Postcards from Haunted Hotels- “Ghosts in Gallup, Santa Fe Spirits and Phantoms in Flagstaff!”
A cigar chomping nun. A suicidal gambler. A naked property manager, and a wounded bank robber. These are just a few of the spirits whose stories are shared in this episode which features a sampling of tales collected in old hotels out west, about people who checked in for a night of rest, but never left...
The Original Santa Fe Ghost Tour
TRANSCRIPT
(As this transcript was obtained via a computerized service, please forgive any typos, spelling and grammatical errors)
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Evan Stern: (00:00)
Hey, y'all, Evan here. If you're listening to this episode around the time of release, then you know we're in December and in the thick of that season, Andy Williams proclaimed the most wonderful time of the year. There'll be parties for hosting marshmallows for toasting and caroling out in the snow. There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago. Well, really the only one of those customs we're gonna be focused on today are those ghost stories he sang about. But I ain't about to recite Charles Dickens because the ones I'm sharing were gathered along the western stretch of Route 66 in New Mexico and Arizona. Some humorous. Some speak to history, a few are brutal and maybe a little chilling. But while the cities and settings differ, all were collected in places where you, too can rent a room for the night- if you dare. I'm Evan Stern, and this is Vanishing Postcards.
John Lorenzen: (01:56)
Uh, the theme of the the city is, I've got a secret. And, you know, because it's so secretive of so many things going on and a lot of ghosts in the city, the city different, the ghosts different in the land of Enchantment. There's plenty of spiritual nature in this whole city, but if I did 'em all, it'd be like Gilligan's Island. This would be a three hour tour, so many ghosts, so little time.
Evan Stern: (02:20)
John Lorenzen grew up in snow battered Wisconsin. A lanky bespectacled elementary school teacher with peppered hair and a quirky glint, he fled the Midwest sometime ago in search of warmer climates. He landed in Santa Fe, whose conjecture of art, history and architecture captured his fascination upon arrival. Decades later, his love for this city seems unabated and is a passion he's shared with visitors now for over 20 years through the ghost tours he guides around downtown's narrow adobe lined streets. And struggling along Don Gaspar Avenue, past galleries and cocktail bars with arched facades, he tells me that this town's wayward spirits shouldn't be feared, but celebrated.
John Lorenzen: (03:04)
These folks who may be floating through the ether founded the basis of this city, built the buildings, created the laws, they should be applauded. We shouldn't fear the ghosts because, um, most ghosts are not here to scare us. They're way too selfish to do that. They're, they're connected to their own misery. There is a 1% just like people who are evil, but that's in the minority. And Hollywood is glommed onto the 1%. Why? Because it sells more tickets. It's for teenage boys to goose their girlfriends in the bloody third or fourth act of Jason or Freddy. Okay? But it's not based on any reality. Ghosts are grossly misrepresented in Hollywood. They should, uh, have, they should picket at the studios.
Evan Stern: (03:45)
The thought of invisible phantoms camping outside Universal Studios with protest signs is a funny image. But joking aside, when I ask John to elaborate as to why ghosts are selfish, I think his answer does a pretty good job of illuminating the logic behind hauntings
John Lorenzen: (04:03)
Because they're stuck on their, their problems that are keeping them in the past. A spirit that is giving has already moved and they don't become a spirit. But ghosts are very, are narcissistic, they're stuck on their problems and they don't know how to get behind them. And it takes a strong psychic to say, Did you know you're dead? It's 2021. You died in 1867 or 1922. And the ghost says, You gotta be kidding. I've been wasting all this time
Evan Stern: (04:29)
To hear John tell it, Santa Fe is rife with spirits like these. But he says the reason they're kicking around here isn't necessarily because this town is a magnet for narcissists.
