Hotel del Coronado Ghost

Informant: Meagan is a 23-year-old screenwriter, born and raised in San Diego. She is an active member of various ghosthunting and cryptid-related groups, although she admits that she is not sure if she fully believes in them. The Hotel del Coronado is a hotel on Coronado Island famous for being haunted.

Main Piece:
Informant: “This is what I remember: Kate and Tom Morgan were a married couple in the late 1800s. They were con artists. One day, they checked into the Hotel del Coronado. Tom was supposed to meet Kate, but she didn’t show up…because she was dead. They found her in Room 302, and now she haunts that room and the halls.”

Interviewer: How did she die?

Informant: “Nobody knows. Some historians say it was suicide, some say it was disease, and some say she was murdered by her husband. But nobody really knows.”

Background Information about the Performance: The informant first heard this piece from tour guides when visiting the hotel. After seeking more information online, she visited the Hotel del Coronado again with a friend and had an experience with the ghost, in which she saw it in the mirror and felt as though she had been scratched by it.

Context of Performance: The piece is told both by tour guides around the Hotel del Coronado and by members of various San Diego-based ghost hunter groups.

Thoughts: I know of this piece from visiting the Hotel del Coronado, but I have never experienced ghostly activity myself. I was also unaware of the background of the piece, knowing only that the hotel is haunted. The Hotel del Coronado promotes this haunting, and is part of various haunted house tours based in San Diego.