Haunted New Mexico

65 haunted destinations cataloged across New Mexico, spanning 25 counties. The collection features haunted hotel, ghost tour, and museum — every listing verified with family ratings, accessibility info, and practical visit logistics.

65 locations 25 counties 13 classifications 32 wheelchair accessible

Filter & search New Mexico in Explore →

✦ The New Mexico Haunted Trail Every trail-eligible stop on one map, indexed by region, with a free curated weekend route →

Featured in New Mexico

Top 6

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Shaffer Hotel

Mountainair, NM

Clem 'Pop' Shaffer moved to Mountainair in 1908 as a blacksmith and, after his shop burned in 1922, built the Shaffer Hotel the following year from cast concrete reinforced with scavenged iron from his old business. Shaffer and his second wife, Lena 'Ma' Imboden, ran the hotel and its dining room as a showcase for Pop's folk-art carving and painting. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, and it continues to operate as a hotel and restaurant in downtown Mountainair.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Haunted Hotel / Inn

St. James Hotel

Cimarron, NM

The St. James Hotel in Cimarron, New Mexico was built in 1872 by Henri Lambert, who had served as personal chef to President Abraham Lincoln. Situated on the Santa Fe Trail, the hotel's saloon and restaurant witnessed at least 26 documented murders during the Wild West era. A father-daughter team under M Vacation Properties & Resorts purchased the property and reopened it December 20, 2024, after its previous closure in September 2024.

$$ All ages Family: Moderate

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Plaza Hotel

Las Vegas, NM

The Plaza Hotel opened in 1882 on the Old Town Plaza in Las Vegas, New Mexico, advertised as 'the Belle of the Southwest' and the most fashionable hotel in the territory. It sits on the National Register of Historic Places. Byron T. Mills, a later owner and Las Vegas mayor who died in 1947, is the figure most associated with the hotel's ghost stories, centered on Room 310.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Exterior of Marian Hall, the historic former St. Vincent Sanitarium and Hospital in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico, built 1910.

Haunted Hotel / Inn

The Old St. Vincent Hospital (Marian Hall Complex)

Santa Fe, NM

The Old St. Vincent Hospital complex in downtown Santa Fe — the oldest hospital in New Mexico — was established in 1865 by the Sisters of Charity from Ohio. The complex grew across multiple buildings, including a tuberculosis sanitarium on the third floor of the 1911 Marian Hall. The hospital moved to St. Michael's Drive in 1977. The downtown complex was renovated and now operates as the Drury Plaza Hotel Santa Fe.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Hotel Eklund

Clayton, NM

The west side of the Eklund Hotel went up in 1892 as a saloon and gambling hall in Clayton, New Mexico. Carl Eklund, a Swedish immigrant, bought it in 1894 and expanded it through 1905. The hotel joined the National Register of Historic Places in 2002, and architects Keith and Jeannette Barras have owned and run it since 2011.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Dawson Cemetery

Dawson, NM

Dawson is a former coal company town in Colfax County, New Mexico, founded in 1901 and abandoned by 1954. The Dawson Cemetery on the National Register of Historic Places holds 383 victims of two catastrophic mine explosions in 1913 (263 dead) and 1923 (123 dead). Iron crosses identify miners from at least six immigrant nationalities.

$ All Ages Family: High

More in New Mexico

Albuquerque — 13

Ghost Tour / Walking Tour

ABQTours

Albuquerque, NM

ABQTours is a woman-owned, locally operated walking-tour company that has run Old Town Albuquerque's original ghost walk since 2001, now offering five separately ticketed products.

$$ All ages for the public Ghost Tour and the History Tour; 18+ for the Adults Only Ghost Tour; 21+ (with ID) for the Toast a Ghost Pub Crawl Family: Moderate

Ghost Tour / Walking Tour

Albucreepy

Albuquerque, NM

Albucreepy is a ghost-themed tour brand operated by the Albuquerque Tourism & Sightseeing Factory (TourABQ), running walking tours of downtown and Old Town Albuquerque and a seasonal open-air trolley tour narrated with research from paranormal investigator and local historian Cody Polston.

$$ Varies by tour; the Downtown Ghost Walk is open to most ages, Taverns & Tales and the Haunted Trolley Tour are 21+ (minors permitted with a guardian). Family: Moderate

