The Thomas House Hotel
The Thomas House hotel sits atop a small hill in Red Boiling Springs TN, a small town in the middle of nowhere northern Tennessee, USA. My friend and I had been planning this ghost hunting weekend trip for a few months, so we were excited to hit the road. Coming from Nashville, it was about an hour and a half drive. Neither of us had ever done something like this before, so we had no idea what to expect, but we were very excited. My stomach did a flip as we pulled up to the hotel. It was mid-November , so the combination of this isolated old hotel and the dark fall evening immediately created an ominous vibe. The below photos were taken the next morning, and yes, there are some cheesy Halloween decorations still up.
When we opened the door, I couldn’t have been more pleased. The décor was exactly as I hoped; haunted rural grandparent . I could describe it, but I’d rather show it. The first photo shows exactly what you see upon entering.
Check-in was from 4 pm-7 pm, and we arrived around 6:30; just enough time to find our room and take a shot of vodka before the evening's events began. At 7, we all gathered in the dining room, and Chad, our host, welcomed us all (about 25 of us) and told us what we could expect from this overnight ghost adventure. Next, we were served a DELICIOUS buffet-style meal that was made in-house. I distinctly remember pot roast and a warm apple crumble that was to die for. As we ate, a documentary about the hotel’s sordid past and the Thomas House episode of “Ghost Hunters” were projected onto a large screen.
Once dinner was over, we split up into three groups. Each group had a guide and we would take turns ghost hunting in three different locations in the hotel: the Séance room, the east wing, and the west wing. During this portion of the evening, all the lights in the hotel were turned off. My group started in the east wing which was the hallway where our room was located. We all found a spot to sit and some of the more experienced ghost hunters set up some equipment. Once we were settled, Chad began trying to communicate with spirits. We were dead silent as he asked questions like “Is anyone here?” “Can you give us a sign?”. He whistled to see if we could get a whistle back and then knocked on the wall to see if we could get a knock back. Unfortunately, we were unable to get any spirits to communicate. The photos below are the east wing hallway and the room where we stayed.
Our next location was the seance room. We all filed downstairs in the pitch dark to a room with a table and chairs set up with an Ouija board. This session pretty much ran the same way except one of the guides brought out a spirit box; a piece of ghost hunting equipment where spirits can supposedly communicate through manipulating radio waves. We asked it some questions and got some responses but I don’t remember exactly what they said. Frankly, I wasn’t too interested in the spirit box (I think they’re a bunch of baloney) and I was getting annoyed. I would’ve rather played with the ouija board.
Lastly, we ventured back upstairs to the west wing hallway. This was the only area in the hotel where I immediately felt like there was potential for an otherworldly presence. We started this session much like the others and all got very quiet as Chad began to ask the spirits to communicate with us. And then….something happened. Chad let out whistle, and through the deafening silence I heard a very faint whistle back. And I didn’t just hear it, our entire group heard it. We all started freaking out! It was so cool. Okay, now I feel like I should explain something real quick. We were not alone in the hotel, the owner lived in an apartment on the bottom floor, and of course there were two other groups of ghost hunters in the hotel, and possibly still some kitchen staff around cleaning up from dinner. It’s very possible this whistle was man-made. But the weird thing to me is that it felt like it came from somewhere….in-between? I don’t even know how to explain it. It sounded like it came from somewhere between my mind creating a whistling sound in my head, to actually hearing one far off in the distance. I don’t know if that makes sense, I’m also not convinced this was an actual ghost whistle, I just know what I heard and it was really fun to experience regardless. Below is the hallway where we heard the whistle.
The formal ghost tour was now over and we were given the opportunity to hunt ghosts on our own for the remainder of the evening. The lights were kept off except in certain places like the dining room where we were given hot dogs, chips, and other snacks to get us through the night. My friend and I took a light approach to the rest of the evening and just kind of looked around and chatted with other groups. We also explored outside a bit but the frigid temperature made that short lived. Other more hard core ghost hunting groups went back into the seance room and were playing with the Ouija board.
The next morning felt like I was back in college and catching up with my roommates after a big night out. There was this sort of exhausted yet wired and buzzing energy in the air. Everyone was excitedly sharing about their experiences and showing each other videos and pictures of paranormal activity they captured. A couple told us about some drama that happened with another group in the middle of the night that resulted in the cops showing up in the early morning hours. Breakfast was served from 8am to 10am and checkout was at 11:00. We took the opportunity to take some pics of the unoccupied rooms since a lot of folks had checked out early.
Would I recommend this overnight ghost hunt? 100 % yes. Absolutely, I would do it again. At the time of our stay, we paid $100.00 per person, with the food included, which was a great value for how much fun it was and all the work the team and staff put into it. They host these weekends a lot, there’s almost one every weekend, which tells me that this is how they make their money. I doubt there’s much business for an outdated hotel in the middle of nowhere TN, so please do this wonderful locale a favor and come stay the night and hunt some ghosts. You’ll have a blast, have some laughs, and maybe meet a ghost or two if you’re lucky.
Have you stayed at The Thomas House Hotel? Let me know your experience in the comments below. Stay spooky my friends ☠️