August 11, 2021 • 41 mins
One of the most famous boomtowns of the American frontier, the ghost town of Tombstone, Arizona is also one of the most haunted. With its rich and violent past, the few residents remaining there today have quite a few paranormal encounters to share. With special guest: Dwight Hull.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky. Listener Discretion is advised.
Edward Lawrence Chafflin was a prospector and US Army scout
stationed in Arizona in the eighteen seventies. Back then, many
(00:22):
folks were seeking the promise of silver ore in the area,
but ed Sheefflin was described as much more determined and
much more rugged than the rest. In eighteen seventy six,
David P. Lansing of Phoenix, Arizona described Chefflin as about
the strangest specimen of human flesh I ever saw. He
was six ft two inches tall and had black hair
(00:43):
that hung several inches below his shoulders, and a beard
that had not been trimmed or combed for so long
a time that it was a mass of unkempt knots
and mats. He wore clothing piece and patched from deer skins,
corduroy and flannel, and his hat was originally a slouch
hat that had been pieced with rabbit skin until very
little of the original felt remained. But something tells me
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this look didn't stick with Ed for very long. Despite
the dangers. Ed would often go out on expeditions in
search for or His home base was camp with Chaka.
Soldiers would often ask him about his efforts. Ed consistently
responded with hope and determinations, but apparently surrounded by a
bunch of pessimists. Those soldiers would tell him you'll find something,
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You'll find your tombstone, as so many others have before.
Well fatefully, on August one, eight seventy seven, Chefflin did
find his tombstone, but probably not like anyone expected. I'm
Amy Bruney and this is haunted road. The San Pedro
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Valley had been the destination for intrepid miners and those
seeking work prior to the eighteen seventies, but our Ed
Chefflin found something that would be a game changer. On
August first, eighteen seventy seven, Ed struck silver and appropriately
dubbed his new mine tombstone. He found yet another mine
nearby that he christened the graveyard. Ed's name for his
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silver mine. Carried Over is the name for the settlement
founded near the site, fueled by a silver rush that
attracted fortune hunters to the new town. When miners came
to town, they didn't just bring their supplies and hopes.
They ushered in a need for civil structures, food, education
for growing families, and entertainment. The town grew significantly into
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the mid eighteen eighties as the local mines produced a
staggering forty to eighty five million dollars in silver. The
largest productive silver mine district in Arizona, its population grew
from one hundred to around fourteen thousand in less than
seven years. Tombstone's residence had access to a school, a
handful of church ches, a bowling alley, ice cream shop,
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and most notably, one hundred ten saloons, fourteen gambling halls,
and numerous dance halls and brothels. Over seven thousand folks
answered the promising call of silver by the eighteen eighties,
and the famous art brothers Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan were
among them. Shortly after their friend Doc Holiday, a former
(03:23):
dentist from Georgia, turned to gambler and gunfighter followed suit.
Virgil took on the roll of Tombstones Marshal in eighteen eighty.
But the rb faction wasn't solely committed to upholding the law.
They had income that was unrelated with steaks and mines
and saloons, and occasional work as bartenders and private security.
There was a class division among Tombstone residents and that
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culminated in numerous skirmishes and conflicts. But the most notable
occurred between the art Brothers and the Cowboys, a loosely
organized band about laws who were known cattle steelers. Tombstone
sits about thirty miles away from the Mexican border, and
at the time, the government of Mexico maintained a high
tax on imported tobacco, cattle, and alcohol. Cowboys gathered in
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small groups in this liminal space and seemingly made a
lot of money from smuggling. They also brought a love
of drink and shooting to Tombstone, but they were allowed
to stay because they also brought a lot of money
to saloons, theaters, and of course, brothels. There were various
altercations that exacerbated the tense relationship of these two groups,
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but the final straw was added in October when an
ordinance was passed in Tombstone prohibiting the carrying of weapons
in town. This riled the cowboys, who were used to
carrying their weapons wherever they pleased. On October, Doc Holiday
and Ike Clanton of the Cowboys were at the Alhambra
Saloon when they got into a fight. I'm almost positive
(04:54):
this started with Doc Holiday declaring I'm your huckleberry, but
this could be wishful thanking on my part. Cooler heads
temporarily prevailed. Holiday eventually headed home to his room in
a boarding house, but Clanton kept drinking and getting more
worked up. Virgil was still the marshal, which meant enforcement
of this unwelcome edict fell to him. But if there
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was beef against Virgil, the whole RB Holiday group felt
the effects. Threats of this kind, though were commonplace, the
follow through wasn't, so no one, including Virgil Herb took
the threat from Clanton very seriously. The next day, around
nine in the morning, a policeman roused Virgil after just
a few hours of slumber to tell him that Ike
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Clanton was staggering around town, now armed and still drunk,
threatening to kill all the Art brothers and their friend
Dog Holiday on site. Initially unfazed, Virgil did get around
to disarming the very drunk Clanton before escorting him to
see a judge. After receiving a fine and being let go. Ike, infuriated,
sought out a group of five cowboys, including his brother Billy,
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the mclory's, and went with them to Fremont Street. The
bolstered threats from the cowboys resulted in Virgil's quick deputizing
of his brothers and Doc. The sheriff tried to convince
the Herbs to back off, but they pressed on, finding
the Clantons and the mclory's in a lot near the
old Kindersley Corral. Thirty shots and thirty seconds later, Tom
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and Frank McClory and Billie Clanton were dead in the dust.
Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne had made a successful getaway
when the shooting began. The lawman all survived, but Whyatt
was the only one to remain unscathed. It wasn't clear
what side had fired the first shot, and the Herb
Holiday group was arrested and held in jail for about
a month. The hearing brought the result that the cowboys
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were not unarmed, therefore closing out the case against the
Herbs and Holiday, but it was not the end of
the conflict. On December one, just two months after the shootout,
Virgil Earp was ambushed and maimed in a murder attempt
by the cowboys. It's believed that an apparition of Virgil
appears in this spot, but it never makes it across
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the street. Morgan RB was the next target. In March
of eighteen eighty two, he was shot and killed by
a cowboy who aimed through a glass door of the
saloon Morgan was sitting in. The saloon was then called
Campbell and Hatch's Saloon, but is currently the Red Buffalo
Trading Company. It seems that Morgan is still frequenting the
place even in death, and has been said to even
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help stock shelves. For these crimes, cowboys covered their own
with alibis and no charges were filed. Wyatt tried to
form a band to get justice, but didn't have much luck.
Wyatt left Arizona in eighteen eighty two without exacting his revenge.
After his death, the first biography of Wyatt Earp was
published in nineteen thirty one. It gave us a dramatic
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telling of the shootout at the Okay Corral and other
events in RB's life that still color our understanding of
events in Tombstone. Even though the shootout occurred about six
buildings to the west of the Okay Corral. It's firmly
held that the latter is haunted by the spirits of
those slain cowboys. Several witnesses have reported seeing the fading
apparition of men dressed in cowboy attire, often appearing with
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guns drawn, perhaps locked into a perpetual battle with the RBS.
Others have claimed to have felt numerous cold spots in
various areas of the Corral. One of the other most
haunted and storied spots in town is the Bird Cage Theater.
As someone who has visited here a few times, this
place has changed very little sincece heyday. It's like walking
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into a time capsule. There's even still bullet holes in
the ceiling from especially rowdy nights. Established in the vein
of Chefflin Hall, a fine operatic venue, William and Lottie
Hutchinson hoped that their theater would draw respectable folks in Tombstone,
but money talks and the local population of lusty young
miners preferred body or types of entertainment, so the Hutchinson's
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delivered in eighty two, just one year in the New
York Times referred to the bird Cage as the roughest, bodiest,
and most wicked night spot between Basin Street and the
Barbary Coast. Bird Cage certainly seems to refer to the
boxes attached to the ceiling where the women engaged in
sex work would host their companion and make good on
the exchange. But the women didn't do just that. They
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also tended the bar and performed in a variety of shows.
Stage shows at the bird Cage started at nine pm
and continued until one am or so the next morning.
Waiter girls in short dresses with low cut necklines peddled
as many drinks as they could. Beer was just fifty
cents on the main floor and a dollar in the
curtain boxes. Skits, music acts, and comedy shows were all
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featured and typically accentuated by bright clothing and short skirts.
Jokes were definitely of the naughty kind. In general, the
bird Cage was a rowdy place. It was the scene
of at least sixteen gun and knife fights over the years.
