The Lady in Red's 1905 Wild West Landmark
100 N Main St, Tonopah, NV 89049
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
$130-$250/night. 47 rooms. Hotel also has two restaurants and a casino.
Access
Limited Access
Five-story 1905 building with elevator access. Historic interior with period flooring.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1905 · National Register of Historic Places · Nevada Mining Boom Architecture · Historic Hotels of America Member
Tonopah's silver and gold mining boom of the early 1900s demanded infrastructure to match its sudden prosperity. In 1905, four of the district's most prominent investors — George Wingfield, George S. Nixon, Cal Brougher, and Bob Govan — financed the construction of a hotel that would reflect the town's ambitions. The resulting five-story structure cost $200,000 and introduced two firsts to Tonopah: the town's first elevator and its first steam heating system.
The reinforced concrete core was faced with stone on the street-facing facade and brick on the sides, giving the building a solidity unusual for Nevada boomtown construction. A connected three-story Brougher-Govan Block extended the complex, with a wood stairway crowned by a skylight joining the buildings. Until 1927, the Mizpah shared the distinction of Nevada's tallest building with the Belvada Building.
The hotel changed hands multiple times over the 20th century. Frank Scott purchased it in 1979 and spent 2.5 years on a restoration costing nearly $4 million. The property was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 7, 1978, and joined Historic Hotels of America in 2013. Despite the Scott restoration, the hotel closed again in 1999.
Fred and Nancy Cline of Cline Cellars acquired the Mizpah and reopened it in August 2011 with 47 rooms, two restaurants — the Pittman Cafe and the Star Broiler Steakhouse — and a casino. The reopened hotel quickly attracted attention as a haunted destination, and in 2018 USA Today's 10Best program voted it the #1 haunted hotel in America.
Sources
The Lady in Red's story exists in several versions, but the consistent elements across accounts are the fifth floor, rooms 502 and 504, and a violent death. Some accounts describe her as a working woman killed by a jealous client who caught her with another man. Others identify her as a wife caught by her husband returning unexpectedly when he missed a train. Most versions agree on strangulation or stabbing, a torn necklace, and a death in the corridor between the two rooms.
Her name may have been Evelyn Mae Johnson, born in Baltimore in 1879, according to research by Nevada ghost town historian Tami Young — though this identification remains unverified through documentary sources. She is universally called Rose in hotel accounts and known to guests and staff as the Lady in Red.
The pearl phenomenon is the most specific and repeatedly documented detail in the Mizpah's paranormal record. Male guests, consistently and across unrelated stays spanning decades, have found small pearls beneath their pillows in the morning. The hotel attributes these to the necklace torn from her neck during the attack. The detail that women guests do not report this phenomenon, while male guests do with notable regularity, distinguishes it from general ambient haunting reports.
The fifth floor and the elevator are her primary territory according to documented accounts. Male guests describe hearing whispered words near their ears when alone in the elevator. Staff members working early-morning shifts on the fifth floor have described cold presences in the corridor between 502 and 504.
Ghost Adventures filmed a Season 5 episode at the Mizpah, bringing national attention to the Lady in Red's story. Nevada's state tourism board has featured the property specifically as a paranormal destination, an endorsement that reflects the consistency of the investigative record rather than manufactured atmosphere.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Sleep in a five-story 1905 Wild West landmark in the Nevada mining town of Tonopah, voted the #1 haunted hotel in America by USA Today in 2018. Request rooms near 502 and 504 on the fifth floor, where the Lady in Red is most frequently encountered. Male guests report whispered voices and finding pearls beneath their pillows — from the necklace torn during her murder.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Tonopah, NV
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