Yuma's oldest surviving hotel (1917), reported haunted by its first owner and a girl who carries towels
390 S Main St, Yuma, AZ 85364
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Exterior viewing from the public sidewalk on South Main Street is free. The building is a downtown commercial property and is not an operating overnight hotel; interior access is not generally available to the public.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Flat paved downtown sidewalk along South Main Street
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1917 · Oldest Surviving Hotel in Yuma · National Register of Historic Places (1984) · Spanish Colonial Revival Architecture · Downtown Yuma Commercial District
The Lee Hotel was completed in 1917 at 390 South Main Street in Yuma, in the commercial district that grew along the lower Colorado River crossing. The two-story building holds thirty hotel rooms and was designed in the Spanish Colonial Revival style that was common in southern Arizona in the 1910s and 1920s.
The hotel was opened by Mary Darcy, who named it for the Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Over the following decades it operated as a commercial hotel serving travelers passing through Yuma, then a railroad and river town near the Arizona-California line.
The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 12, 1984. It has since been restored and stands as the oldest surviving hotel building in Yuma. It anchors the South Main Street historic commercial row and is a regular stop on locally run downtown ghost-walking tours.
The property is documented in local-history and regional travel coverage rather than operating as a conventional overnight hotel today. Visitors generally experience it from the street as part of the historic Main Street district.
Sources
The Lee Hotel's reputation centers on figures reported by staff and guests over the years. The account repeated most often describes the hotel's original female owner, said to walk the upstairs halls at night, knocking on and rattling the doors of guest rooms.
A second recurring figure is a teenage girl described walking the back hallway after dark, carrying a stack of towels as a housekeeping worker might have. The two figures are the ones named consistently across the local-history and ghost-tour accounts.
These stories circulate through downtown Yuma ghost-walk programs and regional paranormal write-ups rather than through the hotel itself. One visiting investigator documented a daytime walkthrough and recorded the day manager's account that staff and patrons had reported the figures to him, and that he had personally seen a shadowed shape in an upstairs window of an unoccupied room. The accounts are anecdotal and not independently verified.
Notable Entities
View the two-story Spanish Colonial Revival building from the South Main Street sidewalk. A National Register plaque and the building's 1917 detailing are visible from the street. The Lee is part of several downtown Yuma ghost-walk itineraries; the exterior is the practical point of interest for visitors.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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