AZ Trip #5: The Ghost in the Copper Queen Hotel

Bisbee, AZ's Copper Queen Hotel

In blog #5 of my trip to southern Arizona

Copper Queen Hotel sign

with my friend Dan, we started it Bisbee. Bisbee is
an old mining town where silver and copper were mined. The town grew up around those mines, and many of the citizens were miners. One of the most famous hotels, however, was named for one of the mines: The Old Copper Queen Hotel. When we visited, we didn't know anything about hauntings, but I encountered one off the lobby. Here's the story of my encounter and the other known ghosts. .

THE GHOST ROB MET - Dan and I walked through the front door and past the hotel desk, which was against a wall on the right side of the room. The large room had an old piano against the back right wall, and there was a table and several chairs on the left side of the small lobby. On the table I believe there was the "Ghost Journal" which you'll read about below.

The hotel lobby

The hallway where Rob met Maria's Ghost

Since the lobby was small, and there were 2 ways to go, one being upstairs to the hotel rooms, and the other through a doorway next to the front desk, we went through the doorway. The doorway led to a hallway, and the bar for the restaurant. The bar appeared as it had in the 1880s when the hotel was built from 1898 to 1902 by the Phelps Dodge Corporation (the same who you read about in the last blog who shipped striking miners to New Mexico in 1917).  The hotel is Arizona's longest continuously operated hotel.

GHOST IN THE HALLWAY - When I stepped in the hallway I ran right into a female ghost. She decided to share her pain to let me know who she was (although I didn't know who she was no matter), so she made my right leg collapse under me! Dan was behind me and saw me stumble and try to catch myself. He asked what was happening, and I explained that the ghost was sharing her pain to prove her identity. 

She told me her name was Mary or Maria, and she was of Mexican descent. She said she worked there in the 1890s, apparently right after the hotel opened. She was a prostitute. She opted to stay behind as an Earth-bound ghost, but I didn't learn why. She didn't seem like she wanted help to cross over, either, so I picked myself up and met Dan at the entrance to the lobby and we left the hotel.

The hotel bar

OTHER HAUNTINGS WE LEARNED ABOUT AFTER WE VISITED -

One front desk clerk claimed that he heard a female voice while riding the elevator between the third and fourth floors. He was said to be the only one in the building. Others have reported seeing keys floating. There are many reports from guests of batteries in remotes being dead or televisions not turning on (and ghosts like to siphon energy so they can get strong enough to manifest).

Haunted Hallway

KNOWN GHOSTS - A young boy named Billy is said to haunt the hotel. He supposedly died long ago in the nearby San Pedro River .Others who are said to haunt the hotel include a former prostitute named Julia Lowell (who is said to have committed suicide) and a smoky-smelling bearded man in a top hat and black cape.  

THE GHOST JOURNAL - When we were in the lobby we saw a journal there called the "Ghost Journal." It's a place where guests can write down their paranormal experiences.

NEXT: Down in the Copper Mines!