John Lorenzen: (04:39)
We're the most haunted city in the west, one of the top five haunted cities of the United States. We have a ghost association to keep out the riff raf here, but there's so many ghosts and there's a lot of reasons for this. It's 400 years old. A 400 year old city is gonna have more ghosts than a, uh, a subdivision on the edge of Dallas, for example. And then there's the, the violence of the city with wars insurrections executions that took place here in the, from the 1600s all the way to the mid 1800s. And if you study the paranormal, this violent death can be a part of why, uh, a small segment of people decide not to go to the next world. They stick around. And then we have our architecture and our building codes. Uh, we have a strong building code. No mistake that the top five haunts of the United States all have strong building codes. See, you preserve the old buildings. Guess what goes along for the ride? The ghosts. Okay, there's also our elevation is 7,000 feet. The, um, the atmosphere between dimensions is literally thinner, Okay? So there's a lot of different reasons why we're haunted
Evan Stern: (05:49)
And the most haunted places of all, according, not just to John, but many ghost hunters are hotels.
John Lorenzen: (05:56)
Now you think about ghosts and it's just about math, really. Not a lot of people die in single homes through the years, but a lot of people die in hotels cuz they check in and they, they they don't check out. So it's all math in the number of people
Evan Stern: (06:09)
We're talking in the upper lobby of La Fonda, an exquisite 1920s Mary Colter designed Fred Harvey property. It's tiled interiors, fresco walls, and cathedral ceiling signify this place is special and John says for some a night's stay here can offer more excitement than your typical Marriott.
John Lorenzen: (06:28)
See, there's plenty of haunted hotels throughout the United States, and this La Fonda is one of them. La Fonda is mega haunted. It's got ghost from the top of the tower to the basement, various spirits living here.
Evan Stern: (06:41)
Some of the spirits John tells me about include a tax accountant who is said to shake the walls of room 290, a woman in 1930s, hair and dress, who's been seen applying makeup in the women's room, and an Abe Lincoln lookalike who glides through the basement's corridors. This ghost John says, serves as a reminder that La Fonda was built on the site of another inn.
John Lorenzen: (07:01)
This hotel has garnered ghosts from the old hotel, the US Exchange Hotel from 1852. That's what that Abraham Lincoln ghost, I think, is he's pre 1928. This is a hotel, the first in the city, and the folks came off the Santa Fe Trail and they gambled away their fortunes right in the casino area, which mimics exactly where the restaurant is to this very day-
Evan Stern: (07:24)
At this, John leads me to a balcony where we gaze down at the dining room, which like a Spanish courtyard sits below an atrium and is centered around a babbling fountain.
John Lorenzen: (07:33)
Now here's where the old casino was in the US Exchange Hotel that was bulldozed in 1919. This was built in 1928. Here's an example of the architect channeling the old casino. Look, there's even skylights open to the top, just like the casino was. It follows the parameter. This was a rough, tough gambling establishment. And the guys, Sharkies, lawyers and sheriffs would play cards, five cards stud, drink shots of whiskey, flirt with the pretty girls and get really ornery if they lost and bang, bang, someone's lying dead on the floor. Well, the gambling tables were right along the parameter, right where the restaurant is. One gentleman lost his entire company payroll playing the gambling's here. He was so guilty about it that he threw himself down the well where the twinkly lights are and he died instantly. Now, his guilt ridden ghost haunts the casino. He wanders in between the folks eating their chimigangas and tacos, and he jumps in where the, where the, the fountain was and no doubt causing a folk or two to choke on their chimichangas.
Evan Stern: (08:38)
La Fonda is hardly the only hotel in Santa Fe to inherit ghosts. And around the corner, John leads me to the Loretto Inn and Spa. A 1975 property built on the site of the old Our Lady of Loretto Academy, a girl school founded in 1856 by an order of nuns who arrived in Santa Fe via covered wagons. It's believed that St. Joseph himself performed a miracle by building a spiral staircase, in their still standing adjacent chapel. But while the academy is no more, school marms are said to have spooked guests. Teenaged hand prints have materialized in the gift shop. And young voices have been heard singing Salve Regina on the fourth floor. But most mischievous of all is the spirit of one Sister George.
