Seguin, Texas · Founded 1844 · Building: 1840 original log cabin; major additions by 1846 and 1853
Seguin's earliest documented hotel, built around an 1840 cabin and now operated by Erin and Jim Ghedi as an overnight stay and paranormal-tour site.
The Magnolia Hotel began with a two-room log cabin built by Seguin co-founder James Campbell in 1840. Joseph F. Johnson converted and expanded it into a hotel by 1844, and later nineteenth-century construction produced the larger structure visible today. After nearly two decades vacant and deteriorating, Erin Wallace-Ghedi and Jim Ghedi bought the property in 2013 and restored it for private lodging, historical visits, and paranormal programming.
James Campbell, Seguin co-founder and Texas Ranger, built a two-room log cabin on the property.
Source: Texas State Historical Association, “Magnolia Hotel (Seguin, Texas)”; Texas Co-op Power, “Spirits of Seguin”
Joseph F. Johnson acquired Campbell's cabin, added to it, and operated a hotel there by this year.
Source: Texas State Historical Association, “Magnolia Hotel (Seguin, Texas)”
Johnson sold the hotel to Michael Erskine and Jeremiah S. Calvert.
Source: Texas State Historical Association, “Magnolia Hotel (Seguin, Texas)”
Texas Ranger John Coffee “Jack” Hays married Susan Calvert, the owner's daughter, at the Magnolia property.
Source: Texas State Historical Association, “Magnolia Hotel (Seguin, Texas)”; Texas Co-op Power, “Spirits of Seguin”
A larger two-story frame hotel replaced the earlier log cabin structure.
Source: Texas State Historical Association, “Magnolia Hotel (Seguin, Texas)”
The Magnolia Hotel was recorded in the Historic American Buildings Survey.
Source: Historic American Buildings Survey, as summarized by the Magnolia Hotel's National Register and local-history descriptions
Preservation Texas placed the long-vacant Magnolia Hotel on its Most Endangered Places in Texas list.
Source: Preservation Texas, “Magnolia Hotel”
Erin Wallace-Ghedi and Jim Ghedi purchased the property and began privately funded restoration.
Source: Spectrum News, “Is the Magnolia Hotel One of the Most Haunted Places in Texas?”, October 30, 2020; Preservation Texas, “Magnolia Hotel”
Ghost Adventures aired “Texas Horror Hotel,” an episode filmed at the Magnolia Hotel in Seguin and the San Antonio railroad-track site.
Source: Ghost Adventures, “Texas Horror Hotel,” Season 13, Episode 7; Apple TV episode listing; IMDb
The Ghedis announced work to restore the hotel’s original 1850 balcony as part of the property's continuing preservation program.
Source: Visit Seguin, “Historic Magnolia Hotel Begins Restoration of Original 1850 Balcony”
Every claim gets rated. A business's own website can never earn "documented."
The Texas State Historical Association documents hotel use by 1844, and Preservation Texas describes the Magnolia as one of Seguin's earliest hotels. This research did not locate a comprehensive survey of every historic Seguin lodging business to establish an unqualified oldest-hotel title, but no earlier competing hotel was identified.
The Texas State Historical Association states that the cellar was cut from solid rock and served as a refuge during Indian scares. Later hotel and paranormal-tour accounts call it the town's first jail, but this research did not locate a municipal jail record confirming formal use as Seguin's first jail.
The current haunted-tour site lists a large group of alleged distinguished guests, including Sam Houston, Robert E. Lee, Grant, and Bonnie and Clyde. This research located documentary support for John Coffee Hays's 1847 wedding at the property, but no hotel registers, letters, newspapers, diaries, military records, or other evidence verifying stays by the other named figures.
The hotel and paranormal-tour material identify William Faust as an innocent man killed by mob rule and connect his story to the property. This research did not locate a court record, newspaper account, death record, coroner report, or identified local-history source establishing the killing, its date, or its location inside the hotel.
The owners and paranormal-tour programming present the hotel as inhabited by named spirits and report a psychic identification of thirteen entities. This establishes an active haunted reputation and a commercial paranormal narrative, but it does not independently confirm either supernatural activity or the historical identities assigned to alleged spirits.
That a crew visited and filmed is usually easy to verify. What they claim to have captured is a separate, and usually lower-rated, claim.
Apple TV and IMDb list “Texas Horror Hotel” as a Ghost Adventures episode released March 7, 2015, filmed in Seguin at the Magnolia Hotel. The episode itself is evidence that the crew visited and produced a televised investigation.
Episode descriptions report that the crew used a magnetic microphone and observed a handprint. The broadcast and its descriptions document what the crew reported, but this research found no independent evidence confirming a paranormal cause or the historical claims used to interpret the event.
MySA reported that Groff planned to investigate the Magnolia Hotel and review paranormal evidence with VIP guests. The report documents the announced investigation event, but does not independently establish the truth of any conclusions or evidence.
Everything below has been reported by two or more independent sources — this is an informational record of what's said about this place, not a verified account of paranormal activity. Still Open America doesn't certify hauntings as real.
Owners, visitors, and media accounts describe shadowy figures in the halls and other parts of the hotel. One reported surveillance-video incident in the children's room showed a shadowy form passing near a moving ball.
