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Historic haunted places in Flagstaff, AZ. Each page gives the ghost story, whether visitors can go, and a link to the site the story came from. The stories are folklore, not documented fact.
5 listings shown.
ARIZONA / HAUNTED PLACE
Haunted place
Flagstaff ghost tours say a young man who reportedly hanged himself near the loading dock, back when the building was the public library, still lingers and feels agitated. Actors r…
This story is folklore told about a real place. It is not presented as documented fact.
ARIZONA / HAUNTED PLACE
Haunted place
Guests and housekeepers describe a woman sitting in a rocking chair by the window of Room 305, and the chair turns up by the window after being pushed against the wall. John Wayne …
This story is folklore told about a real place. It is not presented as documented fact.
ARIZONA / HAUNTED PLACE
Haunted place
Since at least the 1960s NAU students have told of Kathy, a student said to have hanged herself near the attic stairs over Christmas break in 1953, wearing a blue nightgown. The un…
This story is folklore told about a real place. It is not presented as documented fact.
ARIZONA / HAUNTED PLACE
Haunted place
The Riordan family said a ghostly figure would sometimes appear to play pool in the empty billiard room joining the two wings. Caroline Riordan asked that a chapel light be kept bu…
This story is folklore told about a real place. It is not presented as documented fact.
ARIZONA / HAUNTED PLACE
Haunted place
Room 54 was pulled out of guest use after a newlywed couple reportedly died there in a murder-suicide, and people describe seeing a couple sitting on the bed before they vanish thr…
This story is folklore told about a real place. It is not presented as documented fact.
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Flagstaff is a mountain city at about 7,000 feet, in the ponderosa pine forest south of the San Francisco Peaks, and the county seat of Coconino County. Its Wikipedia article records a settlement in 1876 and incorporation in 1928, a 2020 population of 76,831, and a name taken from an actual flagstaff — a stripped pine erected at the spring Thomas F. McMillan used as a sheep camp on July 4, 1876, in the article's account. The railroad made the town: lumber, ranching and then tourism followed the tracks, and Historic Route 66 later ran straight through downtown, which is why Flagstaff's haunted map is so compact. Its two famous haunted hotels stand about a block apart on the same few downtown streets the railroad built.
The older of the two is the Weatherford Hotel, at 23 North Leroux Street. Its Wikipedia article records that John W. Weatherford established the hotel in 1897, that the original 1898 structure held a general store on the first floor with the Weatherford family living upstairs, and that a three-story brick addition had its grand opening on New Year's Day, 1900, after an 1897 ordinance — passed after a series of downtown fires — required new business buildings to be built of brick, stone or iron. For years it was Flagstaff's most prominent hotel, entertaining artist Thomas Moran, publisher William Randolph Hearst and Western novelist Zane Grey. A fire damaged its balcony and cupola in 1929, the Weatherford family lost the hotel in 1933, and Henry Taylor bought it in 1975 to keep it from demolition. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, and it still takes guests today — its own website describes it as "an exciting and historic hotel in Flagstaff, Arizona — serving guests since 1897."
The second hotel is the Hotel Monte Vista, at 100 North San Francisco Street. Its Wikipedia article records a hotel built in 1927 with 73 rooms and suites on three floors, opened on New Year's Day of that year; Flagstaff's history, in the same record, is that the town collectively funded it. Its guest list, per the article, includes John Wayne, Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Anthony Hopkins, Esther Williams and Barbara Stanwyck, and its Monte V lounge remains a working downtown bar. Two hotels, opened 27 years apart on the same railroad downtown, still checking in guests — that is the documented ground Flagstaff's ghost stories stand on.
This section is folklore — reported by tour operators, guests and staff, and never asserted as fact here.
The Monte Vista carries the larger ledger in local telling. Legends of America's account of the hotel lists a phantom bellboy who knocks on doors and then disappears, a female figure seen walking the halls, a 1970s bank robber said to have died in the lounge after being shot in a robbery, and a long-ago resident who can be heard coughing and clearing his throat. Freaky Foot Tours, the local ghost-tour company, attaches the bellboy to Room 210 and passes down the story that John Wayne reported the visit himself. Other tellings collected in this guide's sources add a woman reported in Room 305, the sound of a crying baby in the basement, and a darker story attached to Room 306, where two women were allegedly murdered in the 1940s — "allegedly" is the word the sources themselves use, and it is the status of the whole tale.