John Lorenzen: (09:24)
There's another story about, um, a ghostly nun. Boy, there's gonna be a lot of mass appeal about this nun, and I'll tell you something else. Um, Sister George was the nun who taught the girls how to do woodworking here. And, um, she lived here in the 1950s and sixties at the Loretto Academy of Light, which is right here before it was torn down in 1968. She taught the girls woodworking and then she smoked a cigar after her shift was over in the way in the parking lot. Imagine that- A cigar smoking nun. That's a, that's a change of habit. I'll tell you something else. This ghost has been known to come through the quarters. They sit, they smell cigar smoke, and then she appears without notice. Imagine that. I'll tell you something. She also appeared in the back lunchroom. A man was eating a ham sandwich. I even know what kind of a sandwich it was. She appeared right in front of him in her black habit. She looked like John Denver's sister with twinkly glasses. True, true story. And, um, he bolted down that sandwich and never looked back
Evan Stern: (10:32)
Like 99% of ghosts. John is quick to defend Sister George because while she might have fun, and give the occasional startle, she isn't out to cause any harm. But he acknowledges that isn't the case with all and leading me through the elegant St. Francis Hotel, he recounts some of the frightening occurrences that have been reported here.
John Lorenzen: (10:51)
Uh, a friend of mine, this is a true story, she was working the clerk's desk downstairs. She had long luscious, brunette hair. She told me this. She says, I was coming through the door and my head got yanked back by an unseen entity and I was shocked and my scalp bristled. But she had to do her shift. She was wondering, Oh my God, what happened there? She got home and she found the rest of the answer. She's combining her hair and then she got the shock of her life. Part of her hair had been torn out by a ghost. That's again in the minority. Was it a guy ghost? No, A guy ghost would have pinched her. It was a spiteful woman of the night who reached out with spectral hands and grasped her hair. There's other ghost stories. A friend of mine named Juan was a custodian.
John Lorenzen: (11:30)
He was working in the basement and, um, there was refrigerated units with Chrome. Now Chrome has, like, you can see a reflection, but not clearly where they have cheeses and eggs and cetera, like 50 yards long. He saw a loping figure in, in the reflection of the chrome units while he was walking along. He swirled around. There's nothing behind him. The figure stopped the reflection and then he started walking faster. The figures started keeping up with him. If you think he might have picked up the pace just a little bit. Yeah, but remember, he is an employee. He has to go down there. He said something I always remembered. He said, My faith keeps me strong. If you have a strong faith, ghosts can't harm you. We fear- human beings by nature have fear of the unknown. Ghosts are the great unknown
Evan Stern: (12:18)
In regard to the unknown, we're standing in a corridor where John says a guest once captured a photo that revealed a demonic full bodied apparition of a figure with a goat's head.
John Lorenzen: (12:28)
It was taken between two women on the tour and I will never forget. It was really strange. There was nothing behind them when they took the picture. But again, the photo captures conscious electric, electric magnetic energy, which is what a spirit is. That's what we are. Well, I'll tell you something. This is where the corridor where we picked it up, It's really spooky at night. It's very, very austere. Does not have that fuzzy, southwestern style like La Fonda.
Evan Stern: (12:55)
While I can't comment on what the Saint Francis might feel like at night, having received a modern gut renovation, let's just say this eeriness doesn't reveal itself immediately. But a few nights and 200 miles further down 66, I check into the El Rancho in Gallup, where history remains very much present.
LeRoy McRae: (13:15)
Okay, the El Rancho Hotel was built in 1936, opened in 1937. Uh, the architect was a 21 year old from, from the uk and a lot of people that come here from all over the world.
Evan Stern: (13:31)
That's Leroy McCrae. A short, full blooded Navajo, he laughs when acknowledging his Irish last name. Now in his eighties, he lives here on property. And after 28 years, behind the front desk acts today as something of an in-house historian. Wearing boots, a vest, bolo tie, and black cowboy hat, he stands before the fireplace of this building's stone and oak paneled Sportsman's Lodge lobby. And tells me of some of the classic stars who stayed here.
