McMenamin’s White Eagle Saloon claims to play host to several apparitions, from a prostitute named Rose to the souls of unwitting residents kidnapped via Portland’s infamous Shanghai Tunnels. But despite this eerie history, the bar’s most notorious spirit is that of Sam Warrick, a bartender and cook from the saloon’s pre-prohibition days. Warrick, who can be spotted in the hotel’s trove of historical photos, has been known to fling condiments across the kitchen.
Arguably Portland’s most famous — and persistent — phantom, “Nina” has bedeviled the same spot for more than a century. Nina worked at Old Town’s Merchant Hotel, where she met her untimely end at the bottom of a dark elevator shaft. When Old Town Pizza replaced the Merchant Hotel in 1974, Nina’s spirit refused to leave — diners still report a woman in a black dress keeping watch over their tables.