The Roads Hotel is on the Road to Fame! by Nathan

Welcome to Paranormal Preservation! I’m really excited, now that I have a blog where I can share the ideas I have for haunted locations like I do with other buildings I write articles for, I thought I’d start off by telling you about a very interesting haunted location that I’ve chosen for this article. This is the historic Roads Hotel located in Atlanta, Indiana, and it’s also a location that’s very well-known to ghost hunters. I first learned about it a few years back while attending a ghost convention, and have been very interested in finding out all about the activity that goes on here. I’ve also chosen the Roads Hotel for this article because it’s also on my list of haunted locations that are still look very much the same way they did over 100 years ago, so that’s a really special honor. According the history, the hotel was built in 1893 by Newton Roads and his wife Clara, and it was originally meant to house those flocking to East Central Indiana during the natural gas boom in the late 1800s. Newton and Clara Roads operated the hotel with their daughter Hazel, and their son Everett, but tragedy soon struck. In 1909, the family’s son Everett passed away in the hotel of tuberculosis, he was only 19 years old. Newton Roads himself passed away in the hotel in 1926, as well as his wife and stepmother. But the stories apparently don’t end there, the Roads Hotel was also a layover stop for the railroad around that time, and saw a wide variety of guests, including famous criminals such as John Dillinger and Al Capone when it was converted into a brothel and a speakeasy during Prohibition. The hotel was then converted into apartments, which it remained until it was purchased by new owners and reopened as hotel. The Roads was also added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987, and is now known as one of Indiana’s most haunted locations. Since I have a passion for not only ghost hunting, but historic preservation I can tell you right now that I’m absolutely amazed with how the hotel has managed to remain the way it has for so long. I’ve always had a belief that paranormal activity is likely to increase even more when a location is still exactly the way it was back then, and this place is almost perfectly preserved from the way that I see it. There are however just a couple of very small things that I would consider having done to bring this building entirely back to it original appearance, so now I’ll go ahead and share them with you. After comparing the hotel to the photographs I’ve uploaded with this article, I think one of the most obvious things I would consider taking care of is reinstalling the exterior wood trims on the hotel’s front porch which you can clearly see are not there anymore. It already amazes me enough to know that hotel’s original wooden porch is still intact and strong like ever before, but I really don’t think removing the ground floor trims was a good idea. If possible, I would have the trims rebuilt onto the posts or reinstall the original ones if they still have them. Another thing that I’d like to recommend also involves the porch as well. If you take a close looks at the vintage photograph of the hotel on the left up above, you can see that the porch had at one time wrapped around to a side entrance creating an almost patio sized length. I think the porch would look spectacular if it was expanded to meet that same length again. It was also very clear to me that the porch’s current foundation is built of bricks and concrete, but the original was clearly made of wooden clapboards. I would probably have the old wooden clapboard porch reinstalled to the building if it can happen, so that it’s more historically accurate. Despite these few things, there pretty much isn’t anything else I would consider changing, and that means that I find the hotel to still be very much as it was back then. If these few small things were taken care of, then the hotel would be even more accurately preserved in its original appearance. Plus, as one of Indiana’s most haunted locations, I know that no matter what happens, the Roads Hotel will always continue to draw the attention of ghost hunted from all around. Hopefully this blog will eventually do the same thing, and get more haunted locations all over the US, more popular, preserved, and well-protected for a long time. Until next time, be sure to keep visiting Paranormal Preservation, the place where haunting will always have their highlights!