Phoenix has a deep, interesting history. And, that includes some more spooky stories. Ghosts, mostly nice, still roam the halls of some of our most well-known locations. And, leading up to Halloween, The Show visited three of them for the series "Haunted Phoenix."
The Orpheum Theatre downtown originally opened in the late 1920s. A recent renovation has helped restore it to past glory and, quite possibly, brought back some of its more spirited residents.
The Orpheum has been hosting visitors this week and telling them the tales of ghosts who call it home. The Show spoke with David Cruse, theatrical venues manager for the city of Phoenix, to learn about who the spirits are and why they’ve returned or, in some cases, never left.
Full conversation
DAVID CRUSE: So it's just a matter of as we go through this, you know, walking that fine line, that balance of, are we disturbing them or are we giving them what their purpose is?
So I hope they found purpose in, in haunting a whole bunch of people and freaking a bunch of people out.
STEVE GOLDSTEIN: And I asked Cruse whether he'd consider the Orpheum ghost to be friendly or more in the hostile realm that would cause visitors' hair to stand on end and hearts to beat just a little bit faster.
CRUSE: So I think that it depends on the person, you know, people are really into creeping themselves out, I think you know more than being creeped out by the actual stories. We don't have any evil spirits that at least have presented themselves to anybody.
We also go out of our way to make them feel welcome here, you know, they have chosen this as their home and you know, I'll be for us to get in the way of that, you know, so some people say they're our guests, but you know, maybe we're their guests, you know, so we're, we're here, we, we accept that they're here, we enjoy having them here, we want to have them here.
And we think that in turn they have, you know, presented themselves in ways that are not overly frightening, but I mean, yeah, they're ghosts, it's still pretty creepy.
GOLDSTEIN: Anything you can share about how you've been welcoming to them or been accommodating?
CRUSE: Well, so we have a, a new, ghost, well, it's not a new ghost. It's, we've actually, we think we know who this ghost is now.
So there's always been Maddie, who's our most famous ghost, you know, we've named her that. Then there are other ghosts that some suspect might be like the ghost of Harry Nace, who is the original owner.
But the newest one actually appeared full apparition to one of our employees just back in February. And so we started going down this rabbit hole of like, well, who is this?
And one of our historians sent sort of a photo lineup of three different women that have connections to the property and when he looked at one of them, he pretty much freaked out. It, the hair on his arms stood up and he was without a doubt, he was like, that is the woman. That is who I saw.
3:48
And so we're pretty sure that we know who that is and exactly what her connection to the property is, and we don't go into the detail yet because like I said this just happened and we're pretty deep down this rabbit hole right now trying to figure out: What is she doing here? Why has she come back to this land?
GOLDSTEIN: Did you have to get used to the idea of there being ghosts in different buildings?
CRUSE: I think I'm into it. I think I, I think it's totally fine with me, you know, I think it adds to the venue. It adds to this area, specifically of the country that's sort of rich in Native American history and, and things like that, and, and Mexican culture where they really respect this, you know, afterlife and, and whatnot.
And so I, I just love it, you know. But I've always loved it, you know, even back on the East Coast and the other venues that I've run that, that have had ghosts it's, you know. I think if there was an evil spirit, it might be a little bit different, but the fact that these have all been, albeit creepy, but pleasant experiences that people have had.
So I think I'm just into it. Maybe I'm creepy, maybe I'm the creep.
GOLDSTEIN: So it must feel good though to have a place that ghost spirits would ever want to return to right. After all the stuff that this building's been through, I mean the fact that all the renovations that folks have done to really turn it back into a gem must be good that the spirits wanna come back and check it out.
CRUSE: Well I'm wondering if that's why they do, you know, and some of them, you know, are preexisting to the building, you know, stuff that was on this land before the theater was built.
But I do think that you know if Harry is truly here, you know, I think that it was that he's here out of that, you know, it's like, oh finally it's been brought back to what it was that I created and now I can spend the rest of my afterlife, you know, living here.
GOLDSTEIN: So the people who perform here know about this stuff? Did they expect to have an old venue like this?
I mean have you ever had reports from performers and go, that was cool, that was creepy?
CRUSE: So, that's, you know, one of the more famous stories here is of a group of Chinese acrobats on stage performing. And five of them stopped dancing all at once and sort of reached out and, and screamed and broke away from the dance and then recoiled and went back into the dance again. And afterwards they all said that they thought that a woman was going to jump off the balcony. And instead she walked straight off the balcony and disappeared into thin air.
So there's that, but most of the artists that come in here just straight up ask about it. They just wanna know, you know. And they, they do some research, you know, not everybody, but a lot of them do some research, but once they're walking around, you know, prior to the audience getting here, they wanna see the building we take them around and, and you'll be going through and just with talking about a little bit of the history and the ornateness of it and they'll just stop and be like, is it haunted?
GOLDSTEIN: OK, so tell us where we're at now.
CRUSE: OK, so we're, on the side of the stage here at the Orpheum over by the, the fly rail system and, this is where.
I spoke before of the most recent thing that had happened with a full apparition appearing to one of our employees. So this is pretty much right where that happened. I'm not gonna give too much away about it for that. You gotta come on the tour.
But full apparition, so real to him that he spoke to her. She did not speak back to him, she turned and walked away and he went to follow her and she was gone. But this is right about where that happened, and I spoke about, you know, those plats of land and things like that and.
We're pretty sure that he knows and we all now know who this person is, and if you were to take that plot of land, this is right where the house that she lived in sat. You know, so there's no making stuff up here. This is like the legitimate, you know, locked in history type thing.
And if you were to see the look on his face and the hairs on his arms stand up when he saw that image of her, you know, there was not a doubt in his mind that this is who that was.
-
KJZZ examines the storied history of the state’s five C’s — copper, cotton, cattle, citrus and climate — and the role they still play in modern-day Arizona. -
KJZZ examines the storied history of the state’s five C’s — copper, cotton, cattle, citrus and climate — and the role they still play in modern-day Arizona. -
If you’re looking for something less cutesy to celebrate your own Februalia, Valentine or Galentine’s Day, The Show staff has a few ideas. -
Phoenix has a reputation, fair or not, of a boom town where old buildings often get demolished. Hit songs were recorded in midtown decades ago. In the 1960s, that success led to construction of what was once the top studio between Dallas and LA. -
Homer Thiel documented hundreds of the saloons that crowded Tucson’s streets in the late 1800s. He even dug one of them up. Thiel is an archaeologist and the author of the book "Saloons of Tucson, Arizona Territory" — a 337-page chronicling of the rich history of Tucson saloons
