The Lady in Red Haunting the Mizpah Hotel

The History of The Mizpah Hotel

The Mizpah opened in 1907, designed as a luxury escape for weary miners and well-heeled visitors in Queen of the Silver Camps as the town was called. Originally it had been a saloon there and it was the first permanent building in the town. The hotel was named after the biblical term “watchtower,” and was supposed to be a safe haven for travelers.

**The Mizpah Hotel:** The hotel in the old mining town is said to be haunted by a lady in red. According to the story, a woman was murdered there and has been lingering ever since. JERRYE & ROY KLOTZ MD/Wikimedia

There are many stories about the hotel and how it ties into the wild west. According to legend, Wyatt Earp kept the saloon, Jack Dempsey was a bouncer, and Howard Hughes married Jean Peters at the Mizpah. Although all of these stories are most likely tall tales, the hotel has adapted them and named rooms and the bar after them all.

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Known for its solid granite walls, Victorian furnishings, and Nevada’s first electric elevator, this five-story hotel set the standard for Western opulence. After being restored to the original glory it is called the finest stone hotel in the desert. It is not only known as a historic hotel though, but a haunted one as well.

The Lady In Red Haunting the Mizpah Hotel

However, amid the grandeur lies a darker, blood-stained tale. The most famous legend tied to the Mizpah Hotel is that of the Lady in Red, a ghostly resident who many believe perished on the fifth floor.

According to local lore, she was a woman of beauty and charm, known for entertaining guests in her elegant suite. Because as many hotels used to be, this hotel also operated as a brothel. Or at least, working girls lived there, although the hotel was outside of the city’s red light districts around Main Street. The Mizpah was never a brothel officially, so could the Lady in Red have been a “kept lady” or even a mistress instead of a prostitute? In any case, there she lived and possibly worked. And if we are to believe the legends, this is also where she died.

Tragically, she met a violent end when an ex-lover, or perhaps a jealous patron, strangled her in a moment of rage, shattering her necklace, spilling pearls across the floor—and sealing her spirit to the hotel forever.

**The Lady in Red**: The Mizpah Hotel has accepted the legend of the lady in red as part of their legacy and you will find portraits of her as well as a room named after her.

In some versions she was a wife who cheated on her husband in the hotel. He found out when he missed his train and went back to her. Finding her in the arms of another, he killed her in rage.

Her name is now lost, if she ever did exist. Some call her Rose and it was most likely her prostitute name. According to some her name was actually Evelyn May Johnston born in Baltimore in 1879 and died on January 2, 1914.

There are no official documents supporting this however, and there isn’t even certain that a murder like hers ever happened at the hotel. Where this name and dates came from is uncertain. Some versions of the story claim she arrived in town in the 1920s so the story varies.

But the stories about her are thriving and growing, and those staying in the hotel, check out claiming that she is still lingering there.

The Haunting of Mizpah Hotel

The Lady in Red is said to make her presence known in eerie yet strangely affectionate ways. Male guests often report hearing a soft whisper in their ear, especially when alone in the hotel’s old-fashioned elevator, as if the Lady in Red is still escorting her guests to her chambers.

Some have even found small pearls under their pillows, believed to be remnants of her broken necklace. While unsettling, her spirit is described as warm, with a kind and welcoming presence that mirrors her rumored generosity in life.

The boudoir belonging to her was eventually split into three rooms. 504 is now called the Lady in Red room, but it is actually in room 502 that most strange things have been reported.

Other Ghosts Haunting the Hotel

The Mizpah Hotel also has reports of other spectral sightings, including apparitions in the hallways and cold spots felt throughout the building.

Some are saying that they can hear the sound of phantom children running around in the hotel hallways, especially on the third floor. When they look into the hall, there is no one there though, and when they call the front desk to complain about the children, the front desk tells them there are no children staying at the hotel for the night.

Staff also passes around stories about two men who linger in the basement. People speculate that they must have died when one of the subterranean tunnels in the mines nearby collapsed. There are said that several miners are haunting the hotel, still looking for silver.

A Haunted Night at Mizpah Hotel

Now fully restored to its former glory, the Mizpah Hotel attracts visitors from around the world who come for both its luxurious ambiance and the thrill of its hauntings. You can today stay at the Lady in Red Suite and there is a portrait of a Lady in Red on the wall as a homage to the in house legend.

And the guest book of the hotel tells it all. Perhaps after a stay here, you too will have something to make an entry on in the book of ghosts.