Haunted Tonopah Hotel Due To Re-Open.
Yes, ghost fans, Tonopah, Nevada’s Mizpah Hotel, reputed to be haunted by “the lady in red,” is due to re-open.
Traffic passes the closed Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah on Dec. 19, 2007. The historic hotel was built in 1908. Photo by Jeff Scheid / Las Vegas Review-Journal
Being a long-time fan of ghosts, even the idea of ghosts, if it were possible, this author would surely book a room on the fifth floor of this place in a New York minute when it re-opens… especially as the aforementioned resident is a sweet soul and is rather gracious enough to leave those lucky enough to see her a quite valuable souvenir, direct from the æther!
From Historic Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah gets new life, by Ed Vogel.
“During the Mizpah’s glory days, lore has it that the hotel was where former heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey served as a bouncer, Wyatt Earp was a regular and Howard Hughes married Jean Peters.
Or so the story goes.
State historian Guy Rocha has debunked those myths thoroughly.
Dempsey even wrote in his autobiography that he never was a saloon bouncer in his life. Hughes married Peters in 1957 at the L&L Motel, down the street from the Mizpah. And while Earp lived in Tonopah in 1902, he was long gone before the Mizpah was constructed.
The Lady In Red. Click for the hotel’s page on her.
Rocha said in a story that hotel promoters long have taken “great liberties with the past to enhance the history of the business and attract more patrons.” The marketing strategy is an old and unsophisticated one and incorporates the “George Washington slept here” approach.
But not even Rocha can debunk the “Lady in Red” story, at least among people who want to believe in ghosts.
The lady in red was a prostitute who conducted her business with Mizpah patrons in the 1920s. A wealthy man is said to have killed her in a fit of rage when he discovered he was only one of her many customers. He killed her on the fifth floor.
She roams the hotel to this day, according to legend. Those who see her often find a pearl on their pillows or nightstands.
Myth or not, the Clines are promoting the legend on their website.”
What a great story. For me it conjures up a life back in time where things were, seemingly, from my perspective, a lot more “real” than they are now. I might have even done well then. Although I’m pretty sure that to the people then, even Wyatt Earp, things may have been as banal as things are to us… maybe not, eh… it’s fun to romanticize them into a sort of Hollywood-induced semi-reality. Anyway…
I wish the new owners a lot of success and the same to those staying on in this Fortean facility!
Peace.