Theater / Performance Venue

Albuquerque Little Theatre

Albuquerque, NM

Albuquerque Little Theatre was founded in 1930 by reporter Irene Fisher with director Kathryn Kennedy O'Connor. The current building at 224 San Pasquale Avenue SW was designed by architect John Gaw Meem and completed in 1936 as the first Albuquerque structure built by the Works Progress Administration. Vivian Vance performed in the theater's inaugural production.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Three-story log-and-stone Norwegian Vernacular Whittlesey House at 201 Highland Park Circle SE in Albuquerque, New Mexico, now the Albuquerque Press Club

Haunted House / Historic Home

Albuquerque Press Club (Whittlesey House)

Albuquerque, NM

Whittlesey House at 201 Highland Park Circle SE was built in 1903 by Charles Frederick Whittlesey, an architect for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. The three-story log-and-stone Norwegian Vernacular building was added to the New Mexico State Register of Cultural Properties in 1975 and is a contributing property in the Huning Highlands Historic District (1978). The Albuquerque Press Club has owned and operated it since 1973.

$$ 21+ Family: Low

Adobe facade of the Casa de Ruiz, which houses Church Street Cafe at 2111 Church Street NW in Old Town Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Haunted Dining / Bar

Church Street Cafe (Casa de Ruiz)

Albuquerque, NM

Church Street Cafe occupies the Casa de Ruiz adobe at 2111 Church Street NW, one of the oldest residences in Albuquerque, traditionally dated to circa 1706 (with some sources giving 1709). The Ruiz family owned the property in continuous family succession until 1991, when the last family member sold the eighteen-room hacienda after the death of Rufina G. Ruiz. It has operated as Church Street Cafe since.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted Dining / Bar

High Noon Restaurant & Saloon

Albuquerque, NM

High Noon Restaurant & Saloon opened in 1974 in an adobe building dating to between roughly 1750 and 1785 on San Felipe Street NW, just west of the Old Town Albuquerque plaza. The structure has served as a private residence, trading post, gambling parlor, brothel, Spanish furniture workshop, and apartment building before its conversion to a restaurant.

$$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Hotel Andaluz

Albuquerque, NM

Hotel Andaluz opened June 9, 1939 as the first Hilton Hotel built outside Texas and the first modern high-rise hotel in New Mexico. Designed by Anton F. Korn for Conrad Hilton, it operated as a Hilton through 1971, was rebranded as the Hotel Plaza in 1974, closed in 1981, and reopened in 1984 as La Posada de Albuquerque. After a $30 million renovation, it reopened in 2009 as Hotel Andaluz and joined the Curio Collection by Hilton in 2019.

$$$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Hotel Parq Central

Albuquerque, NM

The building at 806 Central Avenue SE opened in 1926 as Santa Fe Hospital, serving employees of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. Renamed AT&SF Hospital and later Memorial Hospital, the property operated as a psychiatric facility for children and young adults before closing. Following a $21 million renovation, it reopened in 2010 as Hotel Parq Central, a 74-room boutique hotel.

$$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Theater / Performance Venue

KiMo Theatre

Albuquerque, NM

The KiMo Theatre opened on September 19, 1927, as the first theater constructed in the Pueblo Deco style — a fusion of adobe Pueblo Revival architecture with Art Deco linear decoration and indigenous cultural motifs. Designed at a total cost of $150,000, including an $18,000 Wurlitzer organ, the theater was built for Oreste Bachechi and named by Pablo Abeita, former governor of Isleta Pueblo, whose entry 'Kimo' (loosely 'king of the beasts') won a public naming contest. In 1977, Albuquerque citizens voted to purchase the building for preservation; restoration was completed in 2000.

