Real Creepy Places That Will Scare You To Death In Arizona

The time-tested and carefully nurtured legends of paranormal activity in Arizona are a genuine treasure if you want to get a little high on spooky stories. As if the scorching heat of the desert and the wildness of the West were not enough to unsettle a person, the Copper State proudly keeps a fair share of truly creepy places with very bloody pasts.

Not all of them are malicious or vindictive in nature or appearance — however blurry that appearance may be. Many of the spirits just seem to like wandering around their former homes, lost in reminiscence. And for a state that has an entire route dotted with haunted stops — a route named, of all things, Route 66 — the list really should never end.

But here are some of the creepiest places in Arizona that might just intrigue the horror-story lover in you.

The Bird Cage Theatre, Tombstone

Ever since its grand opening on Christmas Eve of 1881, the Bird Cage Theatre made its name as one of the most notorious places around — even when living, breathing people still filled the room. The New York Times once described it as the wickedest nightspot in America.

"The wildest, wickedest nightspot between the Basin Street and the Barbary Coast."

The legend says more than 25 people were shot to death during its cowboy era, and many more bullets buried themselves in the walls — you can still find the holes if you take one of the ghostly tours. Visitors have claimed to sense unseen forces and to hear the sounds of reckless partying in the night, as if the wild celebrations of the Old West were still going on inside the walls.

Yuma Territorial Prison, Yuma

First occupied by the very prisoners who built it with their own hands in 1876, the prison went on to hold more than 3,000 inmates across its many cells in later years. Among them was John Ryan, jailed for crimes against nature, who killed himself in Cell 14. Even though most of the 111 recorded deaths came from a tuberculosis epidemic, we should not assume the souls left the place happy and satisfied.

The dark cell — where disobedient inmates were chained up — is one truly creepy hellhole. The last men to spend time inside it had to be committed to an asylum on their release. You can do the math yourself.

Jerome Grand Hotel, Jerome

Among Jerome's many ghostly rumours, the best and most thrilling is the story of the Jerome Grand Hotel — a looming, four-storey, quaint-looking building. Once the United Verde Hospital, where brutally injured local copper miners and the mentally unstable were treated, this historic landmark is now a favourite haunted stop.

It is said the building still reeks of its past, even after it reopened as a vintage hotel 47 years after closing down in 1950. Shadows of busy, worried nurses, cries of pain and woe, and sometimes the fleeting cries of troubled minds are said to come floating through the thin mountain air.

Vulture Mine, Wickenburg

The centre stage of the great American Gold Rush, the Vulture Mine in Wickenburg is the perfect backdrop for all the haunted stories it is famous for. As the legend goes, the place was discovered in 1863 by one Henry Wickenburg while he was out shooting vultures, and from then on it became a magnet for people hoping to strike gold.

Those who tried to steal that gold faced the hanging noose — which is how the old, mangled hanging tree became famous. The spirits of these criminals are said to still roam the now-dilapidated mine and its adjacent village, angry at being deprived of their prize. The haunting story of Jimmy, a worker who died in a machinery fault at the mine, is also famous and easy to believe. After all, mines always have the most tragic and haunting tales to tell.

Hotel Monte Vista, Flagstaff

The list had to include at least one stop from the Route 66 haunted places, and Hotel Monte Vista is the best of the lot. The hotel is known for some of the creepiest real-life happenings — which led to even creepier afterlives. Take the Meat Man, a boarder of Room 220, who is said to have hung raw meat from his chandelier and was found dead one fine morning. Visitors also claim difficulty staying in Room 306, where back in the 1940s two women were lured inside, killed, and thrown from the third-floor windows.

These incidents sound like a mainstream horror-movie plot — but sit and think that they happened in real places, and you cannot blame the storytellers for telling the stories they do.