State file · NV
Haunted places in Nevada
What are the most haunted places in Nevada? The best-known are Goldfield Hotel, Mizpah Hotel and The Washoe Club.
Nevada’s ghosts were born in its booms. The Comstock Lode turned Virginia City into one of the richest places on earth in the 1860s and ’70s, and a second wave of strikes after 1900 built Tonopah and Goldfield almost overnight in the central desert. When the ore ran out, the towns emptied but the buildings stayed – grand hotels, saloons, opera houses and miners’ cemeteries sitting in the dry air, waiting for a story.
- 3 hauntings
- 12 recorded sightings
- 1 news story
Haunted places in Nevada
Goldfield Hotel
A grand 1908 gold-rush hotel, empty since World War II, made famous by the legend of “Elizabeth” in Room 109 and the first Ghost Adventures investigation. Widely reported
Mizpah Hotel
Tonopah’s 1907 silver-boom hotel, where guests on the fifth floor report the whispers – and the pearls – of a murdered woman known as the Lady in Red. Widely reported
The Washoe Club
A Comstock Lode gentlemen’s club turned saloon on Virginia City’s C Street, with a famous spiral staircase and a starring role on Ghost Adventures. Widely reportedThe ghost lore of Nevada
Those stories have made the state a pillar of televised ghost hunting. Ghost Adventures started in the locked, decaying Goldfield Hotel in 2004 and has returned to Nevada again and again, and its host Zak Bagans later opened a haunted-objects museum in Las Vegas. The best-known legends – Elizabeth of Room 109, the Lady in Red of the Mizpah – are also good examples of how quickly tour lore can drift away from the historical record.
Most ghost hunters follow U.S. 95 between Tonopah and Goldfield, then head north to Virginia City, where nightly tours work their way along C Street. Many of the old mining towns and their surrounding mines are fragile or dangerous; visit the open ones, and leave abandoned shafts and buildings alone.
Ghost-hunting hotspots
- Virginia City and Gold Hill
Beyond the Washoe Club, the Silver Queen Hotel, Piper’s Opera House, the Mackay Mansion, the Fourth Ward School and the Gold Hill Hotel all have ghost stories and tours.
- Tonopah
Home of the Mizpah Hotel, the much-photographed Clown Motel and the old Tonopah Cemetery beside it.
- Goldfield
A semi-ghost town of boom-era stone buildings, including the Goldfield Hotel and the old high school, with tours run by local volunteers.
- Las Vegas
Zak Bagans’ The Haunted Museum displays objects said to be cursed, and the city’s mob-era history feeds its own ghost tours.
- Silver Terrace Cemeteries, Virginia City
Hillside burial grounds dating to the 1860s, a stop on daytime cemetery history tours.
Timeline
- June 1, 1875The club opens The Washoe Club
Founded by Comstock mining magnates and professionals, the Washoe Club opened its first rooms with membership capped at 200.
- October 26, 1875The Great Fire The Washoe Club
A fire destroyed much of Virginia City, including the club’s quarters; it reopened in new rooms the following year.
- September 1897“The Washoe Club is no more” The Washoe Club
With the Comstock in decline, the Territorial Enterprise reported that the club had closed.
- 1900Jim Butler’s silver strike Mizpah Hotel
Butler’s discovery started the Tonopah boom, which produced well over $100 million in ore over the next two decades.
- 1907The Mizpah opens Mizpah Hotel
The five-story stone hotel opened as the finest in the desert. The Lady in Red legend is set during its early decades.
- 1908The hotel opens Goldfield Hotel
Built on the site of the burned Nevada Hotel, the Goldfield opened as the most lavish hotel in the state and soon passed to George Wingfield and Casey McDannell.
- 1945The doors close Goldfield Hotel
After its wartime use by Army Air Field personnel ended, the hotel shut and never reopened.
- October 15, 1966National Register listing The Washoe Club
The building was listed as a contributing property in the Virginia City Historic District.
- 2004The flying brick Goldfield Hotel
Zak Bagans and Nick Groff locked themselves in for the investigation that became the original Ghost Adventures documentary, filming a brick that appeared to move across the basement. The team returned for later episodes.
- 2008Ghost Hunters visit Goldfield Hotel
The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) investigated the hotel for Syfy’s Ghost Hunters, adding to its national profile.
- August 2011Reopened after 12 years Mizpah Hotel
Fred and Nancy Cline reopened the restored hotel, embracing its ghost story with a themed room and a Lady in Red mannequin.
- 2018“Most haunted hotel” vote Mizpah Hotel
USA Today’s 10Best Readers’ Choice poll ranked the Mizpah No. 1 among America’s haunted hotels; it placed seventh in 2022.
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