$ All Ages Family: High

Theater / Performance Venue

KiMo Theater

Albuquerque, NM

The KiMo Theater opened on September 19, 1927 in downtown Albuquerque as a Pueblo Deco picture palace. Italian-American entrepreneur Oreste Bachechi commissioned the theater; Carl Boller of the Boller Brothers firm designed it after studying Southwestern Indigenous architectural traditions. The City of Albuquerque purchased and restored the theater in 1977, and it remains a working performance venue.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Painted Lady Bed & Brew

Albuquerque, NM

The Painted Lady Bed & Brew occupies an 1881 building at 1100 Bellamah Avenue NW in Albuquerque's Wells Park neighborhood. The structure historically operated as a saloon and brothel and was renovated and reopened by owner Jesse Herron, officially opening in August 2018 as the first 'bed and brew' in New Mexico.

$$$ 21+ Family: Not Recommended

Adobe exterior of the 1840 Salvador Armijo House (now Casa Esencia) in Old Town Albuquerque, New Mexico, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Haunted House / Historic Home

The Salvador Armijo House (Casa Esencia)

Albuquerque, NM

The Salvador Armijo House was built in the 1840s by Salvador Armijo (1823–1879), a prosperous merchant and nephew of Governor Manuel Armijo. The Old Town hacienda is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and operated as the Maria Teresa restaurant from 1977 until 2004 before becoming the Casa Esencia members-only social club.

$$$ 21+ Family: Moderate

Church Street Cafe in Albuquerque — a stop on this tour.

Ghost Tour / Walking Tour

US Ghost Adventures Albuquerque

Albuquerque, NM

US Ghost Adventures runs its Albuquerque program, branded 'Duke City Ghosts,' as a nightly Old Town walking tour meeting at The Candy Lady and covering seven historic Old Town stops.

$$ All Ages (a later-evening tour departure covers more mature content) Family: Moderate

Santa Fe — 11

Museum / Historical Site

Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi

Santa Fe, NM

The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi was built in Santa Fe between 1869 and 1886 by Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy, in a Romanesque Revival style, around and then replacing the older adobe parish church of La Parroquia. It holds a crucifix that survived the fire set during the 1980 New Mexico State Penitentiary riot.

$ All Ages Family: High

Exterior of the former College of Santa Fe campus, built on the WWII Bruns General Hospital site in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Other Dark Tourism Site

Former College of Santa Fe (Midtown Campus / Bruns Hospital Site)

Santa Fe, NM

The former College of Santa Fe campus stands on the grounds of Bruns General Hospital, a large U.S. Army general hospital built during World War II that treated wounded soldiers, including survivors of the Bataan Death March. After the hospital was decommissioned in 1946, the Christian Brothers established St. Michael's College on the site in 1947; it later became the College of Santa Fe. The college closed in 2009, reopened as Santa Fe University of Art and Design, and closed again in 2018. The campus is now the City of Santa Fe's 'Midtown' redevelopment area.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Asylum / Hospital

Drury Plaza Hotel (former St. Vincent Hospital)

Santa Fe, NM

The Drury Plaza Hotel in downtown Santa Fe occupies the former St. Vincent Hospital. The Sisters of Charity, invited to Santa Fe by Archbishop Lamy in the 1860s, ran a series of hospitals and orphanages on the site; the main building served as St. Vincent Hospital until 1977, later held state offices, and was converted into a hotel that opened in 2014.

$$$ All Ages Family: High

La Posada de Santa Fe (Staab House) in Santa Fe — a stop on this tour.

Ghost Tour / Walking Tour

Historic Walks of Santa Fe: Ghostwalkers Tour

Santa Fe, NM

Historic Walks of Santa Fe is a long-running private walking-tour company owned by Carol Imrie-Mui, offering downtown history, art, culinary, and regional excursion tours around the Santa Fe Plaza, including a dedicated Ghostwalkers tour of the city's haunted legends.

$$ All Ages Family: High

La Fonda Hotel Pueblo Revival exterior on the plaza in Santa Fe New Mexico

Haunted Hotel / Inn

La Fonda on the Plaza

Santa Fe, NM

La Fonda on the Plaza in Santa Fe occupies the oldest continuously occupied inn site in the United States. Records show an inn at this location when the Spanish founded Santa Fe in 1607; the current building dates to 1922 and operated as a Fred Harvey property from 1926 to 1968. At least two documented violent deaths occurred within the original structure, including the 1867 shooting death of Chief Justice John P. Slough.

$$$ All Ages Family: High

Historic Staab House mansion at La Posada de Santa Fe resort, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Haunted Hotel / Inn

La Posada de Santa Fe (Staab House)

Santa Fe, NM

La Posada de Santa Fe is built around the Staab House, a French Second Empire mansion that German-born merchant Abraham Staab completed in 1882 for his wife, Julia Schuster Staab. After the death of one of her children, Julia withdrew from public life and died in 1896 at age 52. The estate became a hotel beginning in 1930.

$$$$ All Ages Family: High

Museum / Historical Site

Loretto Chapel

Santa Fe, NM

Loretto Chapel was built in Santa Fe beginning in 1873 and completed in 1878 in a Gothic Revival style for the Sisters of Loretto. It is best known for its helix-shaped 'Miraculous Staircase,' which rises to the choir loft in two full turns with no central support. The chapel is now a privately operated museum and event venue.

