Maribel CAVES & HOTEL...

Haunted Ruins With 'New Hope' For Caves

- STORY BY SUE EYRE, PHOTOS BY PIERRE COUTURE

Today, the Maribel Caves Hotel stands in ruins with the remains of the bottling plant to the right, as visible from County Highway R in May 2025.

Maribel Caves, Hotel and Spa in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, holds tales of a haunted past with rumors of fires, witches, murders, gangsters and underground passageways that were actually the nearby caves.

Along the West Twin River, the Maribel cave system was discovered in 1892 on the property of Henry A. Alrich. The land was later purchased by Charles Steinbrecher, whose brother, Father Francis X. Steinbrecher, a Catholic priest, built the Maribel Hotel and Spa in 1900 with the help of stone masons from his local parish...and so the haunted story begins.

HISTORY OF THE HOTEL

In its heyday, the hotel was a luxury getaway for the rich. An advertisement boasted that it was "An Ideal Health and Summer Resort— Just the Place for the Weary to Seek Rest and Comfort." Up to 200 daily guests enjoyed the beautiful grounds, fishing, boating, hiking and elegant dining.

At that time, four caves had been discovered on the property. The closest one to the hotel, Spring Cave, remains to this day the least explored because the temperature is a constant 42°F and it has cold mineralized water flowing from it. The Maribel Caves Springs Company not only pumped this mineral water to the 42 rooms located on the top two floors of the hotel, but they also built a bottling plant behind the hotel where they bottled and shipped water to several Midwest cities.

OWNERSHIP AND CLIENTELE CHANGES

After Charles Steinbrecher died in 1927, the clientele of the hotel changed. Prohibition attracted moonshiners, prostitutes and gangsters like John Dillinger and Al Capone, who were said to have stayed at the hotel.