Stone Lion Inn

Frederick Edward Houghton came to Oklahoma in the Land Run of 1889 and prospered in Guthrie, the territorial and first state capital, as a merchant with stores in Guthrie and Enid. In 1907 – the year of statehood – he built a three-story Victorian house with a basement and nearly 5,000 square feet of living space, said at the time to be the most expensive home in town. The Houghtons raised a large family there.

When Oklahoma moved its capital from Guthrie to Oklahoma City in 1910, the town’s fortunes sank, and the Houghtons moved to Enid. They leased the house to the Smith family, who ran it as a funeral parlor for several years; an embalming table from that time is still in the house. In 1986 Rebecca “Becky” Luker bought the empty mansion, restored it and opened it as a bed and breakfast famous for its weekend murder-mystery dinners. Her sons have since run it.

The inn’s best-known ghost is a little girl. In the story told to guests, one of the Houghton daughters – called Augusta in some versions, Irene in others – died of whooping cough after a nanny gave her too much opium-laced cough syrup, and she still visits the second floor, waking sleeping guests by patting their cheeks. Researchers from the Oklahoma Paranormal Research and Investigation group, who study the history of the places they visit, told KGOU that they could not find the girl or her death in official records. Other stories involve a cigar-smoking man in the basement, often identified as Mr. Houghton, a music box heard playing from inside a wall, footsteps on the stairs and toys moved in a third-floor closet.

Accounts from the family and staff are mixed. Becky Luker described the house as having “issues” and preferred not to be there alone; one longtime employee says she heard whispering and saw a woman walk through a closed door; while one of Luker’s sons says he does not believe in ghosts and finds rational explanations in a creaky old wooden house. OKPRI has investigated the inn for decades and calls it one of the most haunted places in Oklahoma.

A child patting guests’ faces at night, a music box playing inside a wall, cigar smoke and a man in the basement, footsteps on the stairs, whispering, doors slamming and toys moving – reported by guests, the owners’ family, staff and paranormal investigators.

The second-floor guest rooms (the child), the basement (the cigar smoker), the third-floor closet, the main staircase and front door; mostly at night.

The Stone Lion Inn has been featured on Ghost Adventures, on KTUL’s “Haunted Oklahoma” and KGOU’s How Curious, and in Oklahoma Today’s guides to spooky Oklahoma. It is a centerpiece of Guthrie’s historic-district tourism.