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“We Don’t Get Out Much” follows writers Collin Stapleton and Michael Wilson as they explore the Santa Fe ghost scene.
Additional Contributions by Tamar Wittenberg
“We Don’t Get Out Much” series follows writers Collin Stapleton and Michael Wilson as they throw away their “would rather not” attitude and venture to peculiar attractions, bizarre locations, and uncomfortable situations.
Colin and Michael’s Santa Fe ghost tour begins at La Fonda on the Plaza. La Fonda, once part of a hotel chain known as Harvey Houses, originally opened in 1922, but its history stretches back far earlier than that.
Since Santa Fe’s founding in 1607, the property that houses La Fonda has been home to hotels and inns. It was the lodging of choice for travelers stopping over in Santa Fe, including soldiers, trappers, gamblers, and politicians. Over that time, countless murders occurred there, including public hangings, shootouts, and a lynching of a gambler who couldn’t repay his debts in 1848.
The hotel we know today as La Fonda is known for its rich history, Santa Fe architecture, and luxurious amenities. But when night falls, many believe a few longtime occupants come to life, making it one of Santa Fe’s most haunted places.
Collin Stapleton: We’re in the La Fonda and all I know is that we’re looking for a man in a cowboy hat.
Michael Wilson: Right. The La Fonda hotel was built in 1922 on the same spot as the very first hotel in Santa Fe. It’s fancy.
C: Very fancy. It’s dinner time, the restaurant is right inside the lobby, it doesn’t have walls.
M: We sat down on a bench and waited. Awkwardly watching people eat dinner. We’re here for a ghost tour of Santa Fe but we’re getting a different show. Now, when I hear “Santa Fe walking tour,” I think “boring and old” –
C: And that's not untrue, but right off the bat we saw some younger people which I was kind of surprised by.
M: There was a group of people that I would say were about our age-ish standing nearby.
C: I’m pretty sure they voted Republican.
M: And we're from Texas.
C: Don't ask how we knew, we just knew.
M: After a little while, a man in a cowboy hat did indeed show up.
Peter Sinclaire has been a tour guide in Santa Fe for twenty-six years. In his trademark outfit - denim shirt, pants, a scarf tied around his neck, cowboy hat – he’s pretty hard to miss.
The city of Santa Fe has plenty of ghosts, for over one thousand years people have lived here. The current city was founded in 1610 by Spanish conquistadors, making Santa Fe the oldest U.S. State Capital by twenty years.
Peter Sinclaire’s Original Santa Fe Ghost Tour is a great place to start exploring the spooky side to the City Different.
M: We went to a slightly less public area and Peter asked us by a show of hands if we believed in ghosts.
C: My hand went straight up
M: Mine too. Why did you raise your hand?
C: It's the same when someone asks if I believe in aliens. That's just my default setting. I've had some small experiences, nothing that's definitive, but...we're at a point where reality is a lot scarier than paranormal shit.
M: My grip on the way the world works has definitely slipped in the last two years.
C: Yeah, there better be ghosts for God's sake.
M: I’m pretty sure the young Republicans didn’t raise their hands.
C: The one guy had his hands in his pockets the whole tour.
M: Peter directed us to look at an old door near the restaurant. He told us to remember the doorway. Then, without another word, we went upstairs. The restaurant has a balcony around it. So now we’re above the people eating, which is maybe better than being face-level with them. I got out my camera to take some photos and Peter told us a story.
C: There was a gun salesman in the Billy the Kid days. Sometimes I forget that Santa Fe is the wild flippin’ west. So, this guy was at the La Fonda having a libation when he saw some wild action at the card table. He made a commission selling pistols and wants to pad it with gambling. He makes a small bet and wins, makes another small bet and wins. So he ups his bet, and, of course, he loses. He bets again, and again, and keeps losing. Pretty soon he realizes he's lost almost all of his boss’ money. He can’t face the company and is piss drunk at this point. In desperation, he runs into the courtyard and throws himself into a well. Pictures have been taken right outside the restaurant showing a beam of light. Is it a malfunction of the film, a glare, or is it the gun salesman wandering the hotel lobby for eternity?
M: And then from some magical pocket, Peter produces a photo of the beam of light. He passes it around. It’s the doorway he had us look at downstairs, with a strange smudge of white light across it.
C: Freaky.
M: He tells us a few other stories of the hotel which we're not going to relate to you because spoiler alert . . .
C: They died!
M: But seriously, the stories are the tour, so go on it.
Peter’s Santa Fe ghost tour crosses the street into the park next to St. Francis Cathedral. There he tells a story about a former bed and breakfast employee haunted by a ghost. When the employee finally quit and went to move, the ghost kept unpacking his boxes. That building is near the Georgia O’Keeffe museum on the opposite end of the plaza than the cathedral.
Over one thousand years ago the Tanoan were the first to build a plaza where the modern one still stands. The Spanish colonised the plaza in 1592, were kicked out during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, and then reconquered the Native population in 1692. It was briefly part of an independent Mexico, and finally the US took control in 1850. Santa Fe’s history is one of faction and control.
