HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
1933 hotel built for Hoover Dam dignitaries, now a boutique inn with a reputation for a lobby-haunting desk clerk.
1305 Arizona Street, Boulder City, NV 89005
Research updated September 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Overnight rooms run roughly $130-$220/night depending on room type and season; check the hotel's booking site for current rates. The first-floor Boulder City/Hoover Dam Museum is free, open daily 7am-7pm, 365 days a year.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Restored historic hotel interior with accessible common areas.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1933 · Built to house Hoover Dam-era dignitaries and officials · Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, 1982 · Now houses the Boulder City/Hoover Dam Museum
Boulder City began building the Boulder Dam Hotel in 1932, at the direction of developer Jim Webb, to lodge the engineers, contractors, and government officials arriving to inspect construction of what was then called Boulder Dam; the hotel was completed in 1933. The two-story Colonial Revival building, arranged around a square-columned porch, was originally U-shaped, gained a dining room and more guest rooms in 1934, and received a matching 1935 addition that produced its current H-shaped floor plan. During the dam's construction and for years afterward, the hotel hosted Hollywood-era guests including Boris Karloff, Shirley Temple, Bette Davis, and Will Rogers, along with Crown Prince Olav and Princess Martha of Norway; Howard Hughes reportedly stayed there during a recovery period after a Lake Mead plane crash.
The hotel's fortunes declined once Hoover Dam's construction wound down and the flow of official visitors slowed, and by the mid-20th century the building had fallen into disrepair. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. In 1993, Friends of the Hotel began extensive renovations, and in 2005 the Boulder City Museum and Historical Association acquired the hotel.
Today the hotel operates as a 21-room boutique inn, with the Boulder City/Hoover Dam Museum occupying its ground floor. The museum, run by the Boulder City Museum and Historical Association, tells the story of the dam's construction workers through life-scale exhibits.
Sources
Local ghost-tour operators and hospitality staff describe the hotel as one of Boulder City's most frequently reported haunted sites. The most-repeated story centers on a figure identified as Tommy Thompson, said to have worked as an overnight desk clerk, whose presence guests and staff report in the lobby. Interviews conducted by Las Vegas TV station KLAS and by local ghost-tour guides describe phantom voices, cold spots that move through specific rooms, and guest-room doors that open on their own overnight.
The Haunted Boulder City Ghost & UFO Tour includes the hotel as a regular stop, pointing out particular rooms where guests report activity. None of the reports are independently verified beyond guest and staff accounts collected over decades, and the hotel's own materials focus on its restoration and dam-era history rather than the paranormal claims.
Notable Entities
A night in the 1933 Colonial Revival hotel built to house Hoover Dam officials and dignitaries, restored to its 1930s character with 21 guest rooms. Staff and past guests describe phantom voices, cold spots, and doors that open on their own overnight.
A free museum on the hotel's ground floor, run by the Boulder City Museum and Historical Association, with life-scale exhibits on the workers and families who built Hoover Dam.
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