Congress Plaza Hotel, Chicago: Room 441 and the Real Story Behind Its Ghosts

Two deaths behind the ghost stories are on record. The Chicago Tribune reported in 1900 that an army officer, Capt. Louis Ostheim, was found shot in his room on the eve of his wedding, and in August 1939 the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that a Czech Jewish refugee, Adele Langer, had fallen from a 13th-floor window of a Chicago hotel with her two sons.

The hauntings are folklore told by ghost tours and retold by the press, with one named witness: a long-serving security guard who told CBS Chicago he'd seen the boy. Room 441's reputation is recent, according to Chicago historian Neil Gale, and nothing links it to Stephen King. The story of a sealed Room 1252 rests on one unreliable list.

The Langer family

The hotel's saddest story is true, though usually told with the wrong date. On August 3, 1939, Adele Langer, a Czech Jewish refugee whose six-month visa was running out, fell to her death from a 13th-floor window with her sons Karel, 6, and Jan, 4. A letter offering the family refuge in Canada arrived too late, and the deaths moved President Roosevelt to promise that refugees' visas would be extended. Ghost tours say a small boy in knee pants is seen in the halls of the North Tower. A security guard of about 30 years, named only as John, told CBS Chicago he had seen him.

Room 441

Guests in Room 441 report a dark female figure who wakes them from the foot of the bed, shakes them or pulls at the covers. Patch reported in 2017 that it gets more calls to security and the front desk than any other room, though no death is recorded there. Chicago's tourism bureau calls it a frequently requested room. Historian Neil Gale says its reputation is recent, spread by tour companies; an older story about a "Room 666" concerned what the hotel says is a storage closet.

The shadow man

In April 1900 Capt. Louis Ostheim of the U.S. Artillery was found shot dead in his room at the Auditorium Annex on the eve of his wedding. Shadow figures said to step out of closets have been linked to him, but the link is a historian's guess.

Peg Leg Johnny

A one-legged man, said to have been murdered in the alley before the hotel was built, is blamed for flickering lights and electronics. There's no record of who he was.

The ballrooms

In the Gold Room, staff and tours tell of a woman in Victorian dress and a hand reaching from the wall behind the balcony; in the Florentine Room, of a piano playing itself and the sound of roller skates.

What doesn't hold up

Room 441 is often said to have inspired Stephen King's story "1408," but King has never named the hotel. Room 1252 is said to have been sealed for being too haunted, but the only source we found is a 2023 BuzzFeed list that also gets the Langer story's year wrong. Stories that Al Capone kept a suite and H.H. Holmes hunted victims in the lobby have no evidence behind them.

The Auditorium Annex

The hotel opened in 1893 as the Auditorium Annex, built to house visitors to the World's Columbian Exposition. It stood across Michigan Avenue from Adler & Sullivan's Auditorium Building, linked to it by an underground marble passage known as Peacock Alley.

The Congress Hotel

Holabird & Roche added towers in 1902 and 1907, and by 1908 it had been renamed the Congress Hotel, with more than 1,000 rooms. It became known as the "Home of Presidents"; Theodore Roosevelt stayed during the 1912 Republican convention. During the Second World War the government bought it for the Army Air Forces.

The longest strike

Albert Nasser Shayo has owned the hotel since 1987. In June 2003 about 130 workers went on strike over a proposed pay cut; the strike lasted until May 2013, one of the longest hotel strikes on record, and ended without a contract. A 2012 sale fell through. The hotel is part of the Historic Michigan Boulevard District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2002.