The Ione Hotel at 25 West Main Street is a Gold Rush-era lodging that began as a hotel and stagecoach depot serving miners in the early 1850s. After a fire in 1910 it was rebuilt as a single-block brick structure known as the Golden Star of Ione and operated as a hotel, restaurant, and saloon. Another fire in 1988 destroyed the building; it was later restored and reopened. The property retains a historic character with long hallways, a main staircase, and a ground-floor restaurant and saloon. No single documented mass-casualty event is uniquely tied to the current structure in contemporary records, though the surrounding Gold Country and the nearby former Preston School of Industry (Preston Castle) have their own extensive histories.
Reported Hauntings and Folklore
The most repeated claim centers on Room 13 and a spirit known as “George” (sometimes “Gregarious George”), described as a stocky, gray-haired man who appears drunk. Guests report him pulling the covers off the bed and saying “You cannot sleep here.” Some accounts add that he prefers female guests and has poured “phantom pitchers of water” over male guests. Additional stories attached to the hotel include residual sounds of a band or trumpet in the saloon, figures of miners or women of the night, and activity linked to earlier fires (including a claimed child death in one room). Local and guest accounts appear in regional ghost literature, online directories, and occasional media pieces; they are not corroborated by contemporary 19th- or early 20th-century news reports of residual phenomena. The hotel has been the subject of informal investigations and is frequently mentioned alongside the better-documented legends of nearby Preston Castle.