$ All Ages Family: High

Prison / Reformatory

Penitentiary of New Mexico — Old Main

Santa Fe, NM

The New Mexico State Penitentiary's Old Main facility, built in 1956 south of Santa Fe, was the site of the most violent prison riot in U.S. correctional history. On February 2–3, 1980, inmates seized control for 36 hours, killing 33 fellow prisoners and holding 12 guards hostage. Cell Block 4 saw organized inmate death squads; the prison pharmacy was raided. The facility closed in 1998 and the decommissioned wing is now open for official public tours.

$$ All Ages for public tours; paranormal tour operators may set 18+ policy — verify Family: Not Recommended

Adobe exterior of San Miguel Chapel, the oldest church, in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Museum / Historical Site

San Miguel Chapel (Oldest Church)

Santa Fe, NM

San Miguel Chapel in Santa Fe, often called the oldest church building in the continental United States, was built around 1610 by Tlaxcalan laborers who came north with Spanish colonists. Its roof was burned and walls damaged in the 1680 Pueblo Revolt; the chapel was repaired after 1692 and substantially rebuilt by 1710.

$ All Ages Family: High

Low adobe walls of the Oldest House on De Vargas Street in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Museum / Historical Site

The Oldest House (De Vargas Street House)

Santa Fe, NM

The De Vargas Street House in Santa Fe's Barrio de Analco is widely promoted as one of the oldest houses in the United States. Its construction date is uncertain; tree-ring and archaeological study point to portions dating from the mid-1700s, with foundations possibly built atop an earlier Pueblo-era structure.

$ All Ages Family: High

La Fonda on the Plaza in Santa Fe — a stop on this tour.

Ghost Tour / Walking Tour

US Ghost Adventures Santa Fe

Santa Fe, NM

US Ghost Adventures operates its Santa Fe program as "Santa Fe Ghosts," a nightly walking tour of downtown Santa Fe, part of the company's multi-city chain of city-branded ghost tours.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Taos — 6

True Crime Site

Governor Bent House and Museum

Taos, NM

This adobe house on Bent Street in Taos was the home of Charles Bent, the first United States civilian governor of New Mexico Territory. On January 19, 1847, during the Taos Revolt against the new American government, a group of Taos Pueblo and Hispano men attacked the house and killed Bent. His wife, her sister Josefa Jaramillo Carson, and the children escaped by breaking through an interior adobe wall into the next house. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and now operates as a private museum.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Historic Taos Inn (Doc Martin's)

Taos, NM

The Historic Taos Inn occupies several adobe houses dating to the 1800s in the center of Taos. One was the home and office of Dr. T. Paul Martin, the town's first resident physician, known as Doc Martin. After his death, his widow Helen Martin joined the houses and opened them as Hotel Martin on June 7, 1936. The lobby is built around the old town well. Doc Martin was called in July 1929 to help identify the remains of Arthur Rochford Manby, a Taos figure found dead in a case that was never solved.

$$$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

Kit Carson Home and Museum

Taos, NM

The Kit Carson Home is a four-room adobe in Taos built around 1825. Frontiersman Christopher 'Kit' Carson bought it in 1843 around the time he married Josefa Jaramillo, and the couple lived there until 1868. Now operated as a museum, the Spanish Colonial structure was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1963.

