HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Socorro's 1919 Trost & Trost Mission Revival hotel on the National Register — a working hotel and Socorro's most-reported haunt, known for a woman who fades on the stairs
203 Manzanares Ave E, Socorro, NM 87801
Research updated August 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Rooms have been offered as short-term and Airbnb-style rentals; availability and operation have shifted with ownership. Confirm current status before planning a stay.
Access
Limited Access
Two-story U-shaped 1919 hotel of yellow concrete brick around a courtyard; interior stairs to the upper floor and a lower-level basement
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1919 · 1919 Mission and Spanish Revival hotel designed by Trost & Trost · Built on the site of the earlier Windsor Hotel, which burned in 1919 · Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, 1977 · One of Socorro's best-known historic landmarks
Socorro's fortunes were built on mining and the railroad, and by the late 1910s the town wanted a hotel to match its standing. The earlier Windsor Hotel stood near the site until it burned in 1919, and the Val Verde Hotel rose to replace it that same year.
The design came from Trost & Trost, the El Paso firm responsible for many of the Southwest's significant early-20th-century buildings. The Val Verde is a 140-by-140-foot, U-shaped block of yellow concrete brick, built in the Mission and Spanish Revival style around a central courtyard. It was the substantial, modern hotel Socorro had been after.
The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. Over the decades it has operated as a hotel and restaurant and, more recently, as short-term and Airbnb-style rentals, passing through several owners; it has at points been offered for sale with parts of the restaurant awaiting restoration.
Today the Val Verde is one of Socorro's most recognizable historic buildings — a Trost-designed landmark with a courtyard fountain and a dark-wood lobby — and the anchor of the town's haunted reputation as much for its age and atmosphere as for any single documented event.
Sources
Among Socorro buildings, the Val Verde draws the most ghost reports, and the accounts have circulated since at least the 1980s. The image people repeat is a woman in a flowing dress on the main staircase, descending and then fading before she reaches the bottom. The bar has its own regulars in the stories — a woman in a blue dress and a man in a white shirt who turn up and then are gone. Staff and visitors have also reported unexplained noises, objects that move, and a sense of presence in the lobby and restaurant.
Local ghost-hunting groups have built bigger claims around the hotel — a tally of deaths on the property, including suicides and men said to have been killed in a 1920s boiler-room explosion. Those numbers are passed around in paranormal accounts but are not backed by historical records, and this entry does not treat them as fact. Investigations in the 2000s by groups such as the Southwest Ghost Hunters Association came away with the usual inconclusive material — orbs in photos, anomalous readings — rather than anything settled.
What holds up is more modest and more durable: a genuine 1919 Trost building that a local newspaper has called one of the most haunted places in Socorro, with witness accounts that keep returning to the same staircase and the same quiet figures. Those accounts have yet to be pinned to dated, documented incidents.
The Val Verde is a viewable 1919 landmark in downtown Socorro — a U-shaped Mission and Spanish Revival hotel of yellow concrete brick designed by Trost & Trost, with a courtyard fountain and dark-wood lobby. It has operated on and off as a hotel and short-term rental; rooms, the restaurant, and the basement are the spots tied to its ghost accounts. Check current operating status before planning to go inside.
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