By the time the doors were shut permanently, there were
one hundred forty of those bullet holes in the walls
and ceilings that I told you about in their short
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and bright outfits, women performed a popular act called the
Human Fly. Performers walked upside down on the ceiling over
the stage was specially outfitted shoes that had clamps on
them that fitted into holes board into the ceiling. At
least one of those performers fell to her death when
a clamp slipped, but there's not many details on that.
A very popular story connected to the bird Cage seems
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dubious but is quite striking. The top lady at the
bird Cage was known as Margharita, and her supposed main
rival was Dirtie the gold Dollar from Crystal Palace, another brothel.
Gertie had quite a committed customer in Billy mill Green.
Some even alleged that mill Green was Gertie's liven lover. Billy,
apparently with a different conception of loyalties, found himself in
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the birdcage with the lovely Margharita in his lap. Gertie,
the gutsy gritty woman, also found herself in the bird cage, and,
as a witness of betrayal, grabbing a handful of Margharita's hair,
gold Dollar stabbed her with a double edged stiletto that
was stashed in her garter she hacked at Margharita's heart.
Margherita died before anyone could offer aid. Gertie and Billy left,
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and she apparently discarded the weapon behind the theater. When
she was found, charges weren't filed because there was no
weapon on which to base them. Margherita's death was unresolved,
and her spirit supposedly haunts the bird Cage still. Then,
supposedly in nWo, when they excavated an old privy behind
the bird cage, the stiletto used by gold Dollar was found.
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It seems rather convenient that the blade was found on
the centennial of the slaying, if it happened at all,
but it's a great story. Carmeally to Jimenez's death by
suicide is another potentially apocryphal tale that's consistently repeated. Carmeally
to Jimenez and her partner, Frederick Baker were both performers
at the bird Cage. If true, I'd like to note
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that Carmelita is also described as a well known singer.
They lived together for four or five months before her
death in the middle of August eighteen eighty eight. Frederick
had noticed of late that she was not in her
right spirits, rather downhearted and melancholy. As the day wound
down at home after performing at the bird Cage, Carmelita
began to cry. When asked if she was upset about him,
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she assured him she wasn't. The next day, after rehearsals
at the bird Cage, Frederick saw her vomit alongside the washstand.
When asked, Carmelita said she intentionally took medicine to make
her sick, but wouldn't tell Frederick what it was. He
assumed that she had taken an emetic, something that seems
to have been consumed widely, if abusively, in the nineteenth century,
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or was at least accessible to those who wanted or
needed to purse their systems of some real or perceived affliction. Regardless,
he assumed incorrectly she had actually taken two teaspoons of
rough on rats, an arsenic pason. This was only discovered
after a doctor was rushed to Carmelita, but the actual
emetic he applied was too late to save her. During
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its heyday, the building was sold at least twice, but
its final curtain closed in eighteen ninety two as Tombstone's
water problem pushed out the bulk of miners who would
work elsewhere, which we'll talk about later. Because of fires
through Tombstone as well as the wear and tear experience
in a mining boomtown, most structures are recreations in modern builds,
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but the bird Cage Theater wasn't constructed with wood. It's
made of concrete, and today it's the only building on
Allan Street that is original. When it closed its doors,
everything inside was left in place. The doors weren't opened
again until nineteen thirty four, and when they were, Tombstone
found itself with a perfect window into its past. As
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we move on to the Boothill Graveyard, so named because
most of the men there supposedly died with their boots on,
let's also move on to the rapid demise of Tombstone
and its eventual status as a ghost town. Water was
threatening Tombstone as early as eighteen eighty, but each year
the mine seemed to strike more and more of it.
The flow wasn't at first large enough to stop work,
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but experienced miners thought the water flow would increase, and
it did. All sources I've read indicate that pumping water
from mine shafts worked until it just didn't. A double
whammy seems to have ended things quite suddenly, as a
fire destroyed the pumping system on May eighteen eighty six,
and then the price of silver dropped, dashing hopes of
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funding a restoration. Like the Boom Town, the Boothill Cemetery
had a quick rise and a short fall. Originally started
in eighteen seventy eight, it was referred to as the
City Cemetery until an actual city cemetery was built in
the town. Then it earned the named the Old Cemetery,
which it kept until nineteen nine. That's when we get
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the name booth Hill Graveyard. By the nineteen twenties, it
had fallen into disrepair, and interested residents work diligently to
track down information regarding those who were buried there. Those
who were buried here usually had their places marked by wood,
which doesn't hold up well, especially in Arizona's climate. Most
of what visitors see there now are recreations of the
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originals for the benefit of tourists, so the veracity of
some claims seem dubious but certainly entertaining, and some aren't
seemingly dubious but are in fact total fabrications intended to
spur tourism. If names come up, find a grave seems
to have a robust database of interments. There are about
two hundred fifty or so graves in this cemetery, and
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many of them were outlaws. Brothers Tom and Frank McClory
and Billy Clanton, killed by the Herbs and Doc Holiday
in the shootout, are buried here. It's claimed that Billy's
spirit is one of the most active and apparently rises
from his grave each night. Many claimed that Billy haunts
both the graveyard and Allen Street, where he died in
the shootout. There are a few places that would be
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so predictably haunted as Tombstone. But how many of these
ghost stories are just that stories? And what other secrets
does this old mining town hold up. Next, we'll talk
with Tombstone local and renowned paranormal investigator Dwight Hole, who
will fill us in on some of the more famous
Hanson Town plus some mothers you may never have even
heard of. Okay, so I am now joined by Dwight Hole,
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who is a Dwight What is your position in Tombstone? Officially?
Everybody tells me you're like the resident paranormal expert. Oh,
I hate that word expert, but yeah, I'm kind of
the paranormal guy. And my wife and I have investigating
Tombstone for what I have for over twenty years, Ronda
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for about last ten, So we're kind of the go
to folks for the paranormal and Toomstone. Yeah, I mean
that makes sense. I know people always shy away from
the word expert when it comes to the paranormal, which
I think is fair because people always say, how can
you prove the existence of something? Or how can you
call yourself an expert in something that we can barely
prove the existence of. But I think it's fair to
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say that if you have a lot of knowledge of
the history of the paranormal, or if you are someone
who knows a lot about the history of a location,
as you seem to do, I think expert is fair.
I think you're allowed to call yourself something like that.
I'll take it. I'll take it. So Tombstone is such
an interesting town. I think I met you there years
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and years ago. I have not been back since then.
What year was that, uh, two thousand eight, I believe, Yeah,
so it's been a minute, but it seems like not
that long ago to me. It was just such an
interesting town with such an interesting history. And I think
what I love about it is that I expect it's
probably not nearly as lawless as it was, but it
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doesn't seem like it's changed much Like you really do
feel like you're taking a little step back in time.
And do you think that that might have something to
do with why spirits tend to remain there? Oh? Yeah, absolutely,
Tombstone is still Tombstone, whether it's today or a hundred
and fifty years ago. Um, you know, the players have changed,
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but it's still the same thing. It's small town and
instead of silver, you know, they're mining tourists. It's still
kind of the same thing. The shops are still there
are at least the buildings are still there, you know,
all the streets are still there. So yeah, there's a
bit of familiarity, I think, and a bit of the
Tombstone attitude that I guess still prevails today. So I
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think that's what helps keep some of the spirits there,
is they liked kind of that rock is body atmosphere,
and it still has it there today. Yeah. Absolutely, I
remember that very much and you read through you know,
kind of what happened there over the years, and now
it seemed like there was at the very least a
bigger population back then. Definitely a lot less buildings are
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still standing. But how is the population changed over the
years from back in the heyday until now? I mean
back in the heyday we had like, gosh, almost twenty
thousand people in Tombstone, which if you come to Tombstone
you probably look around and say where they put them all?
Not that big of a place. But and you're right,
there's a lot of buildings that aren't there anymore that
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were occupied by some of that twenty Now we have
a population about So yeah, that's a dramatic decrease in
living population. But are we sure have the ghost population
that still makes up for it? I think, I imagine. So,
what do you say is probably the most haunted spot
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in the town? What is your favorite spirited place to visit? Wow? Yeah, well,
you know, my favorite place I have to say probably
the bird Cage, just because it's probably the most untouched
building from the back of the day. But really, and honestly,
you know, you've been to enough ghost town and Old
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West towns you can't throw a rock without hitting a
haunted place in Tombstone. I mean it's just saturated with haunting.
