The Stone Lion Inn

10/4/2005 - 7-25-2015

General Information

Investigators: Christy, Kathy, Ashley, Cyrena, Gary and Curtis

Equipment used: DVR, (5) IR video cameras, personal audio recorders, digital cameras, geophone, and various EMF meters

This webpage is dedicated to a multitude of investigations that our team has conducted over ten years time investigating the Stone Lion Inn.

OKPRI's Movie Documentary

Stone Lion Inn

TAPS and OKPRI at the

Stone Lion Inn

Initial Client Interview:

This location is a currently a business, used as a bed and breakfast year round. In the beginning of it's initial start, the owner, Becky Luker and her 2 sons lived in this location up on the 3rd floor for a few years. Becky has had a few different staff workers throughout the years and they all have had various strange experiences while working there at the Stone Lion Inn. Some of these experiences include:

Seeing the ghost of a man, child and different women throughout the location.
Things move on their own throughout the location.
Disembodied voices are heard in various parts of the house.
Shadows are seen throughout the home.
The smell of a burning cigar is smelled in the front living room.
Knocking sounds are heard.
Footsteps are heard throughout the location.
Guests have reported feeling touched by something unseen.
Guests feel like they are being watched throughout the inn.
Guests have often gotten up and left in the middle of the night due to strange paranormal activity.

There have been 1 documented death in this location (Mr. Houghton.) . The Houghton's young daughter, Irene is thought to have died of whooping cough in the home and/or in the old family home next to the Stone Lion Inn, but there is no records that verify/document this claim.

Historical/Factual/Relevant Info:

The Stone Lion Inn: Originally built in 1907, the year of statehood, by F.E. Houghton, the founder of Cotton Oil Company and owner of the first car dealership in Oklahoma. The Houghton’s started out in a little house that once sat on the vacant lot next door on the East side of the Inn. Although this little house is no longer there, the Houghton’s lived in it until they had their 6th child and needed more living space. 1906 they began construction on this home completing it in 1907 at a cost of $11,900.00 which at that time was a great deal of money since the average home at that time was being built for between $800.00 and $1200.00. In 1907, the Houghton’s new home was the most expensive house built in Guthrie, Oklahoma. The home is 8,000 square feet on 4 levels, each level being 2,000 square feet.

For a long time though, many paranormal investigators and various people, including the owner of the Stone Lion Inn, Becky Luker, believed that it was the Houghton's daughter's named Augusta that died of the whooping cough when she was 7-8. It was believed that this little girl was one of the main ones to haunt the Stone Lion Inn. This "legendary ghost" has been written up in countless numbers of newspapers and magazines and multiple television news stories have been done on her.

The truth however and found through our research while investigating the Stone Lion Inn is that it wasn't Augusta but rather another child named Irene who was around the same age. She was found on the 1900 census but not the 1910 census indicating her death. The Houghton family members have also come into contact with Becky and have confirmed the story of their little sister who died of whooping cough. Evidence of little Irene haunting the Stone Lion Inn has been proven by many different individuals who have visited the Inn.

Interview with owner, Becky Luker:

"When she was 8-years-old, she contracted whooping cough and what is believed to have happened is that, the maid overmedicated her with cough syrup and she died," explains Becky Luker.

Luker purchased the Stone Lion Inn in 1986 and converted the house into the first bed and breakfast in Oklahoma. While converting the house, Luker and her family lived upstairs on the 3rd floor. Luker says Augusta, on several occasions, has visited her family. "My younger

son's toy closet would be played in and his toys would be scattered around," Luker says.

In the 1920’s the house was leased to Smith’s Funeral Home and became a mortuary. The Smiths lived upstairs and the embalming as done in the kitchen.

Later Mr. Houghton fell into bad health and believed to have died in the downstairs room just off of the kitchen area. After his death, Mrs. Houghton fell upon hard times and rented some of the rooms of the Stone Lion Inn out to people needing housing.

The Stone Lion Inn remained in the family for a long time. All of the Houghton children were elderly when they put it up for sale.

Since Luker's purchase of the Stone Lion Inn in 1986, she converted the house into the first bed and breakfast in Oklahoma. The Stone Lion Inn is most known for its Murder Mystery Weekends which it does every Friday and Saturday night.

Luker says, "Many guests report that they're awakened in the night between 2:00 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. They're awakened when a small child comes into the room and pats them on the cheek, but when they come to full wakefulness, there's no one there."

"We also hear a woman's laughter sometimes around 4:00 a.m. upstairs," says Becky Luker. "On a number of occasions we've had guests who have heard something or were frightened by something and have gotten up and left. Something has remained of someone who has not moved on."

The Stone Lion Inn has six guest suites with private baths. 4 suits have sitting rooms and claw-footed bathtubs. Becky Luker has also restored all the original oak woodwork, paneling in the dining room and beautiful staircase. There are 3 fireplaces, 8 bathrooms, 6 bedrooms, 2 dining rooms, 5 sitting rooms and an apartment on the 3rd. floor. The historical home is 4 levels with each level being 2000 square feet.

us. They took us up on our offer and arrived at the location on Feb. 15th 2006 to investigate and film with Sci-Fi for their show Ghosthunters.

