Why is Hotel Del haunted?

Answer 1

The Hotel del Coronado is reputedly haunted by a beautiful young woman who arrived there November 24, 1892. She gave her name as Mrs Lottie A Bernard of Detroit and was found dead on Coronado Beach the morning of November 29, 1892, an apparent suicide. Many questions arose, including her true identity, why she was alone at the hotel, and why she apparently shot herself. The Legend of the Beautiful Stranger as she came to be called in 1892 attempts to answer these questions. In doing so it actually raises more questions than it answers. Many reasons have been given as to why the young woman committed suicide. One is that she might have been pregnant and found her situation hopeless. It is believed she was quite sick when she came to hotel, and may have believed herself to have a terminal disease. Perhaps this is why she took her life. Or perhaps she didn't take her life at all. Perhaps the real answer lies in an argument she had with her travelling companion a few days earlier at Orange, California. Three different identities have been offered by various authors over the intervening years as the real person who died at the Hotel del Coronado. The most commonly held identity is that of Mrs. Kate Morgan of Riverton, Iowa. If she was the Beautiful Stranger perhaps she was sad that she had prematurely left her husband, felt she could not return, and was becoming desparately alone. Another identity believed correct for a short time in 1892 was Miss Lizzie Wyllie, thought to be from Detroit. This identification was rejected in 1892. More recent research has confirmed that Lizzie Wyllie indeed married in Canada in 1898, difficult to do if she had deceased six years earlier. The most obvious identity is the one most often overlooked: it is possible the young woman was not lying about who she was and was in fact exactly who she said, Mrs. Lottie A. Bernard of Detroit. If she has been misidentified, perhaps this is why she remains at the Hotel Del Coronado - waiting for her true story and her true identity to be discovered. Although four books have been written on the subject, perhaps none are completely correct - since the Beautiful Stranger remains at the Hotel Del Coronado to this day.