Tombstone - Part II

Hello Again! So, now we move on to the second part of our trip - Tombstone! So let's begin shall we!

After Greg and Catalina's journey down to Bisbee, the rest of us came rolling in to Tombstone in the early afternoon. The agreement was to call Greg & Catalina and they would meet us there at the hotel.

The portion of the hotel that faces the side street

We all met up at the Tombstone Motel, checked in and took a look around. Now part of the Motel is original from the 1800's - a small section consisting of 2 or three rooms - but in the past few decades, the hotel and these rooms have been renovated and expanded to include the building above, two additional newer buildings and 2 run down, older houses on the property that are also available to rent.  In looking at the above picture, the original adobe section is right behind Morgan's Pizza. Located on the corners of 5th and Fremont, this motel is just 250 feet from the main strip and the famous Crystal Palace, one of the early hangouts of Wyatt Earp and the boys.

Rooms 119 & 121 are at the end on the right

Originally built in 1880, the Tombstone Motel is reportedly haunted by two ghosts. There are two rooms that are haunted here, rooms 119 and 121 which are right next to each other on the right at the end of this hallway. One of those was Greg and Catalina's room. It is reported that room 121 has a heavier presence and that a man in western clothing has been seen in the hall to the bathroom as well as standing over guests as they sleep. Some have also mentioned feeling like someone was sitting on the bed next to them while they are sleeping. Room 119 is known  to have had a more playful ghost, possibly either a woman or a child. In both rooms, reports from guests have said that appliance, mainly the TV's, have turned on by themselves, things have been moved and many have heard voices on each side of the shared wall when yet the other room has remained unoccupied.

A high reading

Maxing out. It must be pissed!

In doing some research to find out about these ghosts, I can not seem to find much online. However, from a first hand account, when we checked in to the hotel Greg and I spoke with an  employee about the ghosts. We were told that a cowboy supposedly hung himself in one of those two rooms and that a prostitute was shot in one of the room, thus explaining the sightings and confirming the stories.

Mandie getting readings

There have been several ghost hunts by professional ghost hunters that have not been successful in capturing much of anything in either of these two rooms. However, our trip was a little different. Greg's EMF meter was put to the test and in one spot in particular at the ceiling, my sister Mandie was able to get some fantastic readings. She asked the spirits to let us know that they were there and sure enough, she had a way of provoking it to do so. And it did not seem to happy at her forcefulness. As you see in the photos, the meter would range anywhere from one or two beeps to going off and maxing out, depending on how much she seemed to aggravate it.

 Another strange thing that happened, but I did not notice it until we were home and I was uploading and looking through all of my pictures from the trip. In utter astonishment, I seemed to have captured some sort of black shadowy type thing as you can see in the two pictures here.

Shadow under the lamps

The shadow seems to have moved

The weird things here is the lighting. You can clearly see in the photo to the right that the light by Mandie is off. The only two lights that were on was the one down the little hall going into the bathroom and the light on the left in the picture of the two lamps over the bed. I am not quite sure what this dark shadow is from, but if you notice it seems to have moved from under the lamps on the headboard clearly across the wall and on over the curtains in the other. I just could not explain this shadow and still wonder today how I could have possibly captured this and what may have caused it.

The Bird Cage Theater a long time ago

The Bird Cage today

One of the most famous haunted buildings in Tombstone is the historic Bird Cage Theater. Opened in 1881, the Bird Cage was a theater, saloon and gambling hall. During it's hey day, the theater was open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for 8 years straight. But when flood waters began seeping into the mines, the town went bust and so did it's businesses. In 1889, the Bird Cage Theater was closed down and boarded up and would remain so for the next 45 years.

The Poker room downstairs

The main room

In 1934, a family purchased the Bird Cage and it was reopened to the public as a museum, which is how it remains to this day. The bottom 6 rooms are newly opened to the public where you can view a poker table and bar ares just as it sat the day the Bird Cage closed as well as a few of the rooms that the prostitutes used to entertain their clients that played cards there.

Bullet holes

During it's 8 year history, it was known as the "...wildest, wickedest night spot between Basin Street and the Barbary Coast". There is said to have been 26 murders occur with it's walls and the building is riddled with 120+ bullet holes. Numerous ghosts still walk the floorboards of the Bird Cage to this day.

Visitors and employees have reported seeing many ghostly cowboys and prostitutes roaming the Bird Cage. Some have even claimed to have been pushed. Music,laughter and yelling have reportedly been heard, as if those who had once partied there were still living it up. One ghostly apparition is a man wearing a black visor that is said to have been seen walking back and forth on the stage.

Orb photo

I took lots of photos of this historic landmark. It is very dark in the Bird Cage and my photography skills are not the best, but I did capture this photo of a very large orb right over Greg's head from where I stood up on the top stair of the stage. I actually have a few photos with orbs in them from this trip.

Peeping through cracks

You get a really creepy feeling in the Bird Cage that's for sure. And being that we were the only ones in there for the first few minutes of our tour, we had full reign at being able to spread out and wander without others being around. Walking around on the stage by myself, I had a real creepy feeling as if someone was watching me. At one point I was peeking through a crack in the boards to view the backside of the 'cages'  and I got this feeling that at any moment, someone was going to be peeking out of one of those cages around the corner at me. 

Right where I felt the 'drop'

The one thing that did happen to me (and as it turns out, also to my mother in law) was when I was wandering around up stairs on the stage with a few of my family members, looking at memorabilia and reading facts about the items we were viewing. At one point, I wandered over to the little section of wall where you can go down to the lower levels. Just as I was crossing over the threshold of this area, I felt something drop down into my hair just on the right side of my head just above my right ear. Almost as if a rain drop were to fall heavily on your head from the house eaves. It felt just like that. I immediately grabbed at my hair thinking that it would be wet from something dripping or that perhaps something had fallen off the ceiling and was now in my hair. To my constant patting down and rubbing, I found nothing there. This freaked me out! As far as I know besides this happening to both me and my mama Sandy, no one else experienced anything in the Bird Cage. I can honestly say that I can't wait to go there again, possibly at night. Maybe whatever played with my hair that day will do it again.

Fatima with a bullet hole

Last but not least, there was one other incident that Will and his Aunt Mary in broad daylight. At one end of the parking lot up in the front (facing the main street) there is a small cafe. When we were just about getting ready to leave on Sunday morning, we all decided to have breakfast here before taking one last little shopping trip on the main strip and leaving to go back to Mesa.

After everyone had ordered, Will and Aunt Mary were standing out front on the sidewalk talking and smoking. Will says that he saw a 'white ball', almost like a wadded up piece of paper, hit him in the elbow hard enough to make it move. Like if someone ran into him. Weird thing was, Aunt Mary saw it also, but then when they looked around, there was nothing on the ground around them at all. They both came back into the cafe freaked out about it!

There are many more places to explore in Tombstone, many of them haunted. No matter how many times we go down there, it never gets boring and it seems like there is always more to see. Next time my goal is to take the "Haunted Tombstone" tour. I can't wait!

Until next time!