The Eldridge Hotel

The Eldridge House Hotel can trace its origin back to the New England Emigrant Aid Company, which was a transportation company in Boston, Massachusetts, created after the passing of the Kansas-Nebraska act to bring anti-slavery immigrants to the Kansas Territory. The company erected a temporary way station in Lawrence for these settlers, named the Free State Hotel. On May 21, 1856, Douglas County sheriff Samuel J. Jones and a large group of pro-slavery men arrived in Lawrence and burned down the Free State Hotel as part of the Sack of Lawrence. After this disaster, the abolitionist individual Shalor Eldridge built a new hotel, which he named the Eldridge House, after himself. This structure stood until August 21, 1863, when Confederate irregular leader William Quantrill and his raiders burned the hotel, along with the city, to the ground. In 2004, the hotel was purchased by a new group of investors and completely renovated once again, restoring it "to its original 1925 grandeur." The hotel opened the following year. ==Haunted reputation==

A popular story has circulated that the ghost of Shalor Eldridge still haunts the hotel. Believers claim that, because the Eldridge House's original cornerstone is located in the room 506, Eldridge's spirit will manifest in that room. Others claim that the hotel's elevator is haunted by a spirit. A photograph taken during the 1980s purportedly depicts the ghost in the building's elevator. The Eldridge Hotel and the supposed ghost of its namesake were the partial subject of "The Demon Shadow" (2011), the first episode of the third season of the Biography Channel series My Ghost Story. The supposed haunting has also been the subject of several book chapters and book sections. ==Gallery==

Image:Sacking-lawrence.jpg|Ruins of Free State Hotel after the 1856 Sacking of Lawrence. Image:Lawrence massacre ruins.jpg|Lawrence in ruins, following Quantrill's Raid, as illustrated in ''Harper's Weekly''. The ruins of the Eldridge House are in the foreground. Image:Eldridge Hotel Lawrence KS.JPG|A contemporary view of the Eldridge Hotel, facing northwest. ==See also==