The filming took place over a two day period consisting of 13 hour days for filming. The TAPS team was a lot of fun to work with and we enjoyed our time with them on set.

TAPS was also able to verify a true haunting taking place at this location. They were able to capture and record true paranormal evidence that also consisted of the claims of Becky and her guests. The show with OKPRI and TAPS was first aired on May 17th, 2006.

The Houghton’s moved into the house in 1907 and proceeded to have 6 more children. All of the 12 children survived childhood except for one daughter, who died either before the Houghton's moved into the Stone Lion Inn or shortly after they moved into the Stone Lion Inn.

It is said that the Houghton's had a maid and when their little daughter became sick, the nurse accidentally over medicated her with cough syrup. At the time, cough syrup contained opium which ultimately led her death. She was around 7-8 years old at the time. There are historical records that report that the young female child did indeed die, but there are no mentions of her name or any other information that can tell us anymore about her.

Our group has known for a long time about the Stone Lion Inn and it’s rumors of being haunted by little eight year old Augusta Houghton. We decided back in October of 2005 to do a full investigation of the location so we got into contact with the owner, Becky Luker, who graciously agreed to let us come in and investigate the Inn. We had the chance to visit with Becky for quite a while and she told us many stories about things that had happened there at the Stone Lion Inn, including stories about her weekend guests who have been frightened away in the middle of the night. Becky is a wonderful writer and story teller and we thoroughly enjoyed our visit with her.

After our group had conducted a few investigations at the Stone Lion Inn, we invited our friends at TAPS to come over and do an investigation there with

Investigation Report

Since the Stone Lion Inn was such a big place, we wanted to make sure that we investigated the location thoroughly. We decided to do a walk through of the Inn to make sure that we knew all areas of the location, in order to set up equipment, etc. It was still early in the evening hours, around 6:45pm when we entered the 3rd floor. The third floor is an open room with 4 platform alcoves that are on each of the 4 sides of the room, next to the windows. We were looking around and Christy happened to open one of the doors that led to a single bathroom. She assumed that some of the other members would want to take a look inside the bathroom, so she just pushed the door too, but didn’t close it. At this time, everyone else was on the other side of the room as they had not made their way around towards where the door was. Christy took about 10 steps away from the door and stopped to look around the room.

All the sudden we heard a door slam LOUDLY! We all stopped talking and exploring the attic and said, “What was that?” Christy turned to look towards the door and saw that the bathroom door had slammed closed. Unfortunately we didn’t have the camcorder going, but we did have the audio recorder going and captured that on audio. We tried to go back and recreate the door slamming, but were not able to. The door had to be physically pushed shut, so it wouldn’t close like that on its own. We found this out when we tried to recreate it.

Also on the 2nd floor when we were doing sweeps one room which connects to a smaller nursery room, we had set down our K-11 meter on a trunk chest that was at the foot of the bed. It was about 30 seconds after the K-11 was placed on the chest that it started activating. Christy immediately wanted to see if she could find a source for the EMF activation so she tried to open up the trunk, but could not get it open because it was locked. Later on when reviewing her audio, Christy heard what sounded like a woman’s voice saying, “It’s locked” around the same time that she was trying to unlock the trunk.

At one particular investigation at this location, we were upstairs on the top floor getting ready to start a sit-down. Since the client's claims were that the little ghost girl played up on the 3rd floor, we decided to get a doll to set up a little experiment. Christy and another team member went downstairs to the 2nd floor to get a doll out of one of the rooms. After they left the room with the doll and headed down the hallway to the 3rd floor staircase, they heard loud footsteps behind them. They turned to look behind them but they didn't see anyone. They did feel like they were being followed however so they quickly made their way up the stairs to join the rest of the team.

Another strange incident that occurred was when our team was eating dinner in the dining room area of the home. There was a replica Egyptian sarcophagus that was in the hallway. It faced forward towards the front entrance. After a few minutes, we looked up to see the sarcophagus facing into the dining room as if it were looking at us. Everyone os us were in the dining room and no one had gotten up to move the sarcophagus. It had simply moved on its own. We got up to move the sarcophagus back and noticed that it would be hard to move without it making any noise. We recalled the event and knew that none of us had heard any sound when the sarcophagus moved.

Another strange incident happened to one of our group members. She was up on the 2nd floor and happened to be looking towards a room at the end of the hallway. This room had frosted glass windows and has been known to be an active room. Ashley happened to see a shadow that caught her eye. She described this shadow to be the size of a child and it passed from one side of the frosted glass to the other side and then disappeared. Ashley went to go see if there was anyone in the room but she found no one in there. She didn't have a logical explanation for what she had just witnessed. Shadow phenomenon has been reported before by many people who have visited the Stone Lion Inn.

Ashley and Gary had another strange experience in the building. We were conducting a sweep of the basement area. After we finished, we all started heading up the servants staircase to go up to the 1st floor. As Ashley was about 3/4 the way up the stairs, she felt a bucket hit her in the leg. Gary was behind her and saw the bucket come off the wall and hit Ashley's leg. We had asked Ashley if she had accidentally bumped the bucket while going up the stairs. She said no because she was holding on to the side rail that was on the right side of the staircase so she wasn't close to the left side of the wall.

