Listing

Opened in 1905, El Tovar Hotel grew in popularity over the years due to the number of tourists flocking to the Grand Canyon. Added to the National Register of Historic Places and made a cultural landmark, some of those who book a room at the hotel know little about its haunted past or of the grave located on the historic property.

That grave belongs to a young woman who once worked as a ?Harvey Girl.? Harvey was a popular chain of hotels during the early part of the 20th centuries, and young woman who worked for the company went by that popular nickname. Harvey wanted his girls to wear traditional uniforms with starched white aprons and black dresses to project a sophisticated look. That is why the ghost seen here is so odd. Visitors sometimes see a figure clad in a long black dress with a black cape and black veil over her face standing near the grave or walking nearby. Some think she was a relative of the woman buried there.

Fred Harvey, the former owner of the hotel, also haunts the hotel and seems particularly fond of the third floor. Workers report seeing him most frequently during holiday parties and events. The Fred Harvey Company typically built hotels near railroad lines and near depots to assist those traveling by chain. Though Harvey died years ago, he seems to enjoy sticking around to ensure the hotel still runs smoothly. The Grand Canyon is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the country, and while visiting the national park, some guests may stop by the El Tavor Hotel for a quick ghost hunt.

Originally a hospital for the copper mining town of Jerome, this hotel is home to many ghosts and manifestations dating back to 1927. Sitting at 5000 feet in elevation, this National Historic Landmark offers ghost hunting packages which includes a good old fashioned ghost hunt. Maybe you will meet the ghost of Claude M. Harvey, the hospital’s fireman engineer who is said to have been crushed to death by the elevator. He is known to appear in the basement and sometimes has some fun with the elevator. Going down?

A Spectral Sport – Ghost Hunting

Guests of the Jerome Grand Hotel, are offered one of the most unique experiences of any haunted attraction: The chance to go on an actual ghost hunt, complete with digital camera, EMF meter, and IR thermometer to aid in their search.

The hotel is five stories high, with guestrooms that are all notoriously haunted. One couple chose to mount a digital camera near the ceiling of their hotel room during their stay. A ghostly orb appears to float across the room and into the back of the woman’s head while she slept. The same white orb was again captured seeming to dance back and forth across the balcony of the couple’s suite. Numerous other encounters with the orb have been well documented by various hotel guests and a quick search online yields proof of the ethereal sightings.

History of a Ghost Town

Jerome Grand Hotel, which was once a state-of-the-art hospital, is believed to be one of the most haunted attractions in the United States. Situated in the town of Jerome Arizona, the hotel is among several haunted dwellings in what is now considered a ghost town. In the 1950’s, with its mines rich in copper, silver, and gold, Jerome was home to over 15,000 miners and their families. During World War II, the town continued to thrive, but two massive fires destroyed much of Jerome in the late 1890’s. In 1953, the mine closed and by 1955 the population of Jerome dwindled to fewer than 100 people.

The hospital, which was owned by the Phelps Dodge Mining Company, was closed in 1950 and the building remained unoccupied for the next 44 years.

In the 1970’s, Jerome began to breathe new life. A subculture of artists, curators, restaurateurs, and other creatives settled into the hillside and the community began to flourish once again. While this community has continued to thrive due to increasing tourism, Jerome is currently home to fewer than 500 residents.

The old hospital was purchased by the Altherr family in 1994, and opened as Jerome Grand Hotel in 1996. The building was so well preserved that to this day, it has retained 95% of its historical attributes.

Jerome Arizona is also known as “The World’s Most Vertical City” due to its intense steepness. It is located atop Cleopatra Hill and rises to a staggering 5,200 feet in altitude. The 30-degree incline has not been kind to many of the buildings that once dotted its slopes. While many of the original buildings were damaged or destroyed in the fires, others have succumbed to gravity, crumbling into heaps at Cleopatra’s feet. Of the buildings that have remained standing, many have been restored and transformed into restaurants, wineries, and gift shops.

