class hotel.
The hotel quickly became an important gathering place for the community. It featured guest rooms, dining facilities, meeting spaces and a ballroom. The basement eventually became home to bowling alleys, which were added in 1927.
Hotel Ottumwa also played a role in the city’s early broadcasting history. Radio station WIAS began broadcasting from the hotel in 1928.
The building went through several changes over the decades. Hotel Ottumwa closed in 1973 and remained vacant for years before Jim and Don Schwartz purchased the property in 1982 and began restoring it.
Today, the hotel is recognized as an important part of Ottumwa’s architectural and commercial history. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.
But for some people, the hotel’s history includes something that can’t be found in official records.
A local legend tells of a mysterious Lady in White.
Paranormal accounts connected to Hotel Ottumwa describe a woman dressed in white reportedly appearing in or around the basement. Other stories tell of unexplained footsteps, voices, cold spots and shadowy figures.
Some accounts also describe seeing a man in a suit or feeling as though someone was watching them when nobody else was nearby.
However, there is an important distinction between the documented history of Hotel Ottumwa and these paranormal stories.
There is no verified historical evidence establishing that the Lady in White is a real ghost. No reliable historical record located in this research identifies a specific woman who died at the hotel and became the supposed apparition.
The stories are best understood as local folklore and personal reports that have been passed down and shared over the years.
That doesn’t make the stories any less interesting.
Hotel Ottumwa is more than 100 years old. Generations of people have walked its hallways, attended events in its ballroom, stayed in its rooms and spent time in its basement.
And whenever a historic building has that much history, stories are bound to follow.
Whether the unexplained sounds are simply the noises of an old building, whether shadows have ordinary explanations, or whether visitors truly experienced something they cannot explain is left to the individual.
What can be documented is that Hotel Ottumwa has played an important role in the history of the community for generations.
What cannot be documented is whether a woman in white still walks its halls.
And that is where history ends — and folklore begins.