So it's pretty much. You know, people come to town,
they say, well, what's the haunted place? Where are we
going to go to find ghosts? Uh? Pretty much anywhere
go get ice cream? You know, that's true. It's anywhere
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there in Tombstone. But you know, my favorite place because
of the authenticity and originality probably the bird Cage. Not
much has changed there. I remember going in there. I
feel like it was empty for a little while. It
was almost like a time capsule before it was reopened.
But can you still see bullet holes in the walls
there or anything? Oh yeah, all the bullet holes are
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still in the walls and ceiling, the floor. All the
original curtains and tapestries are still up. A lot of
the old original paintings are still there, the stage, the
original pianos. So it's it really is like walking into
a time capsule, or you know, you go back in
time as then you go through the doors. It's an
amazing place. So what would you say is probably the
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most frequent occurrence there as far as paranormal activity, The
most frequent I think is being touched by It's usually
a female that goes around and kind of touches the
men when they come in there, and that seems to
be the most reported. I've had. It happened a few times.
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In fact, I've got a picture of me inside the
bird cage and you can see a mirror on one
of the pianos, and in the mirror you can see me,
and you can you know, see a woman's head with
long black hair on my shoulder, but you can't see
it in the picture of me because it shows me
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and then me in the mirror. So it's very cool picture.
But that's probably the most frequent thing, is people being touched. Yeah,
I could see that, And then I remember in the
Ghost Hunters episode that was there, which unfortunately that was
right before I started with Ghost Hunters and so I
didn't get I got to investigate later, obviously, But they
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had a really interesting experience where they had put like
a cord up or something and the cord literally just
like lifted up and dropped off of they had used
it to wire a camera or something, and it wasn't
like it slipped, like it literally like lifted up and
fell so is there a lot of movement in there?
Do things get moved around a lot? Yeah, there's a
lot of movement. Um, you put stuff someplace and then
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you know, you go back for it and it's moved.
Or downstairs in the poker room, there's a lot of
stuff that gets moved. You could see it move or
you hear it move. Yeah. And in that Ghost Hunters episode,
it was cord from one of the cameras that went
over one of the alarm bells that brought display there
and it just lifted right up off the bell and
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just fell back down. In fact, when you and I
were there with Lloyd Arbach and Jeff Blanger, that's right,
that's right. Jeff kept talking about being touched on the
back of the neck where we were all there. Oh,
that's funny. I'll have to remind him of that. He's
obviously very into the paranormal. For those who don't know,
Jeff Blanger is a really fabulous paranormal author. He's got
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a number of books out there. He's a great friend
of mine. But he's very hard on his paranormal experiences,
and so I had forgotten about that. So I'll have
to remind him you know, he's had just a few,
so that's a good one. So Bird Cage Theater is
obviously high on the list. Now, the other spot that
a lot of people talk about, which I was surprised
when I saw it in person because it was a
lot smaller than I imagined it would be, was the
Okay Corral. So does anything happen near the Okay Corral?
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It does. It is not so much actually inside, although
there are stories, but right outside because it's kind of
walled off now for obvious reasons. But on the other
side of the wall, next to the main thoroughfare that
goes through there A lot more stuff happens there because
that's where the gunfight actually took place, was almost right
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on the street. And we've investigated out there, you know,
several times, and it's difficult because you always, I don't
care what time of day it is or night, you
always have cars going by, so it's difficult for noise contamination.
But we have gotten some just amazing e vps right
outside the Okay Corral, one of them being when we
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were out there, we were saying, okay, who shot first?
We want to know who shot first. The McClary's or
the and we got a class A e v P
saying leave these boys alone. That was amazing to me.
And honestly, we never asked that question again. We've back
a couple of times, but I thought, you know what,
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I'm going to respect what the spirits say and we're
just not going to go there again. That's something that
we kind of strive for in our investigations. You know,
sometimes you kind of have to think outside the box
when you're investigating some of these more well known haunts,
because it's got to be strange if you're some sort
of spirit or entity to just kind of, day in
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and day out have people talking about the moment of
your death when you had an entire life before that.
And so that's why I always encourage people to kind
of think prior to that moment of death and see
what can you draw upon in their life that they
might actually want to talk about or might trigger them
to speak out. And so that might be kind of
a perfect example of like, okay, there over this right, yeah,
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and they get tired of being asked the same thing
day in and day out. Like you said, it's amazing
while doing investigations and being so involved in the history.
You know, my wife I have kind of switched our
views pretty quickly on who the real bad guys were,
who the real good guys were. You know, we like
the Clantons and mcclowdy's just from what we have experienced,
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have talked to them. We've actually been out to the
Clanton ranch where they live just outside of Stone, which
is an amazing place. Is that open to the public
or is that a place that you kind of have
to go visit it is? Yeah, you have to know
where it is because it's literally out in the middle
of the desert. It's an amazing, amazing place and it
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hooks into of course Tombstone and its history. So we
love going out there. Now, tell me about the Booth
Hill Graveyard. I do remember visiting that briefly. Yeah, the
boot Hill Graveyard. It is a neat place to go.
We've had a few experiences out there, but mostly with
and and it sounds funny, but mostly with spirit animals,
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not so much the spirit people. We've gone out there,
we've done t VP sessions and we've come back listen
to them, and we've had dogs bark right next to
us that we didn't hear. Of course, when we were there.
We've heard footsteps, you know, dog or something running through there,
and we have gotten a couple of e vps. But
it's a great place now. It used to be a
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lot bigger than what the tourists see now. In fact,
there's a circle can just on the other side of
the street, kind of down the same side, and that
used to be part of Boot Hill. So there's a
circle k built on top of part of the cemetery.
And every time they dig to put in a new
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gas pump or a new tank, they'd always find some bones.
They'd have to stop. They'd have to call in the
University of Arizona archaeological team, they'd have to do a
dig there. And I believe it or not, that circle
k next to Boot Hill is the most haunted circle
k I have ever investigated in my life. It's amazing.
(27:54):
I don't think, you know, I need to cross that
one off my list. I don't think I've ever investigated
a circle k, but this might be the perfect opportunity.
It might be. Yeah, it is crazy haunted it there
to get called in there like it was a milk file,
you know, because there would be phenomenon going on. Yeah,
they used to call me in it O Dark thirty saying, hey,
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you know, we got all kinds of stuff. You come
in here and talk to these guys or I'm like,
what am I supposed to do? But wow, it was
great and you know, I love it, and it's probably
the the most haunted quick March I've been to. That
is wild and it's just so funny that, you know,
people just think it's okay to just kind of keeping
when you build so close to a historical old cemetery,
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like Odds are especially out there that you know, the
gravestones and stuff get so weathered and they kind of
just melt away over time. You never know what you're
gonna get if you build that close to something like that.
Why do you think there's animal spirits out there as
opposed to people? You know, that's a really good question.
And again I think, you know, it could be We've
tried to theorize on this over and over again. Could
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be dead dogs from whoever's buried there that they're still
sticking close to their master. Because interestingly, whenever we go
to the Clantons and mccloudy's graves there, that's where we
always get the dogs Barking, which is very interesting. And
of course past Boothhill. Not too far from Booth Hill
there was a big tent city from all the miners
and stuff like that that lived there. So you know,
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who knows all the animals are there, but they seem
to gravitate there. So what do you think is like
maybe a little known piece of history about Tombstone. You know,
there's a lot of like very well known kind of
moments in time. There are there any like tragedies or
debts there that people don't really talk about much that
you think have kind of been overlooked historically. Um, you
(29:44):
know there are And I'll give you one good example,
because you don't really hear a lot about the Chinese
influence in Tombstone that there is a certain section of
town that was called Hoptown or China Town that was
run by China Mary. We do an event every year.
In fact, we're going to have it again next week,
(30:05):
a big event. We did an event a few years
ago and we had Brian Kanno as one of our guests,
and we were in a building that was in Hoptown,
the old Hoptown, and we got just an amazing experience
with e VPS and some pendulum work that we were
doing about a brother who killed his brother and couldn't
(30:29):
cross over and he was feeling guilty and the brother
that he killed came back to try to get him.
And we've got all this on tape. Fact we had
a film crew from New York that was videoing all
this and we have some extremely emotional things about the
ghost that came back. And there's a lot of death
(30:50):
in Hoptown that people just don't know about because it
was the Chinese section and it was kind of put aside.