Ghosts of the Jerome Grand Hotel

In the 1930’s, the body of the Verde Hospital’s maintenance man Claude Harvey was found at the bottom of a service elevator shaft. The elevator was found to be in working order and the death was investigated as a homicide. Several guests of the hotel, while acting as Paranormal Investigators, have reported a ghostly figure of Claude Harvey in the basement, staring vacantly at the closed elevator doors. Others have reported hearing a distant whistling; presumably the sounds of a man dutifully performing his maintenance routine, even from beyond the grave…

Considering the hotel served as a hospital in its previous incarnation, it is no surprise that guests often report the haunting wails and cries of its former inhabitants. Sounds of labored breathing, coughing, and screaming have oft been reported within the common areas, halls, and stairwells of the Jerome Grand Hotel. One such inhabitant is known as “the bearded man” and appears to “visit” numerous rooms on various floors of the hotel.

One of the most common sounds heard in any busy hospital is the first cry of a newborn babe. Guests of the hotel frequently report the sound of an infant crying. Callers have reported the sound to hotel staff, claiming to hear it coming from a neighboring room, only to learn that the room had not been occupied.

The hotel is even home to the ghostly form of a feline; numerous guests have reported feeling a ghost cat brushing up against their leg, leaving an imprint on the bed linens from its cat nap, and one guest even captured the phantom feline in a photograph. The picture was framed and still sits upon the front desk of the hotel.

Haunted Room 32

The most popular of all the rooms available for guests to retire after an evening of ghost hunting, is room 32. The room is well-known as the most haunted room in the hotel after having been the location of not one, but two grisly suicides… One man leapt from the balcony to his death, while another turned his gun on himself. Guests who dare attempt sleep in this room are awoken by the sounds of doors opening by themselves, and of water streaming from faucets that apparently turned themselves on full blast.

Your Stay

If hunting for ghosts at a historic hotel, decked out with high-tech paranormal detection equipment appeals to you, then Jerome Grand Hotel is where you should book your stay. The ghost hunt costs $30 per adult, $20 per child and is offered on select weeknights. And as an added bonus for you ghost hunters, you’ll receive a 10% discount on your stay, for as many nights as you dare.

Paradise Valley, Arizona is a supremely small municipality within the enormous confines of Phoenix’s own Maricopa County. Affluent by nature, this wealthy area was carved out a long time ago European migrant settlers in the late 1880s. As Phoenix and nearby Scottsdale were annexed and grew into their own, Paradise Valley became an area that commanded commercial attention. One of the premier places to stay in this sun-dried desert locale is The Hermosa Inn. But settled in such a wealthy area backed up by the desert, is this oasis inn greatly haunted?

Is the Hermosa Inn Haunted?

Famed cowboy artist Alonzo “Lon” Megargee built the Hermosa Inn back in 1935 on six-plus acres of arid and commercially rich property. The layout of the inn was really quite simple in that sun-dried adobe bricks were used to eventually construct the entire building. Megargee also found himself heavily influenced by old-world Spain, and the use of wooden beams and some iron fixtures. While open for business, things went a little too well for Megargee and he began to take advantage of his success by running gambling games inside the inn. So as to avoid detection from law enforcement, he had a tunnel constructed from underneath the inn that ran all the way out to the stable area on the fringes of the property.

The wild times at the inn were proving too much for Megargee and he eventually ended up selling the Hermosa to some private individuals in 1941. Megargee lived something of a tumultuous life in his later days being married upwards of seven times before he finally passed away on his ranch at the age of 77 in Cottonwood, Arizona. Subsequent owners to the ranch added other amenities such as the tennis courts, swimming pool, bar, spa, and of course refurbishments and additions to the landscape. However, it was years after Magargee’s death when stories of the paranormal really began to emerge for the Hermosa Inn.

The Ghosts of the Hermosa Inn

The chief spirit of the Hermosa Inn is actually that of Lon Megargee himself. While it is common knowledge he passed away at his ranch some two hours north of the Hermosa, paranormal theorist muse that his fierce love and attachment to the inn forced him to in fact haunt it. And like many facets of the paranormal, their activity is as varied as ever. One of the more popular spots is the kitchen area where staff have claimed to see a tall, and ghostly man resembling Lon’s trademark cowboy figure looming over areas where pots and pans have routinely flown off racks by a pair of invisible hands!

