Hotel del Coronado ghost tour traces Kate Morgan's 1892 mystery

The Hotel del Coronado's nightly ghost tour walks visitors through service tunnels, a 19th-century power plant and the third-floor room where the resort's most famous ghost is said to linger.

The Haunted Happenings Tour, a 60-minute guided experience offered year-round at 7 p.m., covers at least six reported hauntings across the 1888 Victorian building, according to a Coronado Times review published Thursday, Sept. 10. Tickets cost $36.05.

The tour centers on Kate Morgan, whom the hotel's own account describes as a young woman who arrived alone in November 1892 under an assumed name. She booked a room for $3.80, which included meals and a private bellhop named Harry. Morgan returned to the front desk each day asking about someone who never came and burned personal papers in her room before her death five days later. Newspapers called her the "Beautiful Stranger" because weeks passed before anyone confirmed her identity.

Guests and staff have since reported sightings of a woman dressed in black, flickering lights and sudden temperature drops, according to the hotel.

Inside the tour

Coronado Times reviewer Kimberly Ussery, who took the tour on Sunday, Sept. 6, wrote that a "Ghost Host" led her group from the Ice House Museum into the electrical power plant. That brick-smokestack building, visible from Orange Avenue, supplied electricity to both The Del and the city of Coronado from 1887 until 1922.

From there, the tour enters a service tunnel said to be haunted by the ghosts of Chinese laborers who died during the hotel's 11-month construction. The Ghost Host described cold air, the sound of footsteps and a "shadow ghost" photo captured in the tunnel, Ussery wrote.

"It's a fun way for Coronadans to brush up on local ghost lore, plus it's a unique activity to do with guests and visitors," Ussery wrote in her review.

Morgan's third-floor room is often booked two years in advance by guests seeking a scare. The fifth floor, once home to servants and hotel managers' families, draws reports of children's footsteps, knocking and flickering lights.

The tour ends outside at the site of the former staircase where Morgan died.

If you go

When: 7 p.m. nightly, with an additional 9 p.m. tour on Saturdays. Extra Friday tours are added during Halloween season.
Where: Check in at the Ice House Museum, next to the Power Plant, 15 minutes before the tour.
Cost: $36.05
Ages: 12 and older
Reservations: Available through the Hotel del Coronado website.