The Dorrington Hotel
  3431 Highway 4
  P.O. Box 4383
  Dorrington, California 95223
  209-795-5800 / 209-795-1140
 

A man by the name of Barnabus Smith was given 160 acres of land in the central Sierra Mountains of California for his service in the military as part of Moore's Company, Massachusetts Militia during the War of 1812. At that time, land was often given to officers and soldiers for their military service.

Around 1850, John Gardner moved from Scotland and purchased the 160 acres of land from Barnabus Smith in order to start a sheep ranch. Because of its ice cold spring, emigrants rested there after a long journey over the Sierra's. From this, John Gardner quickly established his profitable roadside business.

In 1851 Rebecca Dorrington Gardner traveled to join her husband in California. In 1852 they built the hotel which was originally called Cold Spring Ranch, and became known as Gardner's Station. Gardner's Station served as a stage coach stop on the Big Trees Carson Valley Road. The road was operated as a toll road from 1862-1910. In 1902 a post office was established at Gardner's Station, however it requiring renaming the community. John Gardner submitted the name "Dorrington" in honor of his wife Rebecca Dorrington. So, the little town became known as Dorrington, California. Today Big Trees Carson Valley Road is scenic Highway 4 which travels over the central Sierra Mountains into Nevada.

Subsequently, the hotel was renamed Dorrington Hotel. It was used as a meeting place and a summer resort by international visitors to the Sierra Mountains coming to see the Giant Sequoia Redwoods at Calaveras Big Trees State Park.

Today the Dorrington Hotel has been completely restored. It's located about 20 miles east of historic Angels Camp, California; 16 miles east of historical Murphys, California; and approximately 20 miles west of Bear Valley, California, a popular ski resort.

The Dorrington Hotel, now a bed and breakfast, is owned and operated by Marc and Dana Lanthier.

The Dorrington Hotel
Marc and Dana Lanthier
3431 Highway 4
P.O. Box 4383
Dorrington, California 95223
209-795-5800 / 209-795-1140
info@dorringtonhotel.com
www.dorringtonhotel.com

• A female figure seen looking out the attic window
• Footsteps and noises from the unoccupied attic and second floor
• Random objects being moved
• Cold spots
• Sensation of being watched
• "As a couple was having an argument, one of the individuals walked out of their room on the second floor, only to have door slam behind them, though neither person did it"
• "A female guest, after becoming very ill in the bathroom, was helped back to her bed by another woman, who's appearance was that of Rebecca Dorrington Gardner"

Jill Dodsworth   |   Kathy  &  Chuck Thurston   |   Eric  &  Nicole Jorgensen

Our group bought the hotel out for the weekend, which only consists of five rooms on the second floor.  This gave us open access to all of the second floor and attic, as well as control of the area.

We used two different multi-infrared-camera DVR systems to record and monitor both floors as well as the first floor lobby.

Digital Voice Recorders were placed in key locations to record all the sounds in that area, as well as those carried with the investigation team during several attempts to verbally dialog with potential spirits (aka. EVP Sessions).

Attic:

Second Floor:

Lobby:

Our Command Center  (Room #5)

 

Around 11 PM, with all the cameras in place, we where in the attic placing the audio recorders for the night and doing an EVP session.  We were asking the usual questions, i.e.. your name etc., as well as specific questions dealing with the history of the hotel and some of the more notable guests in it's past.  Here's the EVP results from this session.

Please Note:  As with any Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP), what we hear may radically differ from what you may hear, if anything.  When hearing EVP's, no two people seem to hear the same thing.  That's part of the mystery concerning them.  When listening to EVPs, it's best to use headphones, and repeat the file several times turning up the volume as required.  Some voices are barely a whisper, while some are loud, and many have a static hiss or popping characteristic to them.

The next day we finished setting up the second surveillance system and moved one camera down to monitor the hotel lobby.  The only thing that appeared to be odd was the video capturing the attic door opening a few times "on it's own", but that was later established to be a result of the changing draft of air in and out of the attic as the heater cycled on and off.

Location:  Attic Entry

Captured around 8:55 PM from the entry way into the attic, at a time when no one was in the attic:

We later checked with Marc, the owner of the Hotel, and confirmed this couldn't have been his son, for two reasons  1) he didn't arrive at the hotel until much later  2) He would never refer to his father as the "Innkeeper", which is a rather old fashion and little used term these days.

We had a night vision camcorder going through the night in Room #2, Chuck & Kathy's room, but nothing paranormal was captured. However, we did record proof of how much Chuck snores.  ha ha

IR Camcorder monitoring Room #2 through the night

Another Interesting Item:

One very odd personal experience occurred around 3:30 AM, when Eric & Nicole heard the following event from Room #3:

• Another bedroom door open (Room #1 they believe)
• Sound of people stomping down the stairs
• Sound of someone going out front door
• Eric heard a male voice outside swearing
• Two car doors slam one after the other, the car start up & leave

This is interesting for one very good reason - it wasn't recorded by any of the surveillance cameras or audio recording equipment at the time.  There wasn't any holes in our area coverage to allow any of this to happen without our knowledge.  It also wasn't experienced by anyone else on our team, all of whom were staying in separate rooms on the same floor.  Therefore we can only guess it to be a possible residual event that only they experienced from Room #3.

Residual events are a paranormal anomaly not yet understood, but are in effect a play back of an event which occurred at some time in the past.  These events can be visual, audio or both.

Conclusion:

From the recorded EVPs, the fact that many appear to be interactive and aware of our presence, we conclude the place to be Haunted by one, if not more, Intelligent Spirits (i.e. Ghosts).

We will happily be returning to this location in the future to try and obtain more evidence.

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