The Embalming Table by the Stairs: Guthrie’s Stone Lion Inn

Reviewed by Josh N · Updated August 27, 2026 · How we verify

Six guest suites, a Victorian staircase, and an embalming table left standing where the undertakers used to work: the Stone Lion Inn in Guthrie, Oklahoma, does not hide the strangest chapters of its past. The house went up in 1907 as a private residence, spent years as a funeral parlor, and now takes bookings from travelers who arrive specifically hoping something will happen after dark. Whether anything does is another matter, and the inn’s own owner has been notably even handed about it.

What to Know Before You Book the Stone Lion Inn

• Where: Guthrie, Oklahoma, in the town’s historic core.
• Built: 1907, as a residence for the Houghton family.
• Later use: converted to a mortuary after economic reverses hit the original owners.
• Now: a bed and breakfast with six suites, reopened in 1986 by Becky Luker.
• Known for: murder mystery weekends, an embalming table near the staircase, and a long list of guest reports.

From Houghton Mansion to Guthrie Funeral Parlor

The house was built for businessman F. E. Houghton, and it was built to impress. Guthrie in that era was a town with money and ambition, and the Houghton residence reflected it. What followed is the less glamorous half of the story. Financial trouble caught up with the family, and the mansion was eventually converted into a mortuary, a common second life for large houses with wide staircases and generous parlors.

That period left a physical trace that most former funeral homes have long since scrubbed away. An embalming table still sits near the staircase. It is not a prop brought in for atmosphere but a leftover from the building’s working past, and for a lot of guests it does more work than any ghost story could.

In 1986 Becky Luker took on the property and turned it into the bed and breakfast that operates today, dividing it into six distinct suites. By her own account she came to the place skeptical. She has also acknowledged that the building generates a steady stream of experiences she cannot account for, from footsteps with no walker attached to whispering in empty rooms.

Irene, the Top Hat, and the Outlaw in Boot Hill

Three figures dominate the folklore here, and it is worth being clear about which parts are record and which parts are story.

Irene Houghton. The saddest of the tales concerns a seven year old Houghton daughter said to have died in the house in 1907 after being given an overdose of medicine while suffering from whooping cough. Guests who report a child’s presence, small footsteps, or the sense of being followed on the upper floor generally attribute it to Irene. The identification is traditional rather than proven.

F. E. Houghton. The man who commissioned the house is the figure most often described as a shadow in a Victorian top hat, glimpsed and then gone. Again, a witness sees a dark shape in period dress; the name attached to it comes from the house’s history, not from the encounter itself.

Elmer McCurdy. The strangest name in the inn’s lore belongs to a train robber whose mummified body was exhibited in carnival sideshows for decades before he was finally buried in Guthrie’s Boot Hill. His connection to the inn is a matter of local legend rather than documented residence, but he turns up regularly in accounts of the place.

The Kinds of Reports That Come Out of the House

Strip away the names and the recurring claims from guests and staff are fairly consistent: footsteps crossing floors overhead, whispered conversation with no source, doors and small objects that do not stay where they were left, and glimpsed figures at the edges of stairwells and hallways. Nothing here has been verified. What can be said is that the reports are numerous, that they are not confined to paying ghost hunters, and that the inn has never tried to talk anyone out of them.

Ghost Adventures and a Slasher Film Shoot

The inn’s reputation has carried well beyond Logan County. It has been featured on the television series Ghost Adventures, which brought it a national paranormal audience. It has also served as a filming location: the 2006 supernatural slasher Fingerprints, directed by Harry Basil and starring Leah Pipes and Kristin Cavallari, shot part of its footage at the Stone Lion Inn, which the production noted was an operating bed and breakfast at the time. The film crew worked in Oklahoma through April and May of 2006 and used other Guthrie locations too, including the train depot and the city police department with its jail cells.

Spending the Night in Guthrie’s Most Talked About B&B

This is a working inn, not a ruin or a tour-only attraction, so the way to experience it is to book a room. The house is best known for its murder mystery evenings, which fill the place with guests playing out a scripted crime, and those weekends tend to go first. Visitors who want the building quiet should ask about ordinary overnight stays instead.

Set expectations accordingly. Most guests get a night in a well preserved 1907 house in a town full of territorial-era architecture, a good breakfast, and a look at that embalming table. Some leave with a story. The Stone Lion Inn does not promise the second thing, and the honest version of its appeal is that you cannot tell in advance which kind of night you are buying.

See Stone Lion Inn for Yourself

Sources

• The Haunted Railroad Crossing
• San Antonio, Texas: Ghostly Gravity Hill
• Ghost Children upon San Antonio's Railroad Tracks
• Fingerprints (2006)
• imdb.com
• Wikipedia: Fingerprints (film)

Address: 1016 W Warner Ave

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