My wife and I love to frequent old towns in southern Arizona along the Mexican border; our favorite is Bisbee, an old mining town - we've stayed in the old Copper Queen Hotel, in operation continuously since 1901. The place abounds with ghost stories, and in fact a book has been written which has compiled hundreds of them as related by hotel guests over a long number of years. We've had some supernatural experiences there ourselves, one involving blood on the floor in a room where a suicide and a killing had taken place many years ago - but that's another story.

The town of Douglas, not far from Bisbee to the East, was home to the smelters that processed copper ore originating in Bisbee. The oldest hotel there is the Gadsden Hotel, which has been around since way before Caesar was even a road guard. We've eaten there in their nice restaurant, and enjoyed the turn-of-the century decor - marble columns, and a magnificent staircase leading up the the second floor. On the second floor there is a small display case featuring a newspaper article dated April 17, 1995 - just coincidentally seventeen years ago exactly. It relates another ghost story, quite similar to ones we've heard about at the Copper Queen in Bisbee. Note that it took place on Friday the 13th...

Here's a photo of the article, which you can read for yourself:



So you've got to ask yourself a question: Do you believe in ghosts? Well, do ya?

John

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- Cogito, ergo armatus sum -

I always enjoy your posts, stories, and photos John! I absolutely 100% believe. I've had too many experiences not to. Thanks for the article. I still plan on visiting your area and seeing all those beautiful and historic places you share with us. I'll give you a holler when I do!

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Misty

That's a deal, Misty!

John

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- Cogito, ergo armatus sum -

I believe that some people believe in ghosts, and I also believe that a few of them may be plugged into a layer of perception that is excluded from me. But nothing in my experience permits me to assert the truth of their existence.

Love the Gadsden interior. My wife and I stayed a couple of nights at the Copper Queen about 30 years ago. We toyed with the idea of buying a building in Brewery Gulch, but it would have been hard to repair from a distance and it was not possible for us to move to Bisbee for the year or so it would have taken to manage the reconstruction. Interesting town.

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David Wilson

Just to give you more of a flavor of the hotel, here are some interior shots I took in the lobby area.

John

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- Cogito, ergo armatus sum -

Really nice photos that remind me of some of the theaters in Boston in the 50's.

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Doesn't hasta call me Johnson

...this is no longer the case. Personal experience. I hope those of you on here who do not believe in them do not have that belief changed as I have. Not scary, just very sad. I'll leave it at that.

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The Last Standing Knight

Palladin: Did you get any pictures of the bar with the Western decor' of being covered in local cattle brands burned into the walls?

How about Lt G. S Patton's initials carved into the bar at the Copper Queen?

To answer your next question, yes I did see more than bars when I visited my Dad in Bisbee.

FYI: If you make it to St. Elmo's, see if you can find an Indiana "Enviroment" license plate on the walls. I gave it to them to add to their collection, but haven't been there in 10 years to see if they mounted it.

A few years ago, my family had a gathering along the coast of Maine. We all stayed at the same inn, a century-old 4 story building supposedly haunted by a certain woman's ghost. One of the rooms was where she would show up, and, lets just say that my family believes, as we too have personal experience to learn from.
Anyway nobody wanted to stay in "her" room, so in the end I said that I would. Never heard of a ghost harming someone, and in fact usually there is a sad story or a tragedy involved, as Knight has said.
I'd like to tell you all that I awoke with a gorgeous woman in my room, but instead I slept soundly all night.
Nothing even close to my ghostly experiences. I don't doubt the inn is haunted, but she didn't care to make an appearance that night.

The world is an interesting place. There are many things in our world which we understand little or nothing about.

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Geoff. Since 1960.

I believe.

Thanks for sharing!

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Soli Deo Gloria

Mr. Marshall, great pix as usual. Last I visited the hotel, there was a full-mount mountain lion on the stair landing table in your pic. This is the only building I've been in, in years, that still has a mechanical elevator and operator. I have a love-hate relationship with this architectural anachronism --- I love the ornate, ostentatiously embellished lobby, and the fairly formal restraurant and its menu, but hate the cramped rooms and obsolete plumbing, and the low-security skeleton-key locks on the guest room doors. The lobby is a great example of outdated hotel design, when travelers by horse or rail coach would actually spend time, hold meetings, conduct business, lounge around, etc., in a hotel lobby.

