Historic Occidental Hotel

The Historic Occidental Hotel in Buffalo, Wyoming, was constructed during the territorial era of American western settlement, emerging as an important hospitality establishment serving frontier communities and the traveling public seeking lodging during the development of the western territories. The hotel represents Victorian-era architecture adapted to regional conditions, with construction methods and materials suited to the climate and available resources of the Wyoming territory. The building was designed to provide the most comfortable accommodations available in a frontier setting, offering private rooms, dining facilities, and communal spaces where travelers could interact and conduct business. The Occidental Hotel served as a significant gathering place for the Buffalo community throughout its operational history, hosting prominent figures, conducting business transactions, and facilitating social interactions that characterized frontier hospitality establishments.

The hotel's long operational history encompassed both prosperous periods when mining and livestock commerce generated steady travel through the region, and quieter times when frontier development cycles left the establishment less busy with transient guests. The building absorbed the stories of countless individuals who passed through its rooms, leaving behind traces of their presence through the accumulated historical residue that characterizes buildings with extended occupancy histories. The Occidental Hotel developed a reputation for quality service and hospitality that attracted repeat customers and favorable word-of-mouth recommendations throughout the western territories and beyond. However, within the fabric of the building's history resided a specific tragedy involving a child who would eventually come to define the hotel's paranormal legacy.

Emily, a child who died of cholera during the hotel's operational years, represented one of the devastating disease mortalities that characterized the nineteenth century medical landscape. Cholera epidemics periodically swept through frontier communities, striking individuals with terrible speed and overwhelming medical interventions available in remote territories far from urban medical centers. Emily's death within or in close proximity to the hotel created a profound emotional imprint, with the child's suffering and loss becoming intertwined with the physical structure of the building. Whether Emily died within a guest room, in the hotel's public spaces, or nearby and subsequently remained spiritually bound to the location, the nature of her presence has become central to the Occidental Hotel's paranormal narrative.

Following Emily's death, guests and staff members have documented consistent paranormal phenomena indicating the presence of a child spirit within the hotel's rooms and hallways. Visitors report sensing or directly observing the presence of a small child, with many describing feelings of touch, warmth, or comforting physical contact attributable to Emily's spirit. Most remarkably, accounts describe Emily manifesting in guest beds, with visitors experiencing the physical sensation of a small child climbing into bed alongside them during nighttime hours, despite no visible or audible confirmation of a child's presence. This intimate form of spirit contact, combined with Emily's young age and the tragic circumstances of her death, has generated significant paranormal investigation attention. Additionally, bottles within the hotel's historic saloon have exhibited anomalous behavior, with whiskey bottles mysteriously popping off shelves and wine bottles spontaneously ejecting their corks with sufficient force to suggest non-trivial physical force. The combination of Emily's spiritual presence and the poltergeist phenomena suggests an emotionally charged haunting driven by the child's lingering consciousness and attachment to the Occidental Hotel.