$ All Ages Family: High

Aerial survey view of Kit Carson Cemetery (Kit Carson Park)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Cemetery / Burial Ground

Kit Carson Cemetery (Kit Carson Park)

Taos, NM

Kit Carson Park, north of Taos Plaza, contains a historic cemetery that is the burial place of frontiersman Kit Carson, his wife Josefa Jaramillo, and other early Taos residents. The grounds serve today as a public park and remain an active and protected historic burial site.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Hotel La Fonda de Taos

Taos, NM

Hotel La Fonda de Taos is a historic adobe hotel on the south side of Taos Plaza, the only hotel located directly on the plaza. For decades it was owned by Saki Karavas, who displayed D.H. Lawrence's 'Forbidden Art' paintings there. The building remains a center of the Taos historic district.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted House / Historic Home

Mabel Dodge Luhan House

Taos, NM

The Mabel Dodge Luhan House is a Pueblo Revival adobe compound built in the 1920s by arts patron Mabel Dodge Luhan and her husband Tony Lujan, a member of Taos Pueblo. The house became a gathering place for writers and artists including D.H. Lawrence, Georgia O'Keeffe, Willa Cather, and Ansel Adams. It was named a National Historic Landmark in 1991 and now operates as an inn and conference center.

$$$ All Ages Family: High

Lincoln — 5

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Ellis Store Country Inn

Lincoln, NM

The Ellis Store has stood on the same Lincoln, New Mexico site since the 1850s, making it one of the oldest buildings in the historic village. During the Lincoln County War, McSween-Tunstall Regulators sheltered in the Ellis Store. After Sheriff Pat Garrett captured Billy the Kid at Stinking Springs in December 1880, the Kid was reportedly held at the Ellis Store for about two weeks. The building, long operated as the Ellis Store Country Inn, was restored and reopened as the Ellis House.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Battlefield / Military Site

Fort Stanton Historic Site

Lincoln, NM

Fort Stanton was established in May 1855 as the primary U.S. Army post for campaigns against the Mescalero Apache in south-central New Mexico. The fort served multiple roles over its history: Apache Wars base, Civil War outpost, home to the Buffalo Soldiers of the 9th Cavalry during the Lincoln County War, and from the 1890s through 1953 as a federal hospital complex. The hospital period produced documented records of 24 suspicious deaths and 37 suicides among patients.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Prison / Reformatory

Old Lincoln County Courthouse (Lincoln Historic Site)

Lincoln, NM

Built 1873–74 as the L.G. Murphy & Co. general store and later converted into Cochise County's courthouse and jail, this adobe building was the epicenter of the Lincoln County War. On April 28, 1881, Billy the Kid slipped his handcuffs, shot Deputy James Bell on the staircase, killed Deputy Bob Olinger with Olinger's own shotgun at the window, and rode out of Lincoln on a stolen horse. Now a New Mexico state museum, it preserves the original jail cells and the staircase where Bell died.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Museum / Historical Site

Tunstall Store (Lincoln Historic Site)

Lincoln, NM

John H. Tunstall, a young English rancher and merchant, opened this Lincoln, New Mexico store in 1877 with partner Alexander McSween to break the commercial monopoly held by L.G. Murphy & Co. and J.J. Dolan. On February 18, 1878, Tunstall was shot and killed by a posse, igniting the Lincoln County War. The store is now part of the state-run Lincoln Historic Site and preserves its original 19th-century merchandise.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Wortley Hotel

Lincoln, NM

The Wortley Hotel has served meals and lodging in Lincoln, New Mexico since 1874 and was once owned by Sheriff Pat Garrett. It sits across from the Old Lincoln County Courthouse, where Deputy Bob Olinger had walked for his meal on April 28, 1881, when Billy the Kid escaped and killed him. The original building burned and was reconstructed; it now operates as a small seasonal bed-and-breakfast.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Las Vegas — 3

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Castaneda Hotel

Las Vegas, NM

The Castaneda Hotel in Las Vegas, New Mexico, was built by the railroad in 1898-99 and operated by the Fred Harvey Company as a trackside Harvey House. Designed by Frederick Roehrig, it was the first Mission Revival building in New Mexico and the first Mission-style Harvey House. It opened on January 1, 1899, and in June 1899 hosted Theodore Roosevelt and the first reunion of the Rough Riders. After decades of decline and near-vacancy, Allan Affeldt restored the hotel, which reopened in 2019.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Asylum / Hospital

New Mexico Behavioral Health Institute

Las Vegas, NM

New Mexico's Territorial Insane Asylum was established by the Territorial Legislature in 1889, with the first patients admitted in 1893 in a modest three-story brick building. The institution, now operating as the New Mexico Behavioral Health Institute, includes three patient cemetery sections on its grounds. Construction work near the facility later uncovered unmarked human remains, bringing renewed attention to the institutional history of the site.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

