Photo by Gregory D. Cook
This phantom hand print on the wall of the entrance to the Farmacy Cafe in the lobby of the Padre Hotel is reported by members of the hotel’s staff to continue to reappear despite numerous attempts to remove it.
said. “When they were doing the refurbishment, there were stories of him taking workers tools and hiding them, or workers would feel someone pushing them while they worked when no one else was there … He wasn’t pleased by the new direction his hotel was going.” Miller apparently carried disdain for the Downtown Business Association in the afterlife, Prince said. “There’s a story about him pushing a member of the DBA right out the door of the building,” Prince recalled. “And it’s said that he still walks the halls of his hotel, occasionally slapping drinks from people’s hands.” Spartacus isn’t the only ghost with a room in the hotel — paranormal researchers have recorded odd bumps in the night, and ethereal voices throughout the building. And in a rare display that visitors can see daily, a child’s handprint reappears on a wall in the hotel’s lobby despite maintenance crew’s best attempts to remove it. “And no matter what they have done, repainting it all different colors, or even sanding it, it just keeps coming back,” Prince said. California Avenue and G Street Bakersfield High School is the city’s oldest high school, and with nearly 120 years of history under its belt, it has picked up its fair share of haunts and ghost stories. Long-time teacher, historian and BHS archivist Ken Hooper has heard them all. Hooper said that in recent years, ghost activity has been quiet, but that wasn’t always the case. “One night back in the 1990s, two custodians were driving across the campus in a golf cart when they noticed a man
Photo by Felix Adamo
Bakersfield High School
The Padre Hotel. Continued on page 60 bakersfieldlife.com
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