I have to write this story about the Hotel California as a fiction because I don't have any evidence besides my wife and this photograph to back me up.

I met my wife over thirty years ago. A few months after we met she brought out some of her photo albums. While we were looking at her photographic history, we came across a photograph of a burning building.

I asked her about the photograph and she said "oh that was the Hotel California." I asked her if it was the Hotel California from the Eagles song? She said "what song?" I went out to my van and found my 8-track tape of The Eagles and put it in her stereo. After she had listened to the song, she said "I don't know if it's the hotel in the song, but the song does fit the description of the hotel."

My future bride told me about what led up to her taking photographs of this building.

She was living in El Centro, Ca. at the time the building burned down. She heard the siren from a fire truck go past her apartment. So she went outside to see where the fire truck was going. When she saw that it was the hotel burning, she ran to try to save the "giant size, round, Leopard skin sofa" that was in the hotels lobby. The police wouldn't let her go into the burning building, so she ran back to her place (about a block away) and grabbed her camera and took several pictures of the fire.

She said the only part of the hotel left standing after the fire was over was the fire escape.

The main highway in El Centro was called The Desert Highway.

My wife said "At night, coming into El Centro from the Desert highway, the first thing you saw was the lights on the Hotel California."

The Hotel California in El Centro burned down in 1969.

The hotel had a courtyard.

At the time of the fire, the hotel was closed for the season.

The electricity to the building had been off for about a month before the fire.

The fire was accidentally caused by candles lit by derelicts and winos living in the basement.

All the winos and derelicts living in the basement died in the fire.

From the photo it looks like the Hotel California had a bell tower.

I am aware that The Eagles say the hotel is non existent.

I know that many of you won't believe this story. Many of you will.

For those that do believe. Please be advised. All I have as proof is a forty year old photograph of a burning building and my wife's description of what the building was. I haven't even been able to find anything about the fire or the building on the Internet.

In other words, you should take this story with a grain of salt.