The Driskill Hotel History
On July 4 of 1885, the first cornerstone was laid for the new Driskill Hotel.
The artesian well? That was Reason Number One as to why Colonel Driskill decided that The Driskill Hotel should be built at Sixth and Brazos Streets. He believed that constructing a hotel on top would provide a hotel’s water supply for many years to come.
More importantly, Driskill was convinced that Sixth Street was on the verge of a revival period. (Easy enough for Driskill since he was behind the revitalization efforts.)
Despite the overturn from Driskill to McIlhenny, The Driskill remained a hot spot for local Austinites.
The first floor of The Driskill was geared toward entertaining gamblers, cattle ranchers, and other blue-collar folks in the hotel’s billiard room or saloon. The first floor also housed a barbershop, drugstore, and bank.
The Sixth Street entrance was exclusive to the more upscale patron. This entrance provided a direct hallway to the main elevator, bringing these genteel folk up to the Mezzanine level.
The Mezzanine level was the place to be. It offered luxurious amenities like a dining room, multiple dressing rooms, parlors, and apartments, as well as an exclusive club dining room.
You know you’re spooky when there are books written about your property’s poltergeists. From Samantha the Child Specter to phantom cigars, The Driskill may be Austin’s Most Haunted Hotel. Our tour guide Monica Ballard wrote the book on the Driskill Ghosts
Was the Driskill Built on haunted land?
Before Sixth Street existed, this arid part of the state belonged to the Native American tribes who inhabited the area. According to local legend, one of the most culturally essential springs sat where you can find Sixth and Brazos Streets today.
Much like the one The Driskill was erected upon, the artesian well was considered hallowed ground.
The Apache, Tonkawas, and the Comanche all treated the artesian well as one of the most sacred places within their respective cultures. Each believed that water has the ability to contain both willing and unwilling spirits.
Sixth and Brazos functioned as the apex of the various streams that ran through this part of Central Texas, perhaps explaining the hotel’s hauntings.
Who haunts the Driskill Hotel?
Colonel Jesse Driskill
The hotel’s namesake, Colonel Driskill, is another resident poltergeist.
When Driskill owned the hotel, he was known for standing in the lobby to make small talk with the hotel’s guests. His lips were always billowing cigar smoke.
Even though the hotel is non-smoking, many claim to still catch the scent of cigars.
Could this be the specter of Colonel Driskill?
On one occasion, a security guard was working overtime when he caught the strong scent of a cigar. Leaning over the balcony to see if he could catch the culprit, he heard a male voice behind him say, “Got a match?”
He whipped around to find that he was utterly alone. Rumor has it that the security guard was so disturbed by the experience he quit.
Who was Colonel Driskill?
Depending on whom you ask, Colonel Jesse Driskill was either an ambitious man or a reckless risk-taker. Born 1824 in Tennessee, Driskill moved to Missouri at 23.
Yet Driskill sought adventure and perhaps more opportunity than what Missouri had to offer. Four years later, he moved his family to Bastrop, Texas.
It was then that Driskill first went into the merchandising business. By 1857, he’d dived full steam into the cattle business.
During the first three years of the Civil War, his cattle business personally sent beef to both the Confederate Army and the Texas Rangers. That meant Driskill was paid in Confederate dollars, so he was completely broke by the war’s end.
The Colonel from Tennessee was once more forced to rebuild from scratch. Through hard work and determination, Driskill slowly climbed the financial ladder again – only to have everything shatter in 1871 when business nosedived.
This time around, Driskill picked up his family and moved them to Austin. He built cattle ranches in Kansas and the Dakota territories and rebuilt his fortune for yet another time.
By the time Jesse Driskill decided to construct Austin’s first opulent hotel, he’d once again amassed a massive fortune. The Driskill’s foundation sat upon an entire city block and cost the good Colonel a sum of $7,500.
Since history repeats itself, the Driskill family lost their entire fortune again in 1888. Within months, Driskill was forced to sell the hotel to S.E. McIlhenny.
Learn more on the Original Austin Ghost Tour
The suicide story
While hotels are notoriously known for welcoming anything within their walls, it’s always a shock to discover the unexpected.
In the early 1980s, The Driskill’s staff experienced such a shock.
As the story goes a Houston socialite learned some devastating news in the early 1980s: her fiance was calling off their wedding. The whys and the hows are to history, but the socialite decided that anything was better than crying at home.
She would rather do the crying somewhere else – The Driskill.
She promptly called the hotel and booked herself a five-day stay. After checking in, she made a quick stop by the bar and ordered herself a diet soda. Then, she decided that a shopping spree was in order.
In a matter of hours, she spent a whopping $40,000 – all of which she put on her fiance’s credit card. When she returned to The Driskill, it was with shopping bags galore. They hung from her arms, and those that she couldn’t carry, she’d instructed the shops to deliver them to the hotel.