A recurring child-associated legend centers on balls rolling or bouncing without an apparent person nearby and lights switching on and off. The activity is commonly attributed in hotel accounts to Emma Voelcker, whose alleged killer stayed at the property, although Emma's own death occurred in New Braunfels rather than at the hotel.
Contemporary reporting confirms that Wilhelm Faust was convicted of Emma Voelcker's murder and stayed at the Magnolia Hotel, but no historical source reviewed establishes that Emma herself ever stayed at the property.
The owners have described doors slamming shut despite no wind and sudden cold breezes in warm weather. A separate Spectrum News report quotes Erin Ghedi describing three doors making loud impacts and a cold breeze passing between the owners shortly after their purchase.
Accounts describe footsteps, laughter, music, voices, creaking stairs, pounding sounds, and jangling doorknobs when no person was visibly responsible. These reports are presented as a broader recurring sound phenomenon rather than separate hauntings for each sound.
Visitors and owners have reported unexplained smells that appear and quickly fade, including cigar smoke, bread baking, perfume, peppermint, beer, baby powder, and patchouli. Some accounts connect particular odors to named spirits, but the recurring activity is the sudden unexplained scent itself.
The room associated with Wilhelm Faust is said to produce a shadowy figure in the window, unusual smells, and unsettling sensations. The legend identifies the presence as Faust, who was convicted in the 1874 murder of Emma Voelcker and was later killed in jail.
Guests have reported seeing a figure said to resemble James Campbell near the original log-cabin portion of the property. Campbell was the site's original builder and a Seguin co-founder, while the identification of the reported figure as Campbell remains part of the haunting narrative.
A reported spirit identified as Sam Wood is said to whistle, knock or rattle against walls, and target male visitors in the room associated with him. A firsthand overnight account described an EMF reading and a cold swirl of air in the closet where the figure was said to appear.
The historical identity and connection of Sam Wood to the hotel could not be confirmed in the historical sources reviewed for this entry.
The Magnolia Hotel was built in 1840 as the present ten-room hotel.
The 1840 structure was James Campbell's two-room log cabin. Hotel use began by 1844 after Joseph F. Johnson made additions, and the larger two-story frame hotel was built by 1853.
Source: Texas State Historical Association, “Magnolia Hotel (Seguin, Texas)”
The Magnolia Hotel has operated continuously as a hotel since the 1840s.
The hotel ceased operating in its earlier form; the Texas State Historical Association notes that part of the property became apartments in the 1930s, and later sources describe nearly two decades of vacancy before the 2013 purchase. The current lodging operation is a restored modern use, not proven uninterrupted hotel continuity.
Source: Texas State Historical Association, “Magnolia Hotel (Seguin, Texas)”; Preservation Texas, “Magnolia Hotel”
All of the famous people named on the hotel’s haunted-tour site stayed there.
John Coffee Hays's 1847 marriage at the property is documented by the Texas State Historical Association. No documentary evidence was located in this research for alleged stays by Sam Houston, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, or Bonnie and Clyde.
Source: Texas State Historical Association, “Magnolia Hotel (Seguin, Texas)”; Haunted Magnolia Hotel website
A Ghost Adventures episode proves that the Magnolia Hotel is haunted.
The March 2015 Ghost Adventures episode proves that a television crew filmed an investigation at the Magnolia Hotel. It does not independently establish that any reported handprint, sound, or other event had a paranormal cause.
Source: Ghost Adventures, “Texas Horror Hotel,” Season 13, Episode 7; Apple TV episode listing
The Magnolia survived because its architectural age and its role in Seguin's frontier development made it worth saving even after the hotel business had collapsed. Its rescue was not automatic: Preservation Texas listed the building among the state's most endangered historic places in 2012, shortly before the Ghedis acquired it. The current operation combines preservation, private overnight bookings, and ghost-tour programming, creating an economic use for a layered property whose history is stronger than many of its more sensational legends.
The Magnolia property began with James Campbell's two-room log cabin in 1840. The Texas State Historical Association states that the hotel had expanded by 1844, received an adjoining concrete building by 1846, and was replaced by a larger two-story frame hotel by 1853.
The Texas State Historical Association states that Joseph F. Johnson converted James Campbell's cabin into a hotel by 1844. That date applies to the hospitality business, while the original cabin on the site dates to 1840.
Erin Wallace-Ghedi and Jim Ghedi are the current owners identified by Spectrum News, Preservation Texas, Texas Co-op Power, and Visit Seguin. They purchased the property in 2013 after it had been listed among Texas' most endangered historic places.
Yes. The Texas State Historical Association states that Texas Ranger John Coffee “Jack” Hays married Susan Calvert, daughter of owner Jeremiah S. Calvert, at the Magnolia property in 1847.
The Texas State Historical Association documents that the rock-cut cellar served as a refuge during Indian scares. The claim that it was Seguin's first jail appears in current hotel and paranormal-tour accounts, but this research found no municipal or court record confirming that formal designation.
Yes. Ghost Adventures filmed at the Magnolia Hotel for the episode “Texas Horror Hotel,” which aired March 7, 2015. The episode's existence documents the crew's visit, but its reported paranormal evidence is not independently corroborated.
203 South Crockett Street, Seguin, TX 78155
(512) 571-2706
The hotel uses separate web presences: the historic site focuses on lodging and preservation, while hauntedmagnoliahotel.com handles ghost-tour and paranormal-event bookings. Confirm the correct address, booking terms, and tour date before visiting.