Even Tough NBA Players Are Terrified Of OKC’s Haunted Skirvin Hotel

No conversation about Oklahoma this time of year can escape the most legendary OKC ghost story.

Ask anyone about the Skirvin Hotel, you’re going to get two very different answers. Some people will tell you it’s a nice, high-end place to stay in downtown... But everyone else will tell you it is legitimately haunted.

Here's the quick backstory to catch you up.

The hotel opened in 1911 during a big oil boom, and for a long time, it was where all the rich oil guys, politicians, and celebrities stayed when they were in OKC. But the ghost story everyone sort of remembers starts later during Prohibition, and it centers on a maid named Effie.

The Legend Of Effie

The story goes that Old Man Skirvin had an affair with Effie, and she ended up pregnant. To avoid a huge public scandal, Skirvin locked her in a room on the top floor of the hotel.

She wasn't allowed to leave, and nobody was allowed to see her. And after months of isolation, she found her breaking point.

Effie grabbed her newborn baby shortly after giving birth and jumped out the window.

As the ghost story goes, the legend says Effie never left the building.

Strange Encounters At The Skirvin

For decades, guests and staff have reported a lot of weird stuff happening around the hotel... Doors opening and shutting on their own, strange noises, and the sound of a baby crying in empty hallways. You know, all the fun stuff that makes up a good ghost story, but, there's a deeper layer of shenanigans here.

Over the last hundred-ish years, hundreds of travelers who stayed at the Skirvin, who were also completely unaware of the ghostly story, have reported similar things happening completely unprompted.

Some of these reports come from people you'd never expect too.

The New York Knicks stayed there once while in town to play the Thunder, and several players talked to the press about how they weren't able to get any sleep in the hotel.

Eddy Curry took it a step further too, saying he spent half the night wide awake because he felt someone standing right over his bed.

His teammate Jared Jeffries watched doors in his room open and shut by themselves all night.

They ended up losing to the Thunder the next day, and the players fully blamed the haunted Skirvin Hotel.

Metta World Peace had an even weirder experience a few years later. He claimed that while he was lying in bed, something unseen actually touched him. When reporters asked him about it after the game, he was dead serious and an instant believer when he said a ghost kept him up all night and wouldn't leave him alone.

Whether you believe in ghosts or not, it's a 9.5 on the creepy scale.

In the spirit of the season, would you want to stay a night there to see what's what?