St. James Hotel

Henri Lambert, a French-born cook who later went by Henry, came to northern New Mexico in the 1860s gold rush at Elizabethtown and, finding little gold, opened a restaurant and saloon instead. Lured to Cimarron by Lucien Maxwell, owner of the immense Maxwell Land Grant, he built a saloon and inn on the Santa Fe Trail in 1872 that became the St. James Hotel. Hotel tradition says he had been a personal chef to Abraham Lincoln; that claim is often repeated but has never been documented.

In the 1870s and ’80s Cimarron was one of the roughest towns in the territory, at the heart of the violent Colfax County War over the land grant. The St. James saloon saw its share: gunman Clay Allison drank there, an outlaw named Davy Crockett – a distant relative of the frontiersman – killed three Buffalo Soldiers in the bar in 1876, and when the roof was replaced in 1901 workers found the ceiling full of bullet holes. About twenty remain in the dining-room ceiling. Guidebooks and the hotel’s own lore put the number of men killed on the premises at 26 or more; no reliable tally exists. Lambert died in 1913, and his widow Mary in 1926.

The railroad bypassed the old trail, and the hotel declined through a long series of owners until it was restored in 1985 – and with the restoration came the ghost stories. The most famous concerns Room 18, said to be haunted by Thomas James Wright, a gambler supposedly shot in the back after winning the hotel in a poker game, who staggered into the room and died. The room is kept locked. Room 17 belongs to Mary Lambert, announced by the scent of roses and by tapping on the window if it is left open, and staff speak of a mischievous little man known as “the Imp” who hides things.

The St. James has been featured on Unsolved Mysteries and in countless ghost guides. It closed in September 2024, after 152 years, then reopened under new owners that December, keeping its saloon, restaurant and historic rooms named for famous guests.

A hostile presence, orange lights and shoves in locked Room 18; rose perfume and window tapping in Mary Lambert’s Room 17; a small, impish figure who moves objects; cold spots and cigar smoke on the second floor; a cowboy glimpsed in a mirror; electronics and cameras that misbehave – reported by owners, staff and guests.

Room 18 (locked) and Room 17 on the second floor, the upstairs hallway, the saloon and the dining room with its bullet-pocked ceiling.

The St. James appeared on Unsolved Mysteries and A Current Affair and in almost every list of haunted Western hotels. It is a stop on the Santa Fe Trail heritage route and anchors Cimarron’s Old Town, where visitors also come for Philmont Scout Ranch.