In February 1909 Colonel Pritchard, a famous womanizer, was stabbed by a spurned lover in the street outside Bott Brothers. He staggered into the doorway of the tavern and bled to death there in the snow. The street clock stopped at the exact moment of his death. Today he is supposed to haunt the building.

A friend of mine who worked at the Elevator tells me that not only does the womanizer haunt the building, but his killer's there as well. She apparently froze to death in the cold weather and is now seen by the occasional employee, especially late at night, after the patrons have left and things are relatively subdued. Whoever it is, the apparition is nearly always the same: a ball of energy, an extremely bright globe of white light. A girl I know who worked there said the brewmaster claimed to have seen the ghostly ball of light, and it's described in a personal account which makes up part of a Halloween 2006 Columbus Alive article.


"Ghost Stories" - Columbus Monthly article
"Spirited Stories" - Columbus Alive article