Another time our team was on the first floor in the main living room. We were conducting a sit-down. We heard footsteps in the entrance hallway and then a female voice was heard saying, "heeeeyyyyy." (Hey drawn out.) Not every team member heard it but those that did said it was very loud and clear. A couple of our team members got up to look in the entrance of the hallway and up the stairs but nothing was seen.

While our group was investigating on the second floor, a few of us heard what sounded like a clinking sound coming from one of the rooms. We went into each of the rooms and began searching for the source of the sound. We found a metal type bowl in one of the rooms and after tapping and flicking it, we were able to recreate the sound. During the time that we were trying to figure out the source of the sound, Gary and Curtis heard one heavy "boot step" coming from the hallway area. At this same time, Gary and Curtis commented about how they had all hairs standing up on edge.

Despite looking for the source of the sound, our group could not find a logical explanation for it. The sound of footsteps being heard is one of the claims.

Christy had a couple of unique experiences too while on the second floor. She was coming out of the "red room" and around the corner into the wedding suite when she saw a black silhouette of a woman sitting in the middle of the bed. There were outside lights shining into the room and through the window that the bed was sitting up against so Christy could see the shadow well. This silhouette startled Christy as she did not expect to see the woman right as she walked into the room.

We have captured several photos from this location that we believe are paranormal in nature. We did however come up with a very interesting photo that might possibly be the ghost of little Irene Houghton. We were down in the basement area investigating. Christy felt like someone was watching her so she started taking pictures of the area behind her. In one of the windows, there appears to be the image of a little girl. Since judging photos of images taken in windows is a bit harder, our group couldn't really agree on if this one was paranormal or not. Take a look at the photo below and see what you think.

In the past our group has witnessed a lot of other paranormal type activity. Over the past 10 years we have seen, heard and have captured a lot of evidence to say this place is haunted. We will list some of our past recorded evidence below.

Below are some photographs that our group has captured while investigating at the Stone Lion Inn.

Conclusion:

Our team feels like the Stone Lion Inn has many ghosts there from it's past. We do believe the little Houghton girl is there and several spirits from when it was a funeral home. We do feel like the spirits there are territorial to the location as well as protective of the location. We personally have counted at least 4 different ghosts there within the walls of the Stone Lion Inn. They are not harmful, but are just territorial and protective of the old historical home.

Psychic Investigator’s Comments

The Stone Lion Inn will always be one of my most favorite and most memorable places ever to investigate. I have a lot of people who ask me what I feel is one of the more haunted places in Oklahoma. I will always tell them the Stone Lion Inn. The home has a different feel to it during the day than it does at night. Once the sun goes down and once it gets dark, it seems like the old house comes alive with many tricks up its

own sleeve so to speak. I have encountered 4 different ghosts there in the Stone Lion. One is that of Edward. I encountered him down in the basement area on my initial investigation there. He told me that he favored cigars and had died of lung cancer. He was brought into the Stone Lion Inn when it was a funeral home. He did not want to leave this world as he loved living life. He was quite fond of the Stone Lion Inn too so he decided to stay and reside there. Edward can and does get bored from time to time and he likes to mess with females that visit the Stone Lion. He likes to play with their hair and he likes to come up on them catching them off guard and giving them a bit of a startle. I always bring Edward a cigar when I visit the Stone Lion Inn to help him play nice when we are there! ha ha

I have encountered the little girl before. She has never told me her name, but she did tell me she lived there once. She is fond of dolls and little tea sets. She does like to follow us around when we are there. She has said that sometimes she gets really lonely so she likes it when people come to visit the Stone Lion Inn.

There is a young woman there too. She has long dark hair and always appears really said. I feel like she suffers from some depression. She did tell me her name was Elizabeth and she has lost someone very close to her. She also said that her family was not very happy with her and they didn't want to have anything to do with her. She said her sister was the only one who would accept her. It felt to me like this young lady had gotten pregnant out of wedlock a long time ago and she had lost her baby and was outcasted by her family. She came into the Stone Lion Inn when it was a funeral home but she didn't tell me how she died.

Last but not least, there is an older woman there named Sara. Sara is kinda grumpy and she is very possessive about the Stone Lion. She acts like a caretaker for the old home and if there is something that happens that she doesn't like, she will let you know about it. We have caught her voice on our audio and have witnessed her throwing things. She died of natural causes and was brought into the Stone Lion Inn when it was a funeral home.

Below is an article the Daily Oklahoman wrote us up on for our investigation there at the Stone Lion Inn.

While investigating in this same room, Christy happened to see a shadow in the doorway of the small room just beside the Wedding Suite. The shadow appeared to be about 5'10 in height and was just a black shadow that was quickly in the doorway and then was gone again. Unique to this room is the claims about a long dark-haired woman who is often seen coming out of one of the closets.

evidence collected

There were 8 EVPs that was recorded during this investigation and 3 sound clips.

There were 7 photos and several video clips.