True Crime Site

Old Town Plaza & Vigilante Hanging Windmill

Las Vegas, NM

The Old Town Plaza was laid out in 1835 as the center of Las Vegas, a key stop on the Santa Fe Trail. After the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway reached town in 1879, gamblers and gunmen who had worked the Kansas cow towns formed the so-called Dodge City Gang and ran much of Las Vegas. A windmill erected on the plaza in 1876 served briefly as a vigilante gallows. Former governor Miguel Otero later wrote that twenty-nine men were killed in the Las Vegas vicinity in a single month of the violence.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Madrid — 2

Aerial survey view of Madrid and the Surrounding Hills

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Madrid and the Surrounding Hills

Madrid, NM

Madrid is a former coal-mining company town in Santa Fe County on the Turquoise Trail (NM-14). Coal was mined on a large scale from the 1880s, and at its peak the town held some 3,000 residents. The mines closed in 1954 and Madrid became a ghost town until artists and craftspeople revived it beginning in the early 1970s. It is now an active artist colony and tourist stop.

$ All Ages Family: High

Haunted Dining / Bar

Mine Shaft Tavern

Madrid, NM

The Mine Shaft Tavern stands in Madrid, New Mexico, a company coal town that boomed in the early 20th century and was largely abandoned by the 1950s before being revived as an artist colony. The town's earlier tavern burned on Christmas Day 1944; the current Mine Shaft Tavern opened in 1947 with what it advertised as the longest stand-up bar in New Mexico.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Mesilla — 2

Historic adobe Double Eagle restaurant on the plaza in Old Mesilla, New Mexico, dating to the 1840s and considered Mesilla's oldest building.

Haunted Dining / Bar

Double Eagle Restaurant & Peppers Restaurant

Mesilla, NM

The Double Eagle Restaurant occupies a large adobe structure on the Historic Old Mesilla Plaza that was built during the Mesilla boom period of the 1840s and is acknowledged as the oldest building in Old Mesilla. The Mesilla Plaza was the site where the Gadsden Purchase was formally transferred from Mexico to the United States. The Maes family relocated from Santa Fe to Mesilla following the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848 and occupied the building through the mid-19th century.

$$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Exterior storefront of El Patio Bar on Calle de Parian, a longtime adobe cantina on the historic Mesilla Plaza in Mesilla, New Mexico

Haunted Dining / Bar

El Patio Cantina

Mesilla, NM

El Patio Cantina at 2171 Calle de Parian has operated on Historic Old Mesilla Plaza for approximately 75 years, making it one of the longest-running establishments in the region. The site is adjacent to the former Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach line's regional offices, a connection that places the property within the 1850s–1860s commercial infrastructure of Mesilla when the town was a critical waystation on the southern mail route.

$ 21+ for bar areas Family: Low

Roswell — 2

Museum / Historical Site

New Mexico Military Institute

Roswell, NM

New Mexico Military Institute was founded in 1891 by Colonel Robert S. Goss and Captain Joseph C. Lea as the Goss Military Institute, initially enrolling 38 students. Recognized by the territorial legislature and renamed NMMI in 1893, it faced closure in 1895 but reopened in 1898 after James Hagerman donated 40 acres of land. Today it enrolls approximately 1,000 cadets at both high school and junior college levels.

$ All Ages Family: High

Ghost Tour / Walking Tour

US Ghost Adventures Roswell

Roswell, NM

US Ghost Adventures runs its Roswell program, branded 'Roswell Ghosts,' as a nightly downtown walking tour meeting outside Roswell City Hall.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Socorro — 2

Aerial survey view of Fort Craig National Historic Site (Battle of Valverde)

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Battlefield / Military Site

Fort Craig National Historic Site (Battle of Valverde)

Socorro, NM

Fort Craig was established in 1854 as the largest U.S. military installation along the Rio Grande, covering supply lines and Apache raiding routes in the New Mexico Territory. On February 21, 1862, Confederate forces under Brigadier General Henry Sibley attacked Union troops and Kit Carson's 1st New Mexico Volunteers at the Battle of Valverde, six miles north of the fort. The daylong battle left approximately 500 combined casualties. Fort Craig later housed the 9th Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers during the Apache Wars and was abandoned in 1885. The BLM manages the adobe ruins as a Special Management Area.