But it was just a very very interesting investigation. Great
e vps, great film, you know evidence. When we crossed
them over there when they drive, we had thirty people
in that building. Everybody was in tears at the moment
of the crossover because they could feel it. So yeah,
(31:13):
there's a lot of gosh, you know again throw a rock.
There's history and hauntings and Tombstone. We could do, you know,
six shows on Alta, the different ones that we've found
out in Tombstone. It's so good. Gomers and prostitutes that
were associated with the birth age um that people forget about,
(31:34):
and so it's always interesting to talk to them as well.
This unknown or untapped history. Have you ever been able
to like find some evidence and then kind of cross
reference it with documentation in some way and it kind
of uncover a piece of history that maybe was overlooked otherwise. Well, yeah,
to Beauford House, which is one of the most haunted
(31:55):
houses private homes in Tombstone in fact ron and I
got there ead there because uh, yeah, we have. We've
really delved into the spiritual history and the actual history
of the place and have found that as well. As
you know, sometimes the written and handed down history isn't
(32:17):
exactly what happened. Yeah, exactly. Dig far enough and deep enough,
you find out that the stories have changed, or it
was altered, or it was whatever. And the Buford House
is a prime example where history and folklore kind of
got intertwined and the story got kind of lost along
(32:38):
the way, so to speak. Again, that's very common in Tombstone.
Between the actual history and the folklore that comes with it,
you often have to dig through a lot to get
to the truth. Yeah. Absolutely, you know, since it was
kind of lawless, a lot of the things aren't quite
in the newspapers and whatnot. I mean, there is a
lot of interesting information if you can start to dig
(32:59):
through like historical archives. But I imagine a lot of
it is very skewed and not necessarily accurate. So the
Beaufort House, is that a place that people can visit
as well? Everyone knows the obvious spots, but you know,
I'd love to spotlight some places people might not know.
The Beaufort House is not open to the public. I
can say it's a private residence that it was an
(33:21):
Airbnb for a while, but because of the whole COVID thing,
they had to shut that down, so it's strictly just
a private residence. Now. There are a lot of ghost
towns around it, other areas in Tombstone that maybe not
well known. Trying to think of some of the better ones.
I mean, I've investigated just about every building in Tombstone.
(33:41):
The Courthouse is a great place. Yeah, the Episcopal Church. Yeah,
It's funny always in my brain because I spent a
lot of time in Virginia City because I lived in
California for so long, So in my brain I always
kind of mix up the two in memories because they're
so similar, and I have to like catch myself because
they literally look very similar and have very similar histories
(34:04):
as well. Have you heard any wild stories from people
as far as encounters they've had with the paranormal in
town that really stick out in your brain? You know,
As far as wild ones, there's just I mean again,
there's dozens of stories. But we've had people tell us that,
you know, they've walked down the street in the middle
(34:26):
of the night just to experience it, and they've seen
very sharp a ghost of Virgil Earp and it started
walking towards them and then disappeared. We've heard stories of
you know, the Clantons walking down the street and then disappearing,
stuff like that. You listen to enough of the stories
(34:47):
and they kind of get wilder as they go, right,
I can imagine how is Tombstone doing tours twice right now?
With everything going on with COVID? Are are they recovering? Okay?
Are people coming back now? Yeah? They are, they really are.
They're coming back kind of in droves now that you
know in Arizona here everything's opened up and they've lifted
all the masks, stuff and everything else. So a lot
(35:10):
of people from other states are actually flying in again
to Tombstone because it's kind of quote unquote back to normal,
so to speak. So, yeah, it's really getting busy now
and people are coming in. We've got probably thirty or
forty people coming in next week for our events, so
we've kind of booked the hotels up, which is good.
(35:30):
So yeah, it's it's starting to really come back again.
And that's kind of the thing of Tombstone. You know,
you think it's dead, it's a sound too tough to die.
Before you know it, you know, it's it's booming again,
and that's kind of the history of Tombstone. Yeah, I
feel like it's kind of ebbed and flowed over the
years when the pandemic was really in the thick of
it and everything was closed and quiet. Did you do
(35:52):
any investigating then or did Tombstone just kind of have
a different vibe to it when that was going on?
You know, it did. It had a different vibe, and
it was very, very difficult to try to do any
investigating because nobody wanted to open a building up for you,
so it was difficult to investigate. But yeah, it was
a very different vibe. It was I don't use this
(36:14):
word often, but it was creepy because it wasn't the same.
It wasn't that same vibe to get when you go there. Now,
what happened, I don't know whether it was just the
absence of people and things close it down, but it
did change it for a while. But thankfully it's it's
it's back and kicking again. Yeah, as we've been investigating
again and kind of back out there, I always asked
(36:37):
that because I don't know that we'll ever see that
again in some of these haunted historical locations where the
living people were just gone for months and it really
affected some of the hauntings, and as soon as you
kind of thought about the human aspect of these spirits
and kind of like how confused they must be or
(36:58):
you know, assuming that there's intelligence behind them. That we've
been in some locations where activity just like completely ramped
up at that time, and then in other locations it
hasn't even really come back since then. So it's interesting
to see how the personality of each hunt handled those
months of quiet. Yeah. Yeah, and we're going to kind
(37:18):
of find out next week with our event because we're
going to be doing a few different locations. So it'll
be interesting to see just coming out of the pandemic,
if things are going to be as active or whether
it's going to be cooled down a little bit or
maybe ramped up. So we're curious how often do you
do events out there? Ron and I put on an
event every year. It may right around our anniversary can
(37:41):
We got married at to Beauford House May eighteen, So
we try to do an event during our anniversary, just
kind of our thing we'd like to do. So we
have it every year. We've done it for about seven
years and it's it's been great. We have a lot
of people that come in. We have you know, solver
talent that we book to come in and investigate with
(38:01):
the folks. And of course not last year because we
got everything was shut down. But again we're picking up
and hopefully we can continue. Well I think this will
air too late for this year's but how can people
kind of keep tabs on you and to sign up
for next year and just kind of see what you're
up to. Where can they find you? Oh, they can
find us any place on social media, either through my
(38:24):
name Dwight Hall, my wife's name Randa holl or be
Leave Paranormal which is b E L I E v
E paranormal dot com. We have a website. We have
two books if you're interested. You know, folks out there,
we have two books out there, working on a third
almost complete, and of all the areas around Tombstone, in
(38:47):
Tombstone and southern Arizona. So for those Old West fans
it might be an interesting read. Well. That is fantastic,
and I thank you guys for joining me and just
kind of telling people a little bit more about the
haunts in town. And I'm sure people are going to
want to come visit, because now I know I do,
so as soon as I get some time, I've got
to pop into town and explore again because I miss it.
(39:09):
It's a really great place and so much history and
so many ghosts. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it, guys. Oh,
thank you. And hey, you want to pop into town,
just let us know and we'll take you out for sure.
It's been many years since I visited the town of Tombstone,
(39:31):
and admittedly, putting together this episode made me really want
to take a trip back there. There's something about the
creation of an entire boom town, the buzz of new
riches and dreams being fulfilled, coupled with the wild West
romanticism that's really never left those streets. There is one
memory that stands out for me. When I visited so
(39:51):
many years ago, I had just completed an investigation and
found myself at two am walking alone down Allen Street
on the way it's my rental car. I didn't see
a ghost, but in those moments of stillness, I could
so strongly feel and imagine what Tombstone looked like during
its heyday in the eighties. It draws you in and
(40:12):
takes you back, just like it's drawn so many history lovers, tourists,
and more recently, paranormal researchers. Perhaps that's why, when so
many boom towns wasted away and disappeared, Tombstone is still
lovingly referred to as the town Too Tough to Die.
I'm Amy Bruney, and this was Haunted Road. Haunted Road
(40:43):
is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and
Mild from Aaron Mankey. The podcast is written and hosted
by Amy Bruney. Executive producers include Aaron Manky, Alex Williams,
and Matt Frederick. The show is produced by rima Ill
Kali and Trevor Young. Taylor Haggerdorn is the show's researcher.
(41:03):
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky. Listener Discretion is advised.