If I'm not mistaken, the room at the Gadsden is 210 or 215. I didn't stay there when I spent 30 days detailed to Douglas, I stayed in Sierra Vista, but a number of folks did stay there.

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Non illegitimae carborundum

I'm not sure if I believe in ghosts or not. At least not in the sense of "trapped souls" or anything like that. I believe when people die, they either go to heaven or hell. End of story.

I do believe in "something" that people call ghosts. I have no idea just what they may be, but I have encountered one. I've told the story here before, and it's rather long, so I won't bore anyone again. All I know is "her" name was/is Elizabeth. "She" told me that much. It was a most interesting encounter. I wish "she" had said more.

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John 3:16 .

Nope, the bar (tavern) was closed at the time we visited the Gadsden.

The bar at the Copper Queen has hundreds of initials carved into its top. I would doubt that GSP's initials are really there. At the time he was an LT, around 1916, the present bar area (east side of the hotel) was a waiting room for ladies; they were not allowed through the main entrance. The bar was placed in that location years later. Here's a shot of the bar as it looks today:



I've been in St. Elmo's many times. It has a long history, dating from 1902. It started out as a bar in Bisbee, but during prohibition, it was turned into an ice cream parlor. After prohibition was repealed, it was converted into a bar again. Here's a couple of shots; the first shows St. Elmo's about 1910, probably at a 4th of July gathering. The old guy with the strange headgear is a Civil War veteran, and he's holding his wartime sword.



This next shot is of the St. Elmo interior as it appears today. Sorry not to see your license plate in the clutter!

John

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- Cogito, ergo armatus sum -

I've never experienced a ghost, but I've heard stories.

My parents live in an 2-story house that is around 100 years old. They've been in it since 1976. For many years, when my mother would play the piano on the 1st floor, she could hear what sounded like dancing coming from upstairs. Several of our relatives/friends have been with her when this has happened. For whatever reason, this dancing stopped a few years ago.

One night, my wife and I were sleeping in the upstairs of their home in my old bedroom. We had our infant son in bed with us. I got up and went into the bathroom during the night. It was very dark in the bedroom. I heard my wife talking and couldn't figure out why. When I went back to the room, she said "weren't you just here?" I told her that I had been in the bathroom. She got a little freaked out because she said that she felt someone sit on the edge of the bed. We kinda think that the entity liked children and was checking out our son.

For those of you who don't believe, I would invite you to read the book "The Demonologist", written by the now deceased Ed Warren. Some may have seen his wife Lorraine on television now and then. If you decide to find and read this book, all I can say is "be prepared" for a journey like you've never thought possible.

Years ago when I was a student at the University of Pittsburgh, I had the opportunity to attend a lecture given by the Warrens. Being an autograph nut, I was there early with a program flyer and was lucky enough to meet them personally and get their autographs. Ed studied demonology and Lorraine was more of a psychic and did the human ghost part of the program. They have been used many times by the Catholic Church to go in, "investigate" and report on strange happenings.

They live in Connecticut so there is no way what happened next should have happened. When Lorraine went to sign the program, she asked me my name - she then signed "To Glenn, Love Lorraine Warren." She then handed me the flyer and extended her hand in friendship. When our hands met, she looked me straight in the eye and said "if you wish, we can talk sometime about your daughter M...." . I was stunned, took a step backwards and nearly fell of the stage backwards. There was absolutely no way she would have known that our fourteen year old daughter M.... was killed in a wreck about a year and a half earlier!

A week later, I wrote an eight page letter to her but decided to not send it. I decided to let sleeping dogs sleep! Her husband Ed has now passed but we stay in contact with each other now and then. She has never pushed the issue and I never brought it up again.

Thanks ya'll. I love and believe all this stuff. My wife is more sensitive to the paranormal than me, but I have been visited by relatives in dreams. I don't think I can see ghosts. Maybe that's a good thing.

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Hold on. SWAT's at my door.

Love the Mosin Nagants posted above st elmos!

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