HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
An 1880 Pearl Street landmark where 10-year-old Walter Montgomery, Boulder's most popular local ghost, is said to wander the halls
741 Pearl St., Boulder, CO 80302
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Exterior viewable from Pearl Street at no cost. Interior access is not publicly offered.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Pearl Street is flat with accessible sidewalks
Equipment
Photos OK
City of Boulder Historic Landmark (designated 1979) · Residential construction dating to 1880 · Montgomery family residence
The house at 741 Pearl St. was built in 1880, making it one of Boulder's older surviving residential structures. The City of Boulder designated it a historic landmark in 1979, one of the earlier additions to the city's landmark program. The building is associated with the Arnett and Montgomery families, giving it its dual name in the historic record.
The Montgomery family connection gives the house its documented dark history. Walter Montgomery, ten years old, accompanied his father on a trip to a nearby mountain mining camp at some point before his death in 1902. He fell ill during or after the trip and died, a circumstance reported in the Colorado Daily's 2009 feature on the house. The cause of illness is not specified in available sources, but the timing and setting — a remote mining camp in the Colorado mountains at the turn of the twentieth century — would have left few medical options for a seriously ill child.
The house appears in the City of Boulder's official coverage of the city's oldest and most historically significant properties, which confirms the 1880 construction date and the 1979 landmark designation. The Colorado Daily's 2009 profile is the primary source for the Walter Montgomery account and his reputation in ghost-tour circles.
Sources
Walter Montgomery carries an unusual reputation among Boulder's ghost lore: he is described not as a frightening or tragic presence but as a familiar one. Ghost tour guides who work the Pearl Street circuit have called him Boulder's most popular local ghost, a characterization the Colorado Daily's 2009 feature uses directly. His reported manifestations include a figure seen moving through the interior and, more unusually, a voice — witnesses describe hearing what sounds like a child's side of a conversation.
The attribution of the activity to Walter specifically, rather than to an unidentified presence, rests on the documented fact of his death in the house in 1902. The connection between a child who died young and a childlike ghost is a common folkloric move, but in Walter's case it is grounded in a named person with a documented death in the building rather than an anonymous tradition.
Interior access to the house is not publicly offered, so visitor encounters with the ghost would require living or working in the building or joining a guided tour that includes the property on its route. The house is included in Boulder walking ghost tours, where the Walter Montgomery story is a standard feature of the Pearl Street circuit. Reports of the apparition and the voice come from guides, investigators, and previous occupants rather than casual drop-in visitors.
Notable Entities
The Arnett-Montgomery House is a City of Boulder landmark at 741 Pearl St., designated in 1979. The house is not open for public interior tours, but the exterior is viewable from the sidewalk. It is included on Boulder ghost tour walking routes; consider joining a Historic Boulder walking tour to hear the Walter Montgomery story in context.
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