Edward Lawrence Chafflin was a prospector and US Army scout
stationed in Arizona in the eighteen seventies. Back then, many
(00:22):
folks were seeking the promise of silver ore in the area,
but ed Sheefflin was described as much more determined and
much more rugged than the rest. In eighteen seventy six,
David P. Lansing of Phoenix, Arizona described Chefflin as about
the strangest specimen of human flesh I ever saw. He
was six ft two inches tall and had black hair
(00:43):
that hung several inches below his shoulders, and a beard
that had not been trimmed or combed for so long
a time that it was a mass of unkempt knots
and mats. He wore clothing piece and patched from deer skins,
corduroy and flannel, and his hat was originally a slouch
hat that had been pieced with rabbit skin until very
little of the original felt remained. But something tells me
(01:06):
this look didn't stick with Ed for very long. Despite
the dangers. Ed would often go out on expeditions in
search for or His home base was camp with Chaka.
Soldiers would often ask him about his efforts. Ed consistently
responded with hope and determinations, but apparently surrounded by a
bunch of pessimists. Those soldiers would tell him you'll find something,
(01:27):
You'll find your tombstone, as so many others have before.
Well fatefully, on August one, eight seventy seven, Chefflin did
find his tombstone, but probably not like anyone expected. I'm
Amy Bruney and this is haunted road. The San Pedro
(01:56):
Valley had been the destination for intrepid miners and those
seeking work prior to the eighteen seventies, but our Ed
Chefflin found something that would be a game changer. On
August first, eighteen seventy seven, Ed struck silver and appropriately
dubbed his new mine tombstone. He found yet another mine
nearby that he christened the graveyard. Ed's name for his
(02:19):
silver mine. Carried Over is the name for the settlement
founded near the site, fueled by a silver rush that
attracted fortune hunters to the new town. When miners came
to town, they didn't just bring their supplies and hopes.
They ushered in a need for civil structures, food, education
for growing families, and entertainment. The town grew significantly into
(02:40):
the mid eighteen eighties as the local mines produced a
staggering forty to eighty five million dollars in silver. The
largest productive silver mine district in Arizona, its population grew
from one hundred to around fourteen thousand in less than
seven years. Tombstone's residence had access to a school, a
handful of church ches, a bowling alley, ice cream shop,
(03:02):
and most notably, one hundred ten saloons, fourteen gambling halls,
and numerous dance halls and brothels. Over seven thousand folks
answered the promising call of silver by the eighteen eighties,
and the famous art brothers Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan were
among them. Shortly after their friend Doc Holiday, a former
(03:23):
dentist from Georgia, turned to gambler and gunfighter followed suit.
Virgil took on the roll of Tombstones Marshal in eighteen eighty.
But the rb faction wasn't solely committed to upholding the law.
They had income that was unrelated with steaks and mines
and saloons, and occasional work as bartenders and private security.
There was a class division among Tombstone residents and that
(03:46):
culminated in numerous skirmishes and conflicts. But the most notable
occurred between the art Brothers and the Cowboys, a loosely
organized band about laws who were known cattle steelers. Tombstone
sits about thirty miles away from the Mexican border, and
at the time, the government of Mexico maintained a high
tax on imported tobacco, cattle, and alcohol. Cowboys gathered in
(04:10):
small groups in this liminal space and seemingly made a
lot of money from smuggling. They also brought a love
of drink and shooting to Tombstone, but they were allowed
to stay because they also brought a lot of money
to saloons, theaters, and of course, brothels. There were various
altercations that exacerbated the tense relationship of these two groups,
(04:31):
but the final straw was added in October when an
ordinance was passed in Tombstone prohibiting the carrying of weapons
in town. This riled the cowboys, who were used to
carrying their weapons wherever they pleased. On October, Doc Holiday
and Ike Clanton of the Cowboys were at the Alhambra
Saloon when they got into a fight. I'm almost positive
(04:54):
this started with Doc Holiday declaring I'm your huckleberry, but
this could be wishful thanking on my part. Cooler heads
temporarily prevailed. Holiday eventually headed home to his room in
a boarding house, but Clanton kept drinking and getting more
worked up. Virgil was still the marshal, which meant enforcement
of this unwelcome edict fell to him. But if there
(05:16):
was beef against Virgil, the whole RB Holiday group felt
the effects. Threats of this kind, though were commonplace, the
follow through wasn't, so no one, including Virgil Herb took
the threat from Clanton very seriously. The next day, around
nine in the morning, a policeman roused Virgil after just
a few hours of slumber to tell him that Ike
(05:36):
Clanton was staggering around town, now armed and still drunk,
threatening to kill all the Art brothers and their friend
Dog Holiday on site. Initially unfazed, Virgil did get around
to disarming the very drunk Clanton before escorting him to
see a judge. After receiving a fine and being let go. Ike, infuriated,
sought out a group of five cowboys, including his brother Billy,
(06:00):
the mclory's, and went with them to Fremont Street. The
bolstered threats from the cowboys resulted in Virgil's quick deputizing
of his brothers and Doc. The sheriff tried to convince
the Herbs to back off, but they pressed on, finding
the Clantons and the mclory's in a lot near the
old Kindersley Corral. Thirty shots and thirty seconds later, Tom
(06:21):
and Frank McClory and Billie Clanton were dead in the dust.
Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne had made a successful getaway
when the shooting began. The lawman all survived, but Whyatt
was the only one to remain unscathed. It wasn't clear
what side had fired the first shot, and the Herb
Holiday group was arrested and held in jail for about
a month. The hearing brought the result that the cowboys
(06:44):
were not unarmed, therefore closing out the case against the
Herbs and Holiday, but it was not the end of
the conflict. On December one, just two months after the shootout,
Virgil Earp was ambushed and maimed in a murder attempt
by the cowboys. It's believed that an apparition of Virgil
appears in this spot, but it never makes it across
(07:06):
the street. Morgan RB was the next target. In March
of eighteen eighty two, he was shot and killed by
a cowboy who aimed through a glass door of the
saloon Morgan was sitting in. The saloon was then called
Campbell and Hatch's Saloon, but is currently the Red Buffalo
Trading Company. It seems that Morgan is still frequenting the
place even in death, and has been said to even
(07:29):
help stock shelves. For these crimes, cowboys covered their own
with alibis and no charges were filed. Wyatt tried to
form a band to get justice, but didn't have much luck.
Wyatt left Arizona in eighteen eighty two without exacting his revenge.
After his death, the first biography of Wyatt Earp was
published in nineteen thirty one. It gave us a dramatic
(07:52):
telling of the shootout at the Okay Corral and other
events in RB's life that still color our understanding of
events in Tombstone. Even though the shootout occurred about six
buildings to the west of the Okay Corral. It's firmly
held that the latter is haunted by the spirits of
those slain cowboys. Several witnesses have reported seeing the fading
apparition of men dressed in cowboy attire, often appearing with
(08:15):
guns drawn, perhaps locked into a perpetual battle with the RBS.
Others have claimed to have felt numerous cold spots in
various areas of the Corral. One of the other most
haunted and storied spots in town is the Bird Cage Theater.
As someone who has visited here a few times, this
place has changed very little sincece heyday. It's like walking
(08:37):
into a time capsule. There's even still bullet holes in
the ceiling from especially rowdy nights. Established in the vein
of Chefflin Hall, a fine operatic venue, William and Lottie
Hutchinson hoped that their theater would draw respectable folks in Tombstone,
but money talks and the local population of lusty young
miners preferred body or types of entertainment, so the Hutchinson's
(09:00):
delivered in eighty two, just one year in the New
York Times referred to the bird Cage as the roughest, bodiest,
and most wicked night spot between Basin Street and the
Barbary Coast. Bird Cage certainly seems to refer to the
boxes attached to the ceiling where the women engaged in
sex work would host their companion and make good on
the exchange. But the women didn't do just that. They
(09:24):
also tended the bar and performed in a variety of shows.
Stage shows at the bird Cage started at nine pm
and continued until one am or so the next morning.
Waiter girls in short dresses with low cut necklines peddled
as many drinks as they could. Beer was just fifty
cents on the main floor and a dollar in the
curtain boxes. Skits, music acts, and comedy shows were all
(09:47):
featured and typically accentuated by bright clothing and short skirts.
Jokes were definitely of the naughty kind. In general, the
bird Cage was a rowdy place. It was the scene
of at least sixteen gun and knife fights over the years.
By the time the doors were shut permanently, there were
one hundred forty of those bullet holes in the walls
and ceilings that I told you about in their short
(10:09):
and bright outfits, women performed a popular act called the
Human Fly. Performers walked upside down on the ceiling over
the stage was specially outfitted shoes that had clamps on
them that fitted into holes board into the ceiling. At
least one of those performers fell to her death when
a clamp slipped, but there's not many details on that.