Not to be outdone in proximity, and just past the kitchen waiter door to the bar area of the inn’s fine dining restaurant, wine glasses have been seen not only moving by an unseen force, but also tumbling to the floors in an instant. Chefs in the kitchen look to the supernatural mishaps as nothing more than Lon acting up and showing others that he’s still around, however not all staff have taken such a jovial approach to Lon. A newly hired maid in desperate need of a job was hired to clean the guest rooms. Not long after starting, she went to a normal room that was empty and had just made the bed when she turned around and saw Lon’s ghostly figure staring back at her in the mirror! Fleeing in terror, this once job-desperate maid gave notice and quit her job immediately.

It’s wholly possible that the maid had found herself in an impossibly haunted situation as a good portion of the rooms at the Hermosa are rumored to be haunted, including number seven which was said to have been Lon’s personal favorite. The heavy sound of footsteps is very common to be heard in the doorway of the guest room without anyone even being there. Is this Lon acting up again? Of all things, Lon isn’t thought to be the only ghostly spirit that haunts the Hermosa Inn property. There have been sightings of a woman in a pink dress that has been seen spotted outside on the property’s waterside strolling bridge. Some believe that the pale specter of this woman in pink could have been an ex-wife of Lon, however, since he was married seven times it’s hard to pinpoint just exactly which wife this could be that shows up at any time of day or night before fading away back to the afterlife.

One of the more eerie sightings has been what one longtime employee of the Hermosa saw, which was a pair of ghost children dancing in the parking lot in the middle of the night! Absolutely zero information could be found on the genesis of their ghostly states, but from all indications, they have been spotted laughing and dancing so they appear comfortable in their paranormal dispositions.

The Hermosa Inn is one of the most luxurious boutique hotels in the entire Paradise Valley and Phoenix area with particular attractions to its award-winning fine dining and wedding hotspot. But if in a party picture a cowboy hat faintly shows up, it might just be Lon checking in to say hello.

Built in 1929, this hotel is haunted by the occupants that could not escape a fire on December 20, 1970. The fire killed 28 people in the hotel including the owners who resided in the penthouse at the time. Most of the people perished on the top floor during a Christmas party for Hughes Aircraft (Raytheon). The top floor was rife with fire hazards and the building hadn’t been up to code because it was grandfathered in with hotel’s age. The hotel has been converted to an office building now, but the spirits of those 28 souls remain.

The ghosts of those 28 souls are said to haunt the top floor. Footsteps and music are heard playing in the evenings. People have said they smell smoke that is not there. The ghost of a small girl has been seen, who is said to have been looking for her mother when the fire took them. It’s as if the holiday party never ended.

Paranormal enthusiasts know that the best reason to visit the Hotel Congress in Tuscon is for Room 242, which is the hotel’s haunted room. Built in 1919, the old hotel played host to a number of guests over the years, but history buffs know the hotel because police once captured infamous bank robber John Dillinger there.

Room 242, sometimes called the suicide room, was where a guest checked in and never checked out. The young woman checked into the room, but when concerned staff called the police over her odd and unusual actions, she decided to shoot herself. Some say the mark her bullet made is still in the wall. Just down the hall is Room 214 when a young man killed himself in much the same way just a few years later. Others who died in the hotel include a guest who resided there for more than 30 years before passing away of a heart attack and a former soldier.

Cold spots are common throughout the hotel and especially in Room 242, which is also where some see the ghost of a young woman. Guests staying in the room often suffer from nightmares and awake to the feeling that someone is watching them. Visitors also saw the spirit of a man in a World War II era uniform in the bar, what looks like a hand print made in blood on the wall a woman in a black dress. With so many different types of activities, it’s no wonder many consider the Hotel Congress the nation’s most haunted hotel.