LeRoy McRae: (13:59)
A lot of movie stars stayed here. Most of the most not notable ones are Burt Lancaster. Um, even Jane Fonda, some of the ladies, Jane Wyman and, uh, her room's right there. Each of the rooms are named after the movie stars that actually stayed in this room. And the two of the most famous people that stayed here was John Wayne and Ronald Reagan. They both made eight movies around the area here. They used to have a whole bunch of corrals back there, and that's where they kept all the horses, you know, for when they were making the movies, the ended movies and stuff like that. But anyway, one hot summer day, Errol Flynn, he, he rode his horse back over here. Instead of going back across, he, he rode his horse back over here, rode his horse through the front door and all the way down into the bar. And he ordered whiskey for himself and beer for his horse. And, and, and then, uh, two weeks later, you know, John Wayne, he didn't wanna be out done. So he, uh, he did the same thing, ordered a whiskey for himself and beer for his horse.
Evan Stern: (15:11)
This tale supposedly inspired the Willie Nelson, Tobey Keith collaboration "beer for my horses." And while Leroy has fond memories of outlaw country singer Waylon Jennings, interestingly enough, it was the crooner Dean Martin who got in the most trouble.
LeRoy McRae: (15:26)
One, one, uh, Christmas. Uh, it was getting close to Christmas or snowing outside. That fireplace was going, the the place is decorated nicely. Christmas. And Dean Martin was up there on the balcony singing, serenading the Ladies. And there was a jealous husband in the crowd. Now he got, he went, he marched up the stairs and threw Dean Martin off the balcony. .
Evan Stern: (15:54)
But as Leroy leads me through a hallway of rooms named for stars like Gregory Peck, Lucille Ball, Zachary Scott and Joan Crawford, I have to ask a question- but, um, what can you tell me, um, you know, about, uh, any ghost stories associated with the hotel?
LeRoy McRae: (16:10)
No-I I don't want to go through that. No. Nope.
Evan Stern: (16:11)
His tone shifts and he is firm, which tells me immediately not to press further. But based on his reaction, there are clearly a few stories knocking around this place. And as I'm leaving, ask the team of young ladies at reception if they've experienced anything here.
Clerk 1: (16:28)
There's quite a few things that happened. Um,
Clerk 2: (16:33)
She's here at night. . Yeah, .
Clerk 1: (16:35)
Sometimes the music will turn on by itself in here and in the restaurant. Um, I was walking through the hallways one night and there was a cold spot right there by where the staff room was right there. Um, oh, my very first night I saw a lady in a really nice white gown coming down the stairs. That was crazy. Um, when they had the wedding here, Roberta said that she had seen a door slamming down in the bridal suite.
Clerk 1: (17:08)
Um, there was a lady that was screaming one night I went to go check there was nothing, um,
Clerk 2: (17:17)
. Well, I got scared now.
Clerk 1: (17:19)
It's not scary. And it's just like you hear things, you know? Absolutely. Um, there's always somebody like pulling on the door outside right there when it's locked. Uh, there's pots and pans that slam in the kitchen. It's crazy. It's scary. I always hear footsteps up here, coming up from there all the way to this way-
Clerk 2: (17:48)
The only thing I hated was whenever I was a few things, uh, server. Um, you had, I had to be here at six in the morning. Um, you had to get things all the way from the back of the kitchen. I hated going in there. I just, it was just dark and always cold. And I, I don't know, I think I was overthinking it, that something was gonna pop up on me, But no, I just till this day, I I don't like going back there. That's not my spot. Yeah.
Evan Stern: (18:11)
Later that afternoon, I mentioned this exchange to Alan Affeldt as he shows me around La Posada, the stunning Fred Harvey property he bought and remodeled with his wife, artist Tina Mion in Winslow, Arizona. And while far from superstitious, he doesn't question these encounters truth.