A very popular story connected to the bird Cage seems
(10:32):
dubious but is quite striking. The top lady at the
bird Cage was known as Margharita, and her supposed main
rival was Dirtie the gold Dollar from Crystal Palace, another brothel.
Gertie had quite a committed customer in Billy mill Green.
Some even alleged that mill Green was Gertie's liven lover. Billy,
apparently with a different conception of loyalties, found himself in
(10:55):
the birdcage with the lovely Margharita in his lap. Gertie,
the gutsy gritty woman, also found herself in the bird cage, and,
as a witness of betrayal, grabbing a handful of Margharita's hair,
gold Dollar stabbed her with a double edged stiletto that
was stashed in her garter she hacked at Margharita's heart.
Margherita died before anyone could offer aid. Gertie and Billy left,
(11:19):
and she apparently discarded the weapon behind the theater. When
she was found, charges weren't filed because there was no
weapon on which to base them. Margherita's death was unresolved,
and her spirit supposedly haunts the bird Cage still. Then,
supposedly in nWo, when they excavated an old privy behind
the bird cage, the stiletto used by gold Dollar was found.
(11:42):
It seems rather convenient that the blade was found on
the centennial of the slaying, if it happened at all,
but it's a great story. Carmeally to Jimenez's death by
suicide is another potentially apocryphal tale that's consistently repeated. Carmeally
to Jimenez and her partner, Frederick Baker were both performers
at the bird Cage. If true, I'd like to note
(12:03):
that Carmelita is also described as a well known singer.
They lived together for four or five months before her
death in the middle of August eighteen eighty eight. Frederick
had noticed of late that she was not in her
right spirits, rather downhearted and melancholy. As the day wound
down at home after performing at the bird Cage, Carmelita
began to cry. When asked if she was upset about him,
(12:25):
she assured him she wasn't. The next day, after rehearsals
at the bird Cage, Frederick saw her vomit alongside the washstand.
When asked, Carmelita said she intentionally took medicine to make
her sick, but wouldn't tell Frederick what it was. He
assumed that she had taken an emetic, something that seems
to have been consumed widely, if abusively, in the nineteenth century,
(12:47):
or was at least accessible to those who wanted or
needed to purse their systems of some real or perceived affliction. Regardless,
he assumed incorrectly she had actually taken two teaspoons of
rough on rats, an arsenic pason. This was only discovered
after a doctor was rushed to Carmelita, but the actual
emetic he applied was too late to save her. During
(13:09):
its heyday, the building was sold at least twice, but
its final curtain closed in eighteen ninety two as Tombstone's
water problem pushed out the bulk of miners who would
work elsewhere, which we'll talk about later. Because of fires
through Tombstone as well as the wear and tear experience
in a mining boomtown, most structures are recreations in modern builds,
(13:31):
but the bird Cage Theater wasn't constructed with wood. It's
made of concrete, and today it's the only building on
Allan Street that is original. When it closed its doors,
everything inside was left in place. The doors weren't opened
again until nineteen thirty four, and when they were, Tombstone
found itself with a perfect window into its past. As
(13:53):
we move on to the Boothill Graveyard, so named because
most of the men there supposedly died with their boots on,
let's also move on to the rapid demise of Tombstone
and its eventual status as a ghost town. Water was
threatening Tombstone as early as eighteen eighty, but each year
the mine seemed to strike more and more of it.
The flow wasn't at first large enough to stop work,
(14:14):
but experienced miners thought the water flow would increase, and
it did. All sources I've read indicate that pumping water
from mine shafts worked until it just didn't. A double
whammy seems to have ended things quite suddenly, as a
fire destroyed the pumping system on May eighteen eighty six,
and then the price of silver dropped, dashing hopes of
(14:35):
funding a restoration. Like the Boom Town, the Boothill Cemetery
had a quick rise and a short fall. Originally started
in eighteen seventy eight, it was referred to as the
City Cemetery until an actual city cemetery was built in
the town. Then it earned the named the Old Cemetery,
which it kept until nineteen nine. That's when we get
(14:55):
the name booth Hill Graveyard. By the nineteen twenties, it
had fallen into disrepair, and interested residents work diligently to
track down information regarding those who were buried there. Those
who were buried here usually had their places marked by wood,
which doesn't hold up well, especially in Arizona's climate. Most
of what visitors see there now are recreations of the
(15:17):
originals for the benefit of tourists, so the veracity of
some claims seem dubious but certainly entertaining, and some aren't
seemingly dubious but are in fact total fabrications intended to
spur tourism. If names come up, find a grave seems
to have a robust database of interments. There are about
two hundred fifty or so graves in this cemetery, and
(15:38):
many of them were outlaws. Brothers Tom and Frank McClory
and Billy Clanton, killed by the Herbs and Doc Holiday
in the shootout, are buried here. It's claimed that Billy's
spirit is one of the most active and apparently rises
from his grave each night. Many claimed that Billy haunts
both the graveyard and Allen Street, where he died in
the shootout. There are a few places that would be
(16:02):
so predictably haunted as Tombstone. But how many of these
ghost stories are just that stories? And what other secrets
does this old mining town hold up. Next, we'll talk
with Tombstone local and renowned paranormal investigator Dwight Hole, who
will fill us in on some of the more famous
Hanson Town plus some mothers you may never have even
heard of. Okay, so I am now joined by Dwight Hole,
(16:45):
who is a Dwight What is your position in Tombstone? Officially?
Everybody tells me you're like the resident paranormal expert. Oh,
I hate that word expert, but yeah, I'm kind of
the paranormal guy. And my wife and I have investigating
Tombstone for what I have for over twenty years, Ronda
(17:05):
for about last ten, So we're kind of the go
to folks for the paranormal and Toomstone. Yeah, I mean
that makes sense. I know people always shy away from
the word expert when it comes to the paranormal, which
I think is fair because people always say, how can
you prove the existence of something? Or how can you
call yourself an expert in something that we can barely
prove the existence of. But I think it's fair to
(17:27):
say that if you have a lot of knowledge of
the history of the paranormal, or if you are someone
who knows a lot about the history of a location,
as you seem to do, I think expert is fair.
I think you're allowed to call yourself something like that.
I'll take it. I'll take it. So Tombstone is such
an interesting town. I think I met you there years
(17:48):
and years ago. I have not been back since then.
What year was that, uh, two thousand eight, I believe, Yeah,
so it's been a minute, but it seems like not
that long ago to me. It was just such an
interesting town with such an interesting history. And I think
what I love about it is that I expect it's
probably not nearly as lawless as it was, but it
(18:10):
doesn't seem like it's changed much Like you really do
feel like you're taking a little step back in time.
And do you think that that might have something to
do with why spirits tend to remain there? Oh? Yeah, absolutely,
Tombstone is still Tombstone, whether it's today or a hundred
and fifty years ago. Um, you know, the players have changed,
(18:32):
but it's still the same thing. It's small town and
instead of silver, you know, they're mining tourists. It's still
kind of the same thing. The shops are still there
are at least the buildings are still there, you know,
all the streets are still there. So yeah, there's a
bit of familiarity, I think, and a bit of the
Tombstone attitude that I guess still prevails today. So I
(18:55):
think that's what helps keep some of the spirits there,
is they liked kind of that rock is body atmosphere,
and it still has it there today. Yeah. Absolutely, I
remember that very much and you read through you know,
kind of what happened there over the years, and now
it seemed like there was at the very least a
bigger population back then. Definitely a lot less buildings are
(19:17):
still standing. But how is the population changed over the
years from back in the heyday until now? I mean
back in the heyday we had like, gosh, almost twenty
thousand people in Tombstone, which if you come to Tombstone
you probably look around and say where they put them all?
Not that big of a place. But and you're right,
there's a lot of buildings that aren't there anymore that
(19:39):
were occupied by some of that twenty Now we have
a population about So yeah, that's a dramatic decrease in
living population. But are we sure have the ghost population
that still makes up for it? I think, I imagine. So,
what do you say is probably the most haunted spot
(20:01):
in the town? What is your favorite spirited place to visit? Wow? Yeah, well,
you know, my favorite place I have to say probably
the bird Cage, just because it's probably the most untouched
building from the back of the day. But really, and honestly,
you know, you've been to enough ghost town and Old
(20:24):
West towns you can't throw a rock without hitting a
haunted place in Tombstone. I mean it's just saturated with haunting.