At the Weatherford, the reported figure is a dancing presence in the Zane Grey Ballroom — Freaky Foot Tours describes a figure seen in formal dress moving through the ballroom — together with unexplained voices in the halls. The hotel's best-known story is the Room 54 honeymoon legend: local telling holds that a honeymooning couple died in the room in the 1930s, the tellings disagree on how, and guests and staff have reported a bride and groom seated at the foot of the bed and arguing voices from an empty closet. Legends of America records the same reports — an employee who awoke to find a bride and groom at the foot of the bed, and a woman's silhouette crossing the ballroom. A legend with disagreeing versions is still a legend; the 1900 sandstone corner underneath it is the documented fact.
Hountix lists 5 places in Flagstaff, AZ. Seasonal attractions keep their own open dates, so check each business's own site before you go.
The Hotel Monte Vista's Wikipedia article — the anchor for this story — records the documented skeleton: a historic hotel near U.S. Route 66 in downtown Flagstaff, built in 1927 and opened on New Year's Day, with 73 rooms and suites on three floors at 100 North San Francisco Street, funded by the community it was built to serve. The famous guests the article names — John Wayne, Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Anthony Hopkins, Esther Williams and Barbara Stanwyck — came because Flagstaff was a working Western film and railroad town, and the hotel was its front room. It is still a working hotel today, with the Monte V lounge on the ground floor.
The haunting, attributed in full. Legends of America's account of the hotel reports several ghosts: a phantom bellboy who knocks on doors, then disappears; a female ghost seen walking the halls; a bank robber who, in the telling, was shot during a 1970s robbery, stopped at the lounge for a drink and died there; and a long-ago resident heard coughing and clearing his throat. Freaky Foot Tours' telling ties the bellboy to Room 210 and adds the story that John Wayne reported him — a story the hotel's own website has also carried, according to Route Magazine's account of the hotel. US Ghost Adventures' Flagstaff writing adds a woman described in Room 305, a couple reported dancing in the lounge, a baby heard crying in the basement, and the Room 306 story, in which two women were allegedly murdered in the 1940s. The room numbers and details differ between tellings — 305 in some, 306 in others — and none of the violent tales is documented in the hotel's Wikipedia record. They are reported lore, and they are labelled that way here.
One gap, stated plainly: the hotel's own website could not be collected for this guide — it returned a blocked (403) response to the story-material collector on 2026-10-29 — so this story rests on the hotel's Wikipedia article and the attributed accounts above rather than on the hotel's own current pages. What is documented is a community-built 1927 hotel that has never left downtown Flagstaff. What is reported is that some of its guests never left either.
*Website: http://www.hotelmontevista.com/*
The Weatherford Hotel's Wikipedia article — the anchor for this story — gives it the fullest documented record of any building in this guide. John W. Weatherford, a Texan from the town of the same name, established the hotel in 1897; the first structure, built in 1898 after Flagstaff's fire ordinance required brick, stone or iron construction, held his general store below and his family above. In March 1899 he began the three-story brick addition whose grand opening fell on New Year's Day, 1900. The hotel was for years the most prominent in Flagstaff — artist Thomas Moran, publisher William Randolph Hearst and novelist Zane Grey among its guests — and Zane Grey's connection survives in the name of its ballroom today. Fire cost the building its balcony and cupola in 1929; the family lost it in 1933; it slid toward demolition until Henry Taylor bought it in 1975 to save it. It entered the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, and its own website today presents a working hotel at 23 North Leroux Street with three venues, live music most nights, and a free monthly History Happy Hour where Flagstaff's history is told in its own Gopher Hole bar.
The hotel's own collected pages publish no ghost lore — its history is told straight, and this guide notes that plainly. The folklore comes from the town and its tour operators. Freaky Foot Tours, whose walking tour pauses at the Weatherford's corner, reports a dancing figure in the Zane Grey Ballroom, unexplained voices in the halls, and the Room 54 honeymoon legend: a couple said to have died in the room in the 1930s, in circumstances the tellings disagree about, with a bride and groom since reported seated at the foot of the bed and voices heard from an empty closet. Legends of America records the same shape of reports — the employee who awoke to the couple at the foot of his bed, the young woman's silhouette darting across the ballroom, low whispers from the empty lounge. Reported, all of it. The hotel beneath the reports — sandstone, 1900, saved from the wreckers in 1975 — is documented, and it is the reason the stories have a building to attach to.
*Website: https://weatherfordhotel.com/about-us/*