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Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word....Oscar Wilde
Every family has its own form of relaxation. Ours is exploring haunted places. Chasing after ghosts isn't always easy. Sometimes you wait all night....por nada..Other times, if you're lucky, and in the right place at the right time, you might be able to grab some great photos, EVP and other evidence.
Then there are the times when a haunted hotel turns out to be more boast than ghost. Someone gets the bright idea to stir up a little interest and increase business. Voila, next thing you know a ghost is on the premises. With this in mind, we set out for the Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah with one of our sons and his wife.
We'd researched the hotel and knew that major magazines had featured stories of its ghosts. Friends who had stayed at the Mizpah told us about their encounter with the apparition of the old miner; apparently the ghostly miner decided the windows in their room were so fascinating, he spent the entire night opening and closing them.
There are three ghosts in residence at the Mizpah: the Lady in Red ghost, a ghostly politician and an old miner. A prostitute by trade, the ghostly Lady in Red was the victim of a jealous boyfriend who strangled her in a room on the sixth floor. Her's is the story of love gone wrong, and she was the ghost who had captured our imaginations. Not to ignore the politician or the old miner, but a ghost resulting from an ill-fated love affair, is just too hard to resist.
After dinner, we took up our positions in the hallway lobby of the sixth floor and waited...and talked...and waited. The hours crept by. It was a good thing we were all working swing shift. By three oclock it was evident that the lady in red wasn't going to make an appearance. Hungry in a small town late at night, we opened our snack bag of candy and chips. Why had we been slighted by the Lady in Red? She was said to follow guests around, and to play with gaming equipment in the casino..and she was ignoring us. We stood to say our good-nights and there she was, gliding across the hall, from one side to the other.
At least we assumed it was her. The apparition we saw was shimmering and greenish blue. As she dissolved into the wall we realized that not one of us had taken her picture. Who would believe us when we told them what we'd seen? It didn't matter. We knew what we'd seen.
Next morning as we loaded up the car for the return trip north, our daughter-in-law told of seeing a ghostly old man. Dressed too elegantly to be the old miner, the man appeared at the foot of the bed. "It looked like he was coming through a wall." She said. Had she seen the politician? There's an interesting story that's been told ever since his death. This politician, it's said, died at the Mizpah shortly before the election. Fearful of losing to the other party, his aides kept his body on ice in a bathtub at the hotel until after he'd won another term.
I was very curious. When we got back to Reno my daughter in law and I went to the library. There I located a book with his photo in it. I showed her the group shot and watched as she pointed to the politician. "That's him, but he looked older and more tired."
Nevada State Archivist Guy Rocha sheds more light on the politician's story in his interesting article What Didn't Happen at Tonopah's Mizpah Hotel
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