So it's pretty much. You know, people come to town,
they say, well, what's the haunted place? Where are we
going to go to find ghosts? Uh? Pretty much anywhere
go get ice cream? You know, that's true. It's anywhere
(20:44):
there in Tombstone. But you know, my favorite place because
of the authenticity and originality probably the bird Cage. Not
much has changed there. I remember going in there. I
feel like it was empty for a little while. It
was almost like a time capsule before it was reopened.
But can you still see bullet holes in the walls
there or anything? Oh yeah, all the bullet holes are
(21:05):
still in the walls and ceiling, the floor. All the
original curtains and tapestries are still up. A lot of
the old original paintings are still there, the stage, the
original pianos. So it's it really is like walking into
a time capsule, or you know, you go back in
time as then you go through the doors. It's an
amazing place. So what would you say is probably the
(21:27):
most frequent occurrence there as far as paranormal activity, The
most frequent I think is being touched by It's usually
a female that goes around and kind of touches the
men when they come in there, and that seems to
be the most reported. I've had. It happened a few times.
(21:47):
In fact, I've got a picture of me inside the
bird cage and you can see a mirror on one
of the pianos, and in the mirror you can see me,
and you can you know, see a woman's head with
long black hair on my shoulder, but you can't see
it in the picture of me because it shows me
(22:07):
and then me in the mirror. So it's very cool picture.
But that's probably the most frequent thing, is people being touched. Yeah,
I could see that, And then I remember in the
Ghost Hunters episode that was there, which unfortunately that was
right before I started with Ghost Hunters and so I
didn't get I got to investigate later, obviously, But they
(22:29):
had a really interesting experience where they had put like
a cord up or something and the cord literally just
like lifted up and dropped off of they had used
it to wire a camera or something, and it wasn't
like it slipped, like it literally like lifted up and
fell so is there a lot of movement in there?
Do things get moved around a lot? Yeah, there's a
lot of movement. Um, you put stuff someplace and then
(22:52):
you know, you go back for it and it's moved.
Or downstairs in the poker room, there's a lot of
stuff that gets moved. You could see it move or
you hear it move. Yeah. And in that Ghost Hunters episode,
it was cord from one of the cameras that went
over one of the alarm bells that brought display there
and it just lifted right up off the bell and
(23:12):
just fell back down. In fact, when you and I
were there with Lloyd Arbach and Jeff Blanger, that's right,
that's right. Jeff kept talking about being touched on the
back of the neck where we were all there. Oh,
that's funny. I'll have to remind him of that. He's
obviously very into the paranormal. For those who don't know,
Jeff Blanger is a really fabulous paranormal author. He's got
(23:33):
a number of books out there. He's a great friend
of mine. But he's very hard on his paranormal experiences,
and so I had forgotten about that. So I'll have
to remind him you know, he's had just a few,
so that's a good one. So Bird Cage Theater is
obviously high on the list. Now, the other spot that
a lot of people talk about, which I was surprised
when I saw it in person because it was a
lot smaller than I imagined it would be, was the
Okay Corral. So does anything happen near the Okay Corral?
(23:58):
It does. It is not so much actually inside, although
there are stories, but right outside because it's kind of
walled off now for obvious reasons. But on the other
side of the wall, next to the main thoroughfare that
goes through there A lot more stuff happens there because
that's where the gunfight actually took place, was almost right
(24:20):
on the street. And we've investigated out there, you know,
several times, and it's difficult because you always, I don't
care what time of day it is or night, you
always have cars going by, so it's difficult for noise contamination.
But we have gotten some just amazing e vps right
outside the Okay Corral, one of them being when we
(24:41):
were out there, we were saying, okay, who shot first?
We want to know who shot first. The McClary's or
the and we got a class A e v P
saying leave these boys alone. That was amazing to me.
And honestly, we never asked that question again. We've back
a couple of times, but I thought, you know what,
(25:02):
I'm going to respect what the spirits say and we're
just not going to go there again. That's something that
we kind of strive for in our investigations. You know,
sometimes you kind of have to think outside the box
when you're investigating some of these more well known haunts,
because it's got to be strange if you're some sort
of spirit or entity to just kind of, day in
(25:23):
and day out have people talking about the moment of
your death when you had an entire life before that.
And so that's why I always encourage people to kind
of think prior to that moment of death and see
what can you draw upon in their life that they
might actually want to talk about or might trigger them
to speak out. And so that might be kind of
a perfect example of like, okay, there over this right, yeah,
(25:45):
and they get tired of being asked the same thing
day in and day out. Like you said, it's amazing
while doing investigations and being so involved in the history.
You know, my wife I have kind of switched our
views pretty quickly on who the real bad guys were,
who the real good guys were. You know, we like
the Clantons and mcclowdy's just from what we have experienced,
(26:09):
have talked to them. We've actually been out to the
Clanton ranch where they live just outside of Stone, which
is an amazing place. Is that open to the public
or is that a place that you kind of have
to go visit it is? Yeah, you have to know
where it is because it's literally out in the middle
of the desert. It's an amazing, amazing place and it
(26:30):
hooks into of course Tombstone and its history. So we
love going out there. Now, tell me about the Booth
Hill Graveyard. I do remember visiting that briefly. Yeah, the
boot Hill Graveyard. It is a neat place to go.
We've had a few experiences out there, but mostly with
and and it sounds funny, but mostly with spirit animals,
(26:52):
not so much the spirit people. We've gone out there,
we've done t VP sessions and we've come back listen
to them, and we've had dogs bark right next to
us that we didn't hear. Of course, when we were there.
We've heard footsteps, you know, dog or something running through there,
and we have gotten a couple of e vps. But
it's a great place now. It used to be a
(27:13):
lot bigger than what the tourists see now. In fact,
there's a circle can just on the other side of
the street, kind of down the same side, and that
used to be part of Boot Hill. So there's a
circle k built on top of part of the cemetery.
And every time they dig to put in a new
(27:33):
gas pump or a new tank, they'd always find some bones.
They'd have to stop. They'd have to call in the
University of Arizona archaeological team, they'd have to do a
dig there. And I believe it or not, that circle
k next to Boot Hill is the most haunted circle
k I have ever investigated in my life. It's amazing.
(27:54):
I don't think, you know, I need to cross that
one off my list. I don't think I've ever investigated
a circle k, but this might be the perfect opportunity.
It might be. Yeah, it is crazy haunted it there
to get called in there like it was a milk file,
you know, because there would be phenomenon going on. Yeah,
they used to call me in it O Dark thirty saying, hey,
(28:15):
you know, we got all kinds of stuff. You come
in here and talk to these guys or I'm like,
what am I supposed to do? But wow, it was
great and you know, I love it, and it's probably
the the most haunted quick March I've been to. That
is wild and it's just so funny that, you know,
people just think it's okay to just kind of keeping
when you build so close to a historical old cemetery,
(28:36):
like Odds are especially out there that you know, the
gravestones and stuff get so weathered and they kind of
just melt away over time. You never know what you're
gonna get if you build that close to something like that.
Why do you think there's animal spirits out there as
opposed to people? You know, that's a really good question.
And again I think, you know, it could be We've
tried to theorize on this over and over again. Could
(29:00):
be dead dogs from whoever's buried there that they're still
sticking close to their master. Because interestingly, whenever we go
to the Clantons and mccloudy's graves there, that's where we
always get the dogs Barking, which is very interesting. And
of course past Boothhill. Not too far from Booth Hill
there was a big tent city from all the miners
and stuff like that that lived there. So you know,
(29:23):
who knows all the animals are there, but they seem
to gravitate there. So what do you think is like
maybe a little known piece of history about Tombstone. You know,
there's a lot of like very well known kind of
moments in time. There are there any like tragedies or
debts there that people don't really talk about much that
you think have kind of been overlooked historically. Um, you
(29:44):
know there are And I'll give you one good example,
because you don't really hear a lot about the Chinese
influence in Tombstone that there is a certain section of
town that was called Hoptown or China Town that was
run by China Mary. We do an event every year.
In fact, we're going to have it again next week,
(30:05):
a big event. We did an event a few years
ago and we had Brian Kanno as one of our guests,
and we were in a building that was in Hoptown,
the old Hoptown, and we got just an amazing experience
with e VPS and some pendulum work that we were
doing about a brother who killed his brother and couldn't
(30:29):
cross over and he was feeling guilty and the brother
that he killed came back to try to get him.
