Silver Queen
Virginia City, Nevada
Looking authentic, circa 1870s (although possibly built between 1860 and 1909), the Silver Queen contains a spacious saloon and offers a second floor of hotel guest rooms, which are promoted as the location of repeated spirit manifestations. If you don't happen to see a ghost during your stay, you will not miss the giant woman standing in the saloon. Her dress is made from 210 pounds of silver dollars -- and she's always visible.
The Silver Queen is 16-ft. tall and 8-ft. wide, a ceiling-touching painting of a lady in an evening gown decorated with 3,261 real silver dollars, some of them minted from silver dug from mines beneath Virginia City. Her belt is fashioned from 28 twenty-dollar gold pieces, and her choker and bracelets are made from silver quarters and dimes. Tourists pose at the base of the Silver Queen, and kids count the coins.
In the back of the saloon there's a garish wedding chapel room -- where the pop duo The Captain and Tennille got hitched on Nov. 11, 1975 in a quiet ceremony (just them, the minister, and the ghosts?).
A row of glass-covered wall exhibits outside the chapel offer amusing juxtapositions. A photo of the Captain and Tennille and "wedding package" items -- champagne glasses, a bottle, cake-top figurines -- share space with a newspaper front page with the headline: "Assassin Kills JFK in Dallas," and a framed photo of Abe Lincoln with a .44-caliber "pocket cannon" Derringer attached to it.