$ All Ages Family: Low

Haunted Hotel / Inn

Val Verde Hotel

Socorro, NM

The Val Verde Hotel in Socorro was completed in 1919 to designs by the El Paso firm Trost & Trost. It is a 140-by-140-foot U-shaped building of yellow concrete brick in the Mission and Spanish Revival style, built on the site of the earlier Windsor Hotel, which had burned in 1919. The Val Verde was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. It has operated as a hotel, restaurant, and rental property, and is one of Socorro's best-known historic buildings.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Cerrillos — 1

Aerial survey view of Cerrillos and the Cerrillos General Store

Aerial survey · USDA NAIP

Outdoor / Natural Site

Cerrillos and the Cerrillos General Store

Cerrillos, NM

Cerrillos is a small historic mining village in Santa Fe County, about 27 miles south of Santa Fe on the Turquoise Trail (NM-14). The area has a mining tradition spanning a thousand years, with turquoise and lead worked by Ancestral Puebloan and later Spanish miners; a major hard-rock strike in 1879 turned Cerrillos into a regional hub for gold, silver, copper, turquoise, lead, and coal. Its dirt streets and adobe storefronts have changed little, and the village has appeared in several Western films.

$ All Ages Family: High

Cloudcroft — 1

Haunted Hotel / Inn

The Lodge Resort and Spa

Cloudcroft, NM

The Lodge was built in 1899 by the Alamogordo and Sacramento Mountain Railway as a mountain resort at 9,000 feet, drawing travelers up from the desert heat of the Tularosa Basin. Fire destroyed the original building on June 13, 1909; local doctors lobbied the railroad to rebuild, and the current Lodge reopened in 1911. Guests over the decades reportedly included Pancho Villa, Judy Garland, and Clark Gable, and Conrad Hilton managed the property in the 1930s.

$$$ All Ages Family: High

Clovis — 1

Norman Petty Recording Studios at 1313 W 7th Street in Clovis, New Mexico

Museum / Historical Site

Norman Petty Studios

Clovis, NM

Norman Petty completed his recording studio at 1313 West 7th Street in Clovis, New Mexico in 1956, designing it for the acoustic properties that would define the Clovis Sound. Buddy Holly and the Crickets recorded the majority of their catalog here, including 'That'll Be the Day' and 'Peggy Sue.' Petty died in 1984; his wife Vi preserved the studio exactly as it was until her death, and it now operates as a museum with appointment-only tours.

$ All Ages Family: High

Farmington — 1

Outdoor / Natural Site

Lions Wilderness Park

Farmington, NM

Lions Wilderness Park is a 184.5-acre city park in Farmington, New Mexico, operated by the City of Farmington at 5800 College Blvd. The park features hiking and mountain bike trails with connections to Bureau of Land Management lands, a disc golf course, picnic areas, and the Sandstone Amphitheatre, which hosts outdoor summer theater productions.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Fort Sumner — 1

Other Dark Tourism Site

Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner Historic Site

Fort Sumner, NM

From 1863 to 1868, the U.S. Army carried out a forced removal of the Diné (Navajo) people from their homeland in what is now Arizona and New Mexico to the Bosque Redondo Indian Reservation at Fort Sumner, New Mexico — a series of forced marches historians call the Long Walk. Over 10,000 Diné and approximately 500 Mescalero Apache were interned. Historians estimate 1,500 to 3,500 Diné died at Bosque Redondo from starvation, disease, and the harsh conditions of internment. The Treaty of Bosque Redondo, signed June 1, 1868, ended the internment and allowed the Diné to return to a portion of their homeland. The 2005 memorial at the site, designed by Navajo architect David Sloan, and the interpretive museum operated by New Mexico Historic Sites constitute the primary public commemoration of the event.

$ All Ages Family: High

Glenrio — 1

Outdoor / Natural Site

Glenrio

Glenrio, NM

Glenrio is a former railroad and Route 66 settlement straddling the Texas-New Mexico state line in Deaf Smith and Quay counties. Founded in 1903 as a Rock Island Railroad siding, it became a popular Route 66 service stop between Amarillo and Tucumcari before Interstate 40 bypassed the town in September 1973. The 31.7-acre Glenrio Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.

