HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
The 1933 courthouse where the Kefauver Committee grilled the mob on live television — the original courtroom still intact
300 E Stewart Ave, Las Vegas, NV 89101
Research updated September 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
General admission; save up to 20% booking online. See website for current pricing.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Multi-story historic building. Elevator access available.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1933 · National Register of Historic Places · Kefauver Committee Hearing Site · Original 1950 Courtroom Preserved
The Las Vegas Post Office and Courthouse was completed in 1933, a Classical Revival federal building in the early downtown grid before Las Vegas became a postwar gambling capital. It served routine federal business — postal operations, district court proceedings — for the first two decades of its existence.
On November 15, 1950, the building became nationally significant when the U.S. Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, chaired by Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, held its seventh hearing in the second-floor courtroom. The hearings were nationally televised, and the Las Vegas session subpoenaed casino operators and mob associates including figures connected to Meyer Lansky and Moe Dalitz's Desert Inn operation. For millions of Americans watching, it was the first direct evidence of organized crime's systematic control of the gambling industry.
The preserved second-floor courtroom retains its original 1950 configuration. The federal government transferred the building to the City of Las Vegas for $1 in 2000, with a requirement that it be restored and used for cultural purposes. The city invested in a full restoration, and the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement — branded as The Mob Museum — opened on February 14, 2012, the anniversary of the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
The museum's centerpiece acquisition is a section of the brick wall from the SMC Cartage Company garage in Chicago where seven men were killed in that massacre. The museum is operated as a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization and is listed on the Nevada and National Registers of Historic Places.
Sources
The Mob Museum's inclusion on Las Vegas ghost tours reflects the building's documented history rather than a specific haunting tradition. Ghost City Tours lists it as a dark-tourism stop, attributing an ambient presence to the decades of criminal testimony, FBI recordings, and mob-era proceedings conducted within the building.
The courtroom itself — where figures tied to organized crime sat before cameras in 1950 and testified about murder, extortion, and bribery — is the focal point of these accounts. No specific entity or recurring phenomenon is documented; the attribution is atmospheric rather than event-specific.
The museum's dark-tourism credentials rest primarily on historical significance: it holds the actual wall where seven men were shot dead on Valentine's Day 1929, FBI case files and wiretap recordings documenting dozens of unsolved murders, and artifacts from some of the 20th century's most violent criminal enterprises. Whether that constitutes haunting is a question the museum leaves to visitors.
Explore three floors of exhibits in the 1933 federal courthouse, anchored by the second-floor courtroom where the November 15, 1950 Kefauver Committee hearing was held. Exhibits include the brick wall from the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, interactive crime lab, and documentary footage from mob trials and FBI surveillance operations.
A Prohibition-era speakeasy and working craft distillery in the museum's basement. Open separately from general admission; cocktails served in period-appropriate surroundings with interpretive content about bootlegging and organized crime's role in the liquor trade.
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This Las Vegas tour includes The Mob Museum (former Federal Courthouse) on its route.
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