And we've got all this on tape. Fact we had
a film crew from New York that was videoing all
this and we have some extremely emotional things about the
ghost that came back. And there's a lot of death
(30:50):
in Hoptown that people just don't know about because it
was the Chinese section and it was kind of put aside.
But it was just a very very interesting investigation. Great
e vps, great film, you know evidence. When we crossed
them over there when they drive, we had thirty people
in that building. Everybody was in tears at the moment
of the crossover because they could feel it. So yeah,
(31:13):
there's a lot of gosh, you know again throw a rock.
There's history and hauntings and Tombstone. We could do, you know,
six shows on Alta, the different ones that we've found
out in Tombstone. It's so good. Gomers and prostitutes that
were associated with the birth age um that people forget about,
(31:34):
and so it's always interesting to talk to them as well.
This unknown or untapped history. Have you ever been able
to like find some evidence and then kind of cross
reference it with documentation in some way and it kind
of uncover a piece of history that maybe was overlooked otherwise. Well, yeah,
to Beauford House, which is one of the most haunted
(31:55):
houses private homes in Tombstone in fact ron and I
got there ead there because uh, yeah, we have. We've
really delved into the spiritual history and the actual history
of the place and have found that as well. As
you know, sometimes the written and handed down history isn't
(32:17):
exactly what happened. Yeah, exactly. Dig far enough and deep enough,
you find out that the stories have changed, or it
was altered, or it was whatever. And the Buford House
is a prime example where history and folklore kind of
got intertwined and the story got kind of lost along
(32:38):
the way, so to speak. Again, that's very common in Tombstone.
Between the actual history and the folklore that comes with it,
you often have to dig through a lot to get
to the truth. Yeah. Absolutely, you know, since it was
kind of lawless, a lot of the things aren't quite
in the newspapers and whatnot. I mean, there is a
lot of interesting information if you can start to dig
(32:59):
through like historical archives. But I imagine a lot of
it is very skewed and not necessarily accurate. So the
Beaufort House, is that a place that people can visit
as well? Everyone knows the obvious spots, but you know,
I'd love to spotlight some places people might not know.
The Beaufort House is not open to the public. I
can say it's a private residence that it was an
(33:21):
Airbnb for a while, but because of the whole COVID thing,
they had to shut that down, so it's strictly just
a private residence. Now. There are a lot of ghost
towns around it, other areas in Tombstone that maybe not
well known. Trying to think of some of the better ones.
I mean, I've investigated just about every building in Tombstone.
(33:41):
The Courthouse is a great place. Yeah, the Episcopal Church. Yeah,
It's funny always in my brain because I spent a
lot of time in Virginia City because I lived in
California for so long, So in my brain I always
kind of mix up the two in memories because they're
so similar, and I have to like catch myself because
they literally look very similar and have very similar histories
(34:04):
as well. Have you heard any wild stories from people
as far as encounters they've had with the paranormal in
town that really stick out in your brain? You know,
As far as wild ones, there's just I mean again,
there's dozens of stories. But we've had people tell us that,
you know, they've walked down the street in the middle
(34:26):
of the night just to experience it, and they've seen
very sharp a ghost of Virgil Earp and it started
walking towards them and then disappeared. We've heard stories of
you know, the Clantons walking down the street and then disappearing,
stuff like that. You listen to enough of the stories
(34:47):
and they kind of get wilder as they go, right,
I can imagine how is Tombstone doing tours twice right now?
With everything going on with COVID? Are are they recovering? Okay?
Are people coming back now? Yeah? They are, they really are.
They're coming back kind of in droves now that you
know in Arizona here everything's opened up and they've lifted
all the masks, stuff and everything else. So a lot
(35:10):
of people from other states are actually flying in again
to Tombstone because it's kind of quote unquote back to normal,
so to speak. So, yeah, it's really getting busy now
and people are coming in. We've got probably thirty or
forty people coming in next week for our events, so
we've kind of booked the hotels up, which is good.
(35:30):
So yeah, it's it's starting to really come back again.
And that's kind of the thing of Tombstone. You know,
you think it's dead, it's a sound too tough to die.
Before you know it, you know, it's it's booming again,
and that's kind of the history of Tombstone. Yeah, I
feel like it's kind of ebbed and flowed over the
years when the pandemic was really in the thick of
it and everything was closed and quiet. Did you do
(35:52):
any investigating then or did Tombstone just kind of have
a different vibe to it when that was going on?
You know, it did. It had a different vibe, and
it was very, very difficult to try to do any
investigating because nobody wanted to open a building up for you,
so it was difficult to investigate. But yeah, it was
a very different vibe. It was I don't use this
(36:14):
word often, but it was creepy because it wasn't the same.
It wasn't that same vibe to get when you go there. Now,
what happened, I don't know whether it was just the
absence of people and things close it down, but it
did change it for a while. But thankfully it's it's
it's back and kicking again. Yeah, as we've been investigating
again and kind of back out there, I always asked
(36:37):
that because I don't know that we'll ever see that
again in some of these haunted historical locations where the
living people were just gone for months and it really
affected some of the hauntings, and as soon as you
kind of thought about the human aspect of these spirits
and kind of like how confused they must be or
(36:58):
you know, assuming that there's intelligence behind them. That we've
been in some locations where activity just like completely ramped
up at that time, and then in other locations it
hasn't even really come back since then. So it's interesting
to see how the personality of each hunt handled those
months of quiet. Yeah. Yeah, and we're going to kind
(37:18):
of find out next week with our event because we're
going to be doing a few different locations. So it'll
be interesting to see just coming out of the pandemic,
if things are going to be as active or whether
it's going to be cooled down a little bit or
maybe ramped up. So we're curious how often do you
do events out there? Ron and I put on an
event every year. It may right around our anniversary can
(37:41):
We got married at to Beauford House May eighteen, So
we try to do an event during our anniversary, just
kind of our thing we'd like to do. So we
have it every year. We've done it for about seven
years and it's it's been great. We have a lot
of people that come in. We have you know, solver
talent that we book to come in and investigate with
(38:01):
the folks. And of course not last year because we
got everything was shut down. But again we're picking up
and hopefully we can continue. Well I think this will
air too late for this year's but how can people
kind of keep tabs on you and to sign up
for next year and just kind of see what you're
up to. Where can they find you? Oh, they can
find us any place on social media, either through my
(38:24):
name Dwight Hall, my wife's name Randa holl or be
Leave Paranormal which is b E L I E v
E paranormal dot com. We have a website. We have
two books if you're interested. You know, folks out there,
we have two books out there, working on a third
almost complete, and of all the areas around Tombstone, in
(38:47):
Tombstone and southern Arizona. So for those Old West fans
it might be an interesting read. Well. That is fantastic,
and I thank you guys for joining me and just
kind of telling people a little bit more about the
haunts in town. And I'm sure people are going to
want to come visit, because now I know I do,
so as soon as I get some time, I've got
to pop into town and explore again because I miss it.
(39:09):
It's a really great place and so much history and
so many ghosts. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it, guys. Oh,
thank you. And hey, you want to pop into town,
just let us know and we'll take you out for sure.
It's been many years since I visited the town of Tombstone,
(39:31):
and admittedly, putting together this episode made me really want
to take a trip back there. There's something about the
creation of an entire boom town, the buzz of new
riches and dreams being fulfilled, coupled with the wild West
romanticism that's really never left those streets. There is one
memory that stands out for me. When I visited so
(39:51):
many years ago, I had just completed an investigation and
found myself at two am walking alone down Allen Street
on the way it's my rental car. I didn't see
a ghost, but in those moments of stillness, I could
so strongly feel and imagine what Tombstone looked like during
its heyday in the eighties. It draws you in and
(40:12):
takes you back, just like it's drawn so many history lovers, tourists,
and more recently, paranormal researchers. Perhaps that's why, when so
many boom towns wasted away and disappeared, Tombstone is still
lovingly referred to as the town Too Tough to Die.
I'm Amy Bruney, and this was Haunted Road. Haunted Road
(40:43):
is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and
Mild from Aaron Mankey. The podcast is written and hosted
by Amy Bruney. Executive producers include Aaron Manky, Alex Williams,
and Matt Frederick. The show is produced by rima Ill
Kali and Trevor Young. Taylor Haggerdorn is the show's researcher.
(41:03):
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I
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