Hotel Monte Vista

Ghosts have made themselves cozy at the Hotel Monte Vista over the course of its 90 years of operation. The bank robber who died at the bar is one of them. He’s been seen hanging around the bar, usually seen from the corner of the eye. He tends to greet the bar managers upon opening, and guests often report feelings of being watched, or feeling chills down their spine while trying to drink. Though it’s likely the ghost of the bank robber, many say that because so many shootouts went down at the hotel, the ghost could be one of several other gunslinging outlaws.

In the early 1940s, a john brought two sex workers back with him to room 306 in the Hotel Monte Vista. Before the night was over, the two women were murdered, and their bodies were tossed out of the window onto the cold floor below. Guests who stay in room 306 still feel the presence of the two women, who are said to have a grudge against men. They often report intense feelings of being watched, and male guests often have similar dreams of being strangled and held down. Some say the guests are reliving the night of the murder.

Top of the Hotel Monte Vista in the afternoon showing it’s wire signage.
Every town in Arizona has a haunted hotel.
Source: Wikimedia/Waterless Cloud
The second floor is home to all sorts of unusual phenomena. In room 210, many guests report a phantom bellboy who knocks without anyone having summoned for room service. Guests are surprised when they open the door to an empty hallway. Room 220 was home to a long-term guest who had a weird habit of hanging meat from the chandelier. Why he did it? No one knows. But his body was found by a housekeeper one morning after having been dead for several days. Room 220 is now known for all sorts of shenanigans. Unusual noises come from the room when it’s empty, including coughing, laughter, and full-blown conversations. A maintenance man was once making repairs in the room and turned off the lights and locked the door on the way out, and came back to find the lights and television on, with the volume on full blast.

The ghost of a crying baby can be heard in the basement. Nobody knows the true story behind the crying baby, but some locals say that a prostitute who got pregnant was forced to kill her child after giving birth in the tunnels under the hotel. Guests and staff who venture down into the basement often report hearing the sounds of a crying baby when the basement is empty. Another strange apparition in the basement is the six-foot-tall Shadow Man. He’s a tall menacing figure who appears to strangers who stumble into the basement, attempting to intimidate them. He also tends to appear to delivery drivers and repairmen, again trying to intimidate them. Nobody knows where he comes from, but he’s probably the scariest of the Hotel Monte Vista’s residents.

Many other strange phenomena happen around the hotel, none of which can be attributed to any ghosts in particular. Phantom footsteps often follow guests down the halls, and disembodied voices whisper in their ears. Then there are spirits who make weird noises in empty rooms and move furniture around. The staff at the Hotel Monte Vista have learned to live with the ghosts, and they consider it a running gag. Guests who are unaware of the haunted nature of the hotel are in for a rude awakening.