As if the world isn’t a scary enough place as it is, that during the month of October we celebrate ghouls and goblins, ghosts, and things that go bang in the night. I’m not quite sure if I believe in the paranormal or the supernatural, but it stirs my curiosity enough to do some research.

Many people throughout history believed in ghosts. Arthur Conan Doyle spoke to ghosts through mediums. Winston Churchill claimed to have met the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. King George IV claimed to have seen the little lady all dressed in brown and they still report sightings of Anne Boleyn at the Tower of London where she was executed.

I have to admit that I have experienced things that are hard to explain. When my Dad died, a door hanger we had hanging at the end of the hall would play its message over and over without anyone touching it. We almost had to take the batteries out, but I’m not sure that would have done the trick. I’ve had dogs stare at nothing in the room, then growl, and bark and, I’ve had things disappear for a short period of time and then magically reappear. Like some spirit testing my patience.

If you believe in ghosts, you won’t have to drive far to find something haunted in Arizona. Many of the towns here were known for their violent history. Gunfights and stagecoach robberies, land battles between Native Tribes and pioneers, cattlemen and sheep herders, and mine rights between miners. It was (and is) the wild west. 

There are many places that claim they are haunted by ghosts of the past. The wild town of Tombstone is well known for its ghosts. After one of our visits there, we were convinced that some of the pictures we took at the Bird Cage Theatre had ghostly faces in them. During that same visit, we stayed at the Copper Queen in Bisbee and had a terrible time falling asleep after reading about the ghosts that reside within its walls. A photo we took of the upstairs swimming pool had several orbs floating around it — if you believe in that sort of thing. 

In the White Mountains, it is said that Diamond Rock Campground is haunted. This campground was built during the depression with Adirondack-style three-sided shelters. There is a large rock in the shape of a diamond perched along the East Fork of the Black River, the namesake. As the story goes…One night, some of the camp hosts from the surrounding campgrounds decided to get together and have a cookout at the Diamond Rock Campground. After the evening get-to-together, they took a group shot for “posterity.” When they got the picture back, there was an extra person, in the photo — a ghostly photo-bomb.

Just down the road from Diamond Rock is Oscar’s grave. Oscar Shultz was a German immigrant born in 1896 and worked as a farm laborer in Nutrioso in Apache County. His mom needed money back in Germany and Shultz decided it would be quicker just to rob a store than to wait for his paycheck. He fled south on horseback, but it wasn’t long before the Apache County posse caught up with him at the Blue Lookout, south of Hannagan Meadow, and shot him dead. It was May 17th, 1922. They put his body across his horse and attempted to return it to Nutrioso, but the body was deteriorating quickly because of the warm early summer weather and they stopped and buried his body. His mom never got the money and sitting alongside the intersection of FR 276 and the second marker 8083 in the Apache Sitgreaves Forest, in clear view, lay the remains of the outlaw Oscar Shultz, resting peacefully, surrounded by tan piping and a headstone sticking up out of the ground. Could he be the photo-bomber?

The hanging tree is located at the intersection of the 300 Road (Rim Road), heading toward Black Canyon Lake, and the 196 Road. It’s a tall ponderosa with a long distorted limb which, through the years, has withered with age. This, I was told, was where three young boys were hung during the Pleasant Valley War — the war between sheepherders and cattlemen. They were wrongly accused of being horse thieves but most likely were conveniently disposed of by greedy landowners. 

Further down the Rim Road, there’s the General’s Crook Trail, that travels from Fort Apache to Camp Verde. You can still see the chevron marks carved into the trees that were used as guides. The Hangman’s Trail is located here and it will take you to the cemetery that contains the bodies of the three boys that were hung — Jamie Stott, Jimmy Scott, and Jeff Wilson. 

Today, The town of Pleasant Valley (The Pleasant Valley wars) has been renamed. It is now the town of Young. There is a museum and a graveyard (see page 4) where many of the casualties of the Pleasant Valley war are buried.

Last, but certainly not least, the haunting of Canyon Diablo, where they say the ghosts that reside there are pretty mean. Canyon Diablo was an exceptionally dangerous town that originated in 1880 because of the railroad. Its main drag was named “Hell Street” which had fourteen saloons, ten gambling houses, four brothels, and two dance halls. The town had a stagecoach that ran from Flagstaff to Canyon Diablo which was consistently victimized by robbers. During its first year, the new town marshal was sworn in at 3:00 p.m. and was being buried by 8:00 p.m. Five more marshals followed with the longest lasting only one month — all killed in the line of duty.

On April 8, 1905, there was a gunfight between American lawmen Chet Houck and Pete Pemberton and two bandits named William Evans and John Shaw. Evans and Shaw had robbed the Wigwam Saloon in Winslow. Houck and Pemberton pursued the bandits and found them about 25 miles west in Canyon Diablo. A Three-second shootout ensued — all four men shooting at point-blank range — which ended with the death of Shaw and a seriously wounded Evans.

On April 10, 1905, a group of drunken cowboys dug up Shaw’s grave, served him a last drink, and took photos of him. 

There is a graveyard in Canyon Diablo with 35 graves. All of its occupants died violent deaths. By the 1940s, Canyon Diablo was reopened and renamed “Two Guns.” Today, all that’s left are crumbling remnants of what was once known as a “hell-hole” — a few building foundations in rubble, the ruins of a trading post, the grave marker and headstone of Herman Wolfe, a railroad siding, and a crumbling, double-track railroad bridge. You can access the rugged road to the former Canyon Diablo from the “Two Guns” exit (230) off of the I-40 — west of Winslow.

Are these places really haunted? I’m not sure. They say spirits that die violent deaths get stuck in the places where their death took place. Sometimes, they say, spirits just don’t want to leave their earthly homes. Or, maybe, we keep them here by believing in them.

Go to www.outdoorssw.com for more photos and directions to these places.The Roundhouse/tower in Two Guns served as a Texaco gas station in the 1930s