Allan Affeldt: (18:29)
All these old buildings. I mean, you have to imagine that over the decades everything happened in these buildings, births, deaths, and the important, most important events in many people's lives happened in these great old hotels. Not in the new hotels in chain hotel, it's just not like that. But in these great hotel- hotels with these great public spaces, everything happens in these buildings. So, um, Tina and my wife is much more sensitive to these things than I am. You know, I'm a pragmatist, so it's like I'm not gonna see a ghost, but Tina is because she lives in that kind of nether world. And so one day she came to me and said, There's, uh, a naked man in our apartment. And, you know, I said, Well, that's interesting. Who's that? And she said, Well, I'm not sure who it is. She was talking about a spirit.
Allan Affeldt: (19:11)
Um, but he's kind of fleshy and overweight and pink and, uh, breathing hard, and it looks like he's just had a drink. And, um, now he's just staring at me. And we didn't know at the time that when they closed the hotel, the last manager was a guy named Carl Weber, who perfectly fit that description. And it turned out that when the hotel closed, the Fred Harvey Company allowed him to stay in the building in the room that became Tina's studio. We didn't know that at the time. Um, so we think, you know, Carl was just something about Carl was still in the space. So I don't know whether it's ghost or spirits or what it is, but certainly the past is very present in these wonderful old buildings.
Evan Stern: (19:53)
That is certainly true of the Hotel Monte Vista, which sits at the corner of Aspen and San Francisco in the heart of Flagstaff's charming downtown. Opened in 1927, like the El Rancho, this brick parador hosted many of Hollywood's elite and even provided a backdrop for a few scenes in the masterpiece Casablanca. But Cody, the ski loving Baja hoodie wearing millennial night clerk doesn't shy away from telling me of some of the property's less glamorous history.
Cody: (20:23)
Uh, well, it's almost a hundred years old. It's been a multitude of things in the last 96 years. I mean, it's been a brothel. It was a, a bar, it's a hotel. Yeah. Crazy. Wild, wild West Times. You know, uh, as far as I know, it's a lot of,
Cody: (20:40)
What can I say? Deaths and, you know, kind of crazy things happening at that time. One that stands out specifically to me is when this was a brothel. Um, I guess prostitutes were taken upstairs to the third story. A couple of them were beheaded and thrown out of the third story window onto San Francisco Street. So that's the most gruesome. Um, there's the bank robbers story. I guess. There was a bank just on Route 66, and they had robbed the place, come back here, held up in the speakeasy bar downstairs, and were shot and killed in the bar with all the money still on them. Meat man, 220. Um, he, yeah, apparently it was like a butcher house or something at one point was hanging meat cutting. And they came in and found him hanging from one of the meat hooks he had hung himself. Um, so I, I've heard of, you know, cases where it smells like sulfur or like decay in the hallway, but nothing crazy.
Evan Stern: (21:39)
Cody hasn't just heard of these incidents, but working the graveyard shift has experienced many first hand.
Cody: (21:46)
Um, yeah. So it definitely is a haunted hotel. I mean, in my personal experiences has been like a knock on the door with nobody around. Um, an ice bucket was, uh, hurled across the room behind me when I was changing out, like trash bags and bars of soap. Just recently, the other night I was doing an overnight and it was about four in the morning. I was the only person awake and I was whistling to music. And from downstairs and pitch black, there's something whistled back at me. So it's, there's definitely some like, weird occurrences and, you know, random, random doors, unlatching, and, you know, just like, kind of the spooky, you know, . Nothing really scares me at this point. I've had a pretty interesting life so far. Um, I mean there, as long as you put it out into the universe that, Hey, don't use me to pass through or you can't pass through me, you know, basically putting it out there, they're not gonna bother you. I mean that the dead don't scare me. People do.
Evan Stern: (22:45)
. I tend to agree we have more to fear from the living than ghosts. And while I didn't have a great night sleep in my Esther Williams themed room, I think that's owed more to the pulsating techno from the downstairs bar than any supernatural beings. But I love these stories and will leave you with these impassioned words from John who argues they aren't only fun but important.
John Lorenzen: (23:08)
We should be proud of our heritage and we should be going between Jung and Freud at the library and getting our book or buying it on Amazon and learning about the ghosts because the ghosts of today were people of yesterday. They built this great nation of ours and we deserve to give them some respect. I'm a very respectful man of the ghosts,