With nary a word to the employees, the socialite whirred past them and took the elevator to her room. Allegedly, one of the housekeepers caught a glimpse of the socialite’s heartbroken expression and took it upon herself to give the younger woman a ring on the guest room’s phone.
“Please let me know if you need anything,” the housekeeper told the socialite.
But there was nothing that the housekeeper could do to mend a broken heart. The socialite hung a Do Not Disturb sign on the doorknob and quietly shut the door.
When the housekeeper noticed the sign, she quickly rushed back to the employee desk and called the socialite’s room. There was no answer. Panic seized her, and minutes later, she found herself knocking on the socialite’s room door. Again, no response.
The manager attempted to unlock the door with the master key but to no avail. The socialite had locked the door from the inside. There was nothing to be done but to take the door off its hinges.
The door was removed, and the housekeeper rushed forth – but the reflection of the socialite in the mirror stopped her dead in her tracks.
The socialite had taken a pillow from the bed and proceeded into the bathroom. There, she clamped the pillow against her stomach to muffle any sound before she shot herself through the stomach. By the time management arrived, there was nothing to be done.
Her body lay half in the bathtub, lifeless.
Read more in Austin Ghost Tours owner‘s book Haunted Austin!
The Truth Behind the Tragedy
Did this happen? Perhaps not. Police reports indicate that Tara, the Houston “socialite,” was not so much of a socialite.
Instead of the thousands that she charged to her fiance’s card, Tara instead purchased beer, hard liquor, a carton of smokes, and a People magazine. She set herself up in her hotel room at The Driskill, drank herself almost to death, and then grabbed her newly purchased revolver.
The report claims that she would have certainly died from alcohol poisoning if she had not died from a self-inflicted gunshot.
Haunted Rooms and Hallways
Of all the stories we have collected from the Driskill staff, some of our favorites come from managers and security. These people, after all, are the skeptics who join the staff and are warned by others on the force, not just about the ghosts, but the would be ghost hunters who wander the hotel in the wee hours in search of their own firsthand encounters. Security and management are there to make sure the guests remain undisturbed and that the customers stay safe, but I don’t know if dealing with the paranormal is included in the training manual. Usually, the new employees are on staff for about 3 weeks. When, as one new manager put it, they are welcomed by the hotel.
One recent addition to the security staff shared his story with the owner of Austin Ghost Tours, Jeanine. He told of when he had first started working at the Driskill. He was in the hotel late at night and approached a staff area that can only be assessed by a keypad. As he came down the hall, he thought, I hope I remember my code correctly. The light was dim by the keypad. But when his hand reached for the pad, the lights on either side of the door brightened enough for him to put in his code and open the door. ”That was odd”, he thought to himself as he entered the employee only area. On the other side of the door, he passed a young lady walking out and said, ”How are you”? Just to be courteous. ”Fine, have a good night”, she responded before exiting. ”Should I tell her about the door and how the lights brightened”? The new security man thought for a split second. ”Why would I tell her that”? And then it hit him. ”Who was that”? He dashed back out the door and peered into the empty bar. No one. He leaned over the railing to the lobby and asked the front desk staff if they had seen anyone. No. Here’s what weirds me out then anything else, he told Jeanine as part of security, I may forget your name, but I’m trained to remember faces. This woman’s face is a total blank to me. All I remember was that she was wearing a long dress. That alone should have struck me as strange, but it didn’t at the time. I was a total skeptic before that night. Not any more.
The chandelier lights.
I ( tour guide Monica) recall leading a large group into an unusually hectic lobby one night while giving an Austin Ghost Tour
Looking around in dismay about where I was going to park 25 people and be heard, my eyes met one of the nighttime security guards, and he immediately understood my plight. Nodding me to one side, he unlocked the beautiful and empty Crystal Room, so named for the crystal chandeliers originally lit by gas. The first hotel opened in 1886. It was amazingly quiet in there, and many of my guests took the opportunity to sit on the carpeted floor for our final stories.
Naturally, I opened with how excited I was that the book was soon to be released. But a few sentences in, I paused, head tilted down a little. I apologize to my group and went on to explain. “Sorry, but as I was talking about my book coming out, I heard what sounds like dry leaves swirling around my feet. But I guess that must have only been me.”
A guest over to my right said “I heard it, but thought it was just around me.”
“I heard it too”, a gentleman in the back of the room by the door offered. “But it sounded like it was only around my feet.”
The Driskill Hotel Over the Years
For over a century, The Driskill has hosted countless inaugural balls for Texas governors, including Sul Ross, William P. Hobby, and Dan Moody. Yet it’s most famous for President Lyndon B. Johnson.
This is where the former President Lyndon B. Johnson awaited to learn if he’d been successful during his 1948 Senate run (he was); his 1960 election to the office of Vice President (another win); and, lastly, he’d camped out on the Mezzanine-level’s Jim Hogg room while waiting to hear if he’d been elected President in 1964.
With 189 guest rooms, this Austin hotel was made a member of The Historic Hotels of America. It remains one of the nation’s most opulent hotels.
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