The History of the Monte Vista
The Hotel Monte Vista opened its doors in 1927 and has been a Flagstaff landmark for nearly a century. It stands at the center of downtown, a building that has witnessed the full arc of the town's modern history.
Since the day it opened, the Monte Vista has been collecting stories. Guests, staff, and visitors have passed through its lobby, climbed its stairs, and slept in its rooms for almost 100 years. Some of them, reportedly, never left.
The Hotel Monte Vista is one of the most written-about haunted hotels in Arizona. Its reputation is not based on a single incident or a single ghost. It is built on decades of accumulated reports from hundreds of people who have walked its hallways and slept in its rooms.
The Haunting
Room 305 is the most reported location in the hotel. Guests who stay in that room describe experiences that are difficult to explain and impossible to ignore. The details vary, but the room number comes up again and again in decades of accounts.
The rocking chair is a recurring detail in guest reports. It moves when no one is sitting in it. It rocks gently in a room with no open windows and no drafts. Guests have watched it happen.
The phantom bellboy is another persistent presence. Staff and guests have reported encounters with a figure in bellboy attire over the course of decades. He appears and then he does not. The reports are consistent enough and span enough years that the staff have stopped being surprised.
The stories at the Monte Vista come from decades of guest reports, staff encounters, and newspaper accounts that Susan Johnson pulled from the archives. This is the stop with the highest density of documented paranormal reports on the entire tour.
The Research Behind the Story
The Hotel Monte Vista is one of the most extensively covered locations in Susan Johnson's published work, including Haunted Flagstaff with The History Press. Johnson's research draws on newspaper archives from the Arizona Daily Sun, first-person guest accounts spanning decades, and records from the Arizona Historical Society.
This is not a building where the ghost stories were invented for tourists. The reports predate the tour by generations. Susan Johnson's contribution was to go into the archives and verify what people had been saying for years.
Learn more about Susan Johnson's work at susanjohnson.org.
Tour
Downtown Flagstaff Haunted History Tour
Duration
75 minutes, ~1 mile
Meeting Point
Wheeler Park, 212 W Aspen Ave
Schedule
Daily 7 PM, Fri-Sat 7 PM & 8 PM
Walk the Full Route Tonight
7 stops. 75 minutes. Stories you will not hear anywhere else.
Part of the Freaky Foot Tours family