Janis Davis, the hotel's director of food and beverages for the last 10 years, has heard the stories. And she always passed them off as folly — nothing more than "Cornhusker lore," as she calls it.

I worked at the Cornhusker Hotel in 1951. I operated the PBX; a real old-fashioned switchboard with lots of cords and lights. Guests would schedule a wake-up call; we would ...