The Driskill Hotel

Jesse Lincoln Driskill made and lost fortunes in cattle: he supplied beef to the Confederacy, was ruined when its currency collapsed, and rebuilt his herds driving cattle up the Chisholm Trail. In 1884 he bought half a block at Sixth and Brazos in Austin, then a capital city building a new Capitol and a new university, and commissioned a four-storey Romanesque Revival hotel of cream brick and limestone. The Driskill opened on December 20, 1886; Governor Sul Ross held his inaugural ball there days later.

The colonel’s triumph was brief. A harsh winter and drought destroyed much of his herd, the hotel closed within months and passed to his brother-in-law, and Driskill died in 1890. Through changing owners the Driskill became the city’s social and political centre: Louis Armstrong played a three-night engagement in 1931, Lyndon Johnson took Claudia “Lady Bird” Taylor on their first date in its dining room in 1934, and he watched the 1964 election results from its presidential suite. When closure and demolition loomed around 1969–70, preservationists raised money to save it, and a long series of restorations followed, culminating in a $30 million renovation finished on the last day of 1999.

The ghost stories grew along with the legend. The founder himself, who lost the hotel within a year of opening it, is said to be among its restless spirits, still keeping watch over his property. The most repeated tale concerns a young girl – often called Samantha and said to have been about seven – who is supposed to have died in 1887 after falling down the grand staircase while chasing her ball, and to linger there still. No record of such a death has been published, and the story appears in the same form in several other old hotels.

Whatever their basis, the stories have become part of the brand. Austin ghost walks stop outside, guests trade accounts of strange nights online, and when Hyatt sold the building to Dallas-based Woodbine Development for $125 million in 2022, real-estate coverage of the sale repeated a 2021 Yelp ranking that had named the Driskill the most haunted place in Texas.

Guests and staff describe a presence attributed to Colonel Driskill, a young girl associated with the grand staircase, and other unexplained figures and sensations; the hotel is said to house “a handful” of spirits in all.

The grand staircase and mezzanine, the older 1886 wing’s upper-floor corridors and rooms, and the public rooms off the lobby.

The Driskill is a fixture of Austin ghost walks and lists of haunted hotels, and its history – Armstrong, LBJ and Lady Bird, inaugural balls – is part of the city’s identity. Its ghost stories are retold in books on Texas hauntings and in countless travel features each October.