Where the spirits still roam
Who you gonna call?
Happy Halloween!
Would you spend the night in a haunted hotel room — or light a candle at a spooky shrine? For those who love Halloween, we’ve got a virtual tour of some of the best places to commune with the dead in downtown Tucson.
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Tonight, the streets of Tucson will be full of witches, wizards and a small army of trick-or-treaters.
But the ghosts that already haunt downtown don’t need costumes.
The Old Pueblo has never been short on ghost stories.
From the dome of the historic courthouse to the flickering candles at El Tiradito, downtown is thick with legends that get their annual encore this time of year.
Ghost tours, late-night lore and a few unexplained noises in old buildings keep Tucson’s spookiest history alive — no tricks required.
Under the dome
Any good ghost story needs to include the Pima County Historic Courthouse.
First, a little history lesson.
There was the 1868 courthouse, replaced by the 1881 courthouse, and now the current iconic courthouse, built in 1929.
The building has been home to more than just the court over the years. It also housed the sheriff’s department, the treasurer’s office, the county recorder, the county assessor, and now, the county administration.
Historical records refer to a jail being part of both the 1868 and 1881 courthouses. Those same courts also carried out executions nearby, with Tucson-based Desert Archaeology noting that the gallows were “hauled out (of storage) six times between 1881 and 1908.”
Former county officials who worked in the courthouse have told stories about unexplained noises and other activity at night. More than a few said they felt a presence when working alone in the building before it was renovated.
The best lore related to the courthouse might not be about ghosts, however. Outlaw John Dillinger and his gang were briefly housed in the jail in the basement of the courthouse when they were captured in 1934. Apparently, people back in the day could pay a small fee to walk by their cells and gawk at the famous criminals.
When Pima County did archaeological surveys for what is now the Pima County Consolidated Justice Court a few blocks away, it found an estimated 1,000 graves that were part of the old Alameda-Stone Cemetery.
El Tiradito Wishing Shrine
They still light candles at the El Tiradito Wishing Shrine to honor Juan Oliveras, who was buried there in the 1870s.
Lore has it that if you light a candle at night and it is still burning in the morning, your wish will be granted.
The story behind the shrine in Barrio Viejo is a tragic one: Oliveras was murdered in the street after the 18-year-old was caught having an affair with his mother-in-law.
Some of the best history about Oliveras’ life and death comes from the Tucson Museum records, including the push to add the shrine to the National Registry of Historic Places.
“He was a sinner, and a lover,” said Annie Laos, who led the charge in 1971 to get the shrine on the registry.
While the shrine was moved from its original site nearby in Barrio Viejo, the “El Tiradito” (the little castaway) shrine is still popular with locals today.
Hotel Congress
For real ghost fans, Hotel Congress delivers.
You can check into four separate haunted rooms, each with its own backstory:
Room 212 — the locksmith apprentice
Room 213 — the Victorian gentleman
Room 220 — the tricky veteran
Room 242 — the woman in the white dress
Our favorite story is from Room 220, where a World War II veteran checked in during 1965 and never left.
His daily habit was a morning cup of coffee and a bagel. He’d leave the coffee cup by his door to be cleaned, but never the butter knife. The hotel believes he used the knives to make small repairs around the hotel, and ever since his death in 2001, they’ve been finding those butter knives in unexpected places.
His ghost, they say, is responsible for unlocking and locking hotel doors — presumably with one of those butter knives.
Pioneer Building
If you’ve lived in Tucson even for a little while, you’ve probably heard about the deadly fire in the Pioneer Hotel in 1970.
The fire killed 29 people, including the Steinfeld family, who owned the hotel.
Officials believe the fire was set on purpose in two places on the fourth floor, but the fire quickly spread to other floors.
The entire Tucson Fire Department responded to the fire, but the ladder trucks couldn’t reach the top floor, where several people died of smoke inhalation.
Others jumped to their death, hoping to land on the mattresses they pushed out of the window in the hope of escaping the fire.
For decades, people working in the building have seen their share of ghosts and other unexplained phenomena.
It remains the deadliest hotel fire in Tucson’s history.
Fox Theatre
We want to end our virtual ghost tour at the Fox Theatre. The historic theater, which re-opened in 2005, has had numerous ghost sightings over the years — although these are less creepy.
Patrons and staff report a shadowy young girl in the lobby, a “panhandler” ghost outside and projection booth lights flickering with no one present.
The Tucson Ghost Company & Society posted this video several years ago, reportedly showing lights turning on by themselves and mysterious orbs caught on camera.
Did we miss one of your favorite haunted places in Tucson? Drop it in the comments.
IIRC the pool at the Pioneer was on top of the parking garage. The bar was legendary.
I used to work in the basement of the new justice court courthouse (with Joe Ferguson, even!). They told me there was a ghost, but even after some late-night paperwork drop offs, never experienced anything supernatural besides the county red tape. ☺️