The Santa Fe haunted tour continues to the Drury Plaza Hotel. Before its rebirth as a hotel, the property was home to several medical facilities. The building was constructed in the 1950s on top of an old penitentiary grave. It was originally opened as St. Vincent Hospital, then later re-opened in the 80s as La Residencia, a nursing home, and finally as the Drury Plaza Hotel in 2014. The building is said to be haunted by all kinds of nasty things.
C: When I was a kid, I read a story about the Drury in Adobe Angels and how pools of blood appear and disappear in the basement.
This claim is held by many former employees of La Residencia. According to some, getting locked in the blood-oozing basement was a rite of passage for newcomers. Others suggest the paranormal activity was a result of Native American artifacts stored in the nursing home basement by the museum next door.
Bloody walls aren’t the only thing that make this hotel one of Santa Fe’s spooky attractions. In its days as St. Vincent Hospital, one nurse reported several sightings of the ghost of a man in old fashioned clothing and a woman in a black mantilla. She said the couple looked cost and in need of help.
The Drury Plaza Hotel is also believed to be haunted by the ghost of a little boy who died in what is now room 311. The boy was brought to St. Vincent Hospital after a car accident. Many claim to have heard him crying and gasping to this day.
C: Another story that sticks in my mind was "The House on Apodaca Hill." It was your classic haunting; dishes smashing, pounding on walls. My dad drove me to the real house when I was 8 or 9, but we had read this story so many times, it freaked me out to see the real house so we left before we got too close.
M: My favorite was Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, which had a lot of classic urban legend stories, but what terrified me were the illustrations by Alvin Schwartz.
C: Those books were amazing and the art was insanely scary. Hearing Peter talk really got me thinking about storytelling and how that is such an important part of knowing history and passing it down, how ghost stories shape how we see things. They’re the earliest cautionary tales I ever learned. Don’t go out in the woods at night, you know, that kind of thing.
M: Totally. A friend of mine told me a story about a ghost dog that would appear in the rear view mirror of your car while driving – it would be chasing you, trying to get you. When I’m driving alone late at night I still have an impulse to look in the mirror a bunch. Looking for that dog.
The Santa Fe ghost tour ends at La Posada, a hotel originally built as the home of Abraham and Julia Staab in the 1880s. The house was the tallest building in Santa Fe for many years and the social center of town until Julia experienced a series of debilitating miscarriages that severely affected her mental health. Lore surrounding the couple includes claims that Abraham kept Julia chained to a radiator and that her death in 1896 may have been a suicide or even a murder.
By the 1920s the house had been converted into a hotel and artist retreat. It was also one of the first galleries in Santa Fe. Many credit La Posada with kicking off the art scene that still dominates the city.
Legend says Julia remains a guest in her former home. Beginning in the 1970s, guests reported seeing her on La Posada’s staircase and in what was formerly her bedroom. One staff member even asked Julia’s ghost for her blessing before a recent upstairs renovation, so as not to disturb her.
Visitors looking to immerse themselves in one of Santa Fe’s haunted places can even take advantage of La Posada’s Julia Staab Ghost Package for a potential brush with the paranormal.
C: This is one the most famous haunted places in the country.
M: It was on Unsolved Mysteries! There's a room upstairs and apparently Kris Kristofferson stayed in the hotel and came down in the middle of the night demanding another room, but wouldn't say why.
C: Peter also mentioned that Julia likes to knock the toilet paper dispenser off the stall in the women's bathroom, and then conveniently one of the women on the tour burst into the room exclaiming, "That just happened to me in the bathroom!"
M: Peter also told the story of how in the same bathroom the toilets overflow for no reason. In fairness, Santa Fe has really bad pipes downtown –
C: – It's almost scarier than ghosts, let’s be honest.
M: Well, we didn’t meet Julia or any other ghosts on the tour.
C: But it was a good time! And Peter was a lot of fun. Michael, have you ever had any ghostly experiences?
M: As a kid I lived in this really great farmhouse. In the living room was a door that opened onto a brick wall. I swear that you could hear knocking sometimes. I still assume it was full of dead bodies. . . you?
C: There was this one time. I was probably 13, it was around 4 a.m. and I was sleeping. At one point I just woke up, it wasn’t that I'd heard something, I just came to facethe wall and I heard this woman's voice say, "memories are a fact in time," which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it was just so clear. I bolted out of my room.
M: That prickly hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck feeling. . .
C: At the end of the tour, Peter said that he wanted us to leave feeling open to multidimensional reality in our everyday lives. It was this really thoughtful and incredibly open-minded sentiment.
M: It paralleled his question at the beginning, "Do you believe?” He was saying to be open to other realities, other viewpoints –
C: – to young Republicans.
M: Well…
These three favorite Santa Fe haunts aren’t the only paranormal places in Santa Fe. There’s also the headless ghost of Juan Espinoza who lurks along Alto Street, the ghost of a troubled boy at the Grant Corner Inn, and even a benevolent nun at the Loretto Chapel who sneaks money into the register when no one’s looking. If you’re searching for ghosts, you’re sure to find them in Santa Fe.
When you’re done exploring Santa Fe’s spooky attractions, immerse yourself in Santa Fe art with a return visit to Meow Wolf. It’s a different kind of out-of-this-world experience that’s sure to blow your mind.
Adobe Angels: The Ghosts of Santa Fe by Antonio R. Garcez American Ghost: A Family's Extraordinary History on the Desert Frontier by Hannah Nordhaus
