The Gadsden Hotel

Guests at the Gadsden Hotel report taps turning themselves on, lights flickering, doors slamming and the TV turning on and off; in Room 333, the most requested, they describe knockings, attempts to open the door, a presence sitting on the bed or even lying beside them. The story behind that room cannot be pinned down: depending on who is telling it, it is tied to a boy who fell from the window, a young woman who hanged herself, or an elderly man who died of a heart attack. In the basement, a manager searching for candles during a power outage glimpsed a figure in a long duster coat and cowboy hat in the beam of her flashlight; a headless ghost some say is Pancho Villa is said to spy in the hallways, a boy is seen on the mezzanine, and an elderly woman called Sara on the fourth floor. A manager once heard a voice say "You did a good job" with no one there, and the front desk keeps binders of guest accounts collected over the years. The Gadsden opened in 1907 and was rebuilt on a grander scale after a fire in 1928, with a white marble staircase, pink marble columns and a 42-foot stained-glass mural of the desert. Local tradition holds that Pancho Villa once rode a horse up the staircase and points to a chipped step as proof; no record supports it.