HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
+ 2 further entries on record
The 1947 saloon with a 40-foot bar in the revived coal ghost town of Madrid, where glasses leave the shelves and a presence is said to stroke staff on the cheek
2846 NM-14, Madrid, NM 87010
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
No cover; food and drink prices apply. The adjacent Old Coal Town Museum charges a small admission. See themineshafttavern.com for hours and live-music schedule.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Ground-floor tavern with a long bar and stage; thick adobe walls; Turquoise Trail roadside setting
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1947 · Heart of the Madrid Coal Company Town · Earlier Tavern Burned Christmas Day 1944 · 1947 Rebuild — 40-Foot Stand-Up Bar · Anchor of Madrid's 1970s Artist-Colony Revival
Madrid sits in a narrow valley in southern Santa Fe County along what is now the Turquoise Trail. Large-scale coal mining began in the 1880s after the Santa Fe Railroad reached the district, and Madrid grew into a company town of roughly 3,000 people, operated by the Albuquerque and Cerrillos Coal Company. Production peaked in 1928, and the town became locally famous for its elaborate company-sponsored Christmas light displays.
The coal economy collapsed as natural gas replaced coal for heating, and by 1954 operations had ceased entirely. Madrid stood largely abandoned for about two decades. Beginning in the early 1970s, the old company houses were rented and sold to artists and craftspeople, and the town revived as an artist colony — galleries, shops, a mining museum, and the Mine Shaft Tavern strung along the highway.
The tavern's own story runs through a fire. Madrid's earlier company-town tavern burned on Christmas Day 1944. A new building, the Mine Shaft Tavern, opened in 1947, and it advertised the longest stand-up bar in New Mexico — a 40-foot run of bar where tired miners had once propped themselves up after shifts bent double in the tunnels. Murals by Tinkertown artist Ross Ward, painted above the bar and behind the stage, depict Madrid's mining-era history.
The tavern has operated more or less continuously since, and it now serves as both a destination restaurant-saloon and a hub of the Madrid arts community, with live music on its stage and the Old Coal Town Museum next door.
Sources
The Mine Shaft Tavern carries Madrid's strongest haunted reputation, and the reports cluster around the bar and the building itself. The tavern's own accounting lists glasses that fall from their shelves and shatter, doors that open and swing back and forth, furniture found moved to other spots, mysterious sounds in the thick adobe walls, and orbs that turn up in photographs taken inside.
Staff stories add a more personal layer. Several describe a presence that seems attached to the people who work there rather than to the building alone — one recurring account has an employee greeted each day with the sensation of a stroke on the cheek. Another describes looking into a mirror and, instead of a reflection, seeing a figure.
The tavern's history gives the reports a frame: a company-town saloon that burned on Christmas Day 1944, rebuilt in 1947, in a town that emptied out and came back to life. Local paranormal writers, including Cody Polston, and ghost-town chroniclers like Legends of America have collected the Mine Shaft accounts for years. Madrid as a whole has its own folklore — La Llorona is said to wander the surrounding arroyos — but the tavern is the building visitors most often associate with the town's hauntings.
Notable Entities
A working tavern and restaurant in Madrid with a 40-foot stand-up bar, a stage for live music, and Ross Ward murals of the town's mining history above the bar and behind the stage. It bills itself as one of the longest continuously operating taverns in Santa Fe County. The adjoining Old Coal Town Museum covers Madrid's mining era.
The tavern anchors the artist-colony village of Madrid on the Turquoise Trail between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Visitors combine the tavern with the village's galleries and the Old Coal Town Museum's mining equipment and exhibits.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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