$ All Ages Family: High

Grants — 1

Haunted Dining / Bar

Montecarlo Cafe

Grants, NM

The Montecarlo Cafe was established by Escolástico Mazon in the early 1950s on W Santa Fe Avenue — the Route 66 corridor through Grants, New Mexico. Business boomed with uranium discovery in the region, and the cafe became a fixture for miners and local residents. An early 1990s fire gutted the upstairs apartments, which were subsequently rebuilt as banquet space. The restaurant has been closed for several years.

$ All Ages Family: High

Las Cruces — 1

The Double Eagle Restaurant in Mesilla — a stop on this tour.

Ghost Tour / Walking Tour

Southwest Paranormal Adventures

Las Cruces, NM

Southwest Paranormal Adventures is the ghost-tour and investigation division of Southwest Expeditions LLC, an adventure-tour company based in Las Cruces, New Mexico, running five separately ticketed products centered on a historic hotel, a historic courthouse and jail, and Old Mesilla.

$$ Varies by tour: minimum age 10 for Ghosts of the Ramada, 21+ for the Haunted Cannabis Crawl, no stated minimum for the Old Mesilla and Courthouse & Jail tours beyond a 4-person group minimum Family: Moderate

Montezuma — 1

The historic 1886 Montezuma Castle hotel building, now part of UWC-USA campus near Las Vegas, New Mexico

Haunted House / Historic Home

Montezuma Castle — UWC-USA

Montezuma, NM

The Montezuma Castle near Las Vegas, New Mexico is the third hotel on this site — the first two, dating to 1881 and 1885, were among New Mexico's first electrically lit buildings and both burned down. The 90,000-square-foot Queen Anne structure built by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad in 1886 hosted President Theodore Roosevelt and General William T. Sherman before closing in 1903. It passed through ownership by the YMCA, a Baptist college, and Catholic Jesuits before becoming the campus of UWC-USA (United World College) in 1981.

$ All Ages Family: High

Raton — 1

Theater / Performance Venue

Shuler Theater

Raton, NM

The Shuler Theater opened in Raton in 1915 as a municipal opera house, built in a European Rococo style and named for Dr. James J. Shuler, a physician who served as the town's mayor. It remains a working performing-arts venue and a New Mexico state landmark in the northeastern corner of the state.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Ruidoso — 1

Outdoor / Natural Site

Bonita Lake

Ruidoso, NM

Bonito City was founded in 1882 as a mining camp following the discovery of silver ore in the area. By the mid-1880s, the town had developed into a proper community with a schoolhouse, three general stores, saloon, post office, hotel, boarding house, blacksmith, and law office. As the gold rush ended and families departed, the town declined into abandonment. In 1930, the government authorized construction of a dam on Bonito Creek to supply water for the railroad. The resulting lake deliberately flooded the remaining structures of Bonito City beneath 40+ feet of water.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Santa Clara — 1

Battlefield / Military Site

Fort Bayard Historic District

Santa Clara, NM

Fort Bayard was established in 1866 in southwestern New Mexico Territory as a cavalry post protecting settlers and miners during the Apache Wars. The post was garrisoned by the 25th United States Colored Infantry and 9th Cavalry, the African American regiments who became known as the Buffalo Soldiers. Decommissioned as a fort in 1899, it was converted into the U.S. Army's first dedicated tuberculosis sanitarium and continues today as a New Mexico state long-term care facility within a National Historic Landmark District.

$ All Ages Family: High

Watrous — 1

Battlefield / Military Site

Fort Union National Monument

Watrous, NM

Fort Union guarded the junction of the Santa Fe Trail's two branches from 1851 to 1891, growing into the largest 19th-century military installation in the Southwest before the Army abandoned it and the National Park Service preserved its ruins.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

By type

Haunted Hotel / Inn (17) Ghost Tour / Walking Tour (7) Museum / Historical Site (7) Haunted Dining / Bar (6) Outdoor / Natural Site (5) Haunted House / Historic Home (5) Theater / Performance Venue (4) Battlefield / Military Site (4) Other Dark Tourism Site (2) Asylum / Hospital (2) Cemetery / Burial Ground (2) True Crime Site (2) Prison / Reformatory (2)