Goldfield Hotel: Nevada's Most Haunted Building
The Goldfield Hotel was supposed to last forever. Built in 1908 during Nevada's last great gold rush, the four-story brick palace offered 154 rooms, mahogany trim, Tiffany fixtures, and a gold-leaf ceiling that declared Goldfield's arrival as a permanent city. The gold ran out within a decade. The hotel closed in 1945 and hasn't reopened since. But the guests never entirely left - at least according to ghost hunters who've made the Goldfield the most investigated haunted building in the American West. The story they tell: George Wingfield, mining magnate and hotel owner, impregnated a prostitute named Elizabeth, chained her to a radiator in Room 109, and threw her body down a mineshaft after she died in childbirth. Her ghost, they say, still haunts the upper floors, still angry, still trapped.
The Boom
Goldfield erupted in 1902 when gold was discovered in the desert hills of south-central Nevada. By 1906 it was Nevada's largest city, home to 20,000 residents, three newspapers, and ambitions of permanence. George Wingfield, a cowboy-turned-gambler-turned-mining magnate, built the Goldfield Hotel to demonstrate the town's sophistication. The building cost $400,000 - millions in today's money - and featured heating, electricity, and telephones in every room. The lobby's gold-leaf ceiling gleamed. For a moment, Goldfield seemed like the future. Then the gold veins narrowed. By 1920, the population had collapsed. By 1940, fewer than 500 people remained.
The Legend
The ghost story emerged decades after the hotel closed. According to popular accounts, George Wingfield kept a prostitute named Elizabeth in Room 109, hiding her pregnancy from his wife. When she gave birth, he killed her - chaining her to the room's radiator, starving her, throwing her body down the hotel's basement mineshaft (yes, the hotel had a mineshaft). Historians find no evidence: no death certificate for Elizabeth, no missing persons reports, no contemporary scandal. Wingfield, a powerful man, could have silenced rumors, but the complete absence of period documentation suggests invention. The story probably originated with 1980s ghost tours. Truth doesn't matter to ghosts.
The Hauntings
Paranormal investigators have documented phenomena throughout the Goldfield Hotel: cold spots, electrical anomalies, doors opening, figures in windows. Room 109 remains the focus - investigators report especially intense experiences there. A ghost hunting television show allegedly captured footage of a brick flying across the basement. Skeptics note that the abandoned building, with its exposed wiring and unstable structure, produces plenty of non-supernatural anomalies. The hotel's deteriorating condition creates natural eeriness - peeling wallpaper, collapsing ceilings, darkness. Whether the ghosts are real or the building simply feels haunted, the experience draws investigators from worldwide.
The Limbo
Multiple buyers have purchased the Goldfield Hotel intending restoration, then abandoned plans when costs exceeded budgets. The building is structurally sound - brick and stone don't collapse like wood - but the interior has deteriorated beyond simple repair. Asbestos, lead paint, and decades of vandalism complicate renovation. The town of Goldfield, population approximately 200, can't support a 154-room hotel anyway. So the building sits, too beautiful to demolish, too expensive to restore, accumulating ghost stories as it waits for something to happen. The ghosts, if they exist, have outlasted every owner.
Visiting Goldfield
Goldfield is located on US-95 in south-central Nevada, roughly 190 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The hotel is visible from the highway but not accessible to the public - the building is private property and entering is trespassing. Ghost tours operate occasionally; check local sources for availability. The town itself offers a small museum, historic courthouse, and the Pioneer Cemetery where many boom-era residents rest. Tonopah, 26 miles north, provides the nearest lodging and services. The drive through the Nevada desert is spectacular and empty. Goldfield feels like what it is: a ghost town, haunted or not, preserving the ambitions of people who expected a future that never arrived.
From the Air
Located at 37.71°N, 117.23°W in the high desert of south-central Nevada. From altitude, Goldfield appears as a sparse grid of streets in otherwise empty terrain - far smaller than its boom-era footprint. The hotel, a four-story brick building, is visible as the largest structure in town, distinct from the surrounding low buildings and mobile homes. The desert extends in all directions; no major development exists for dozens of miles. The landscape explains why the town died: without the gold, there's no reason to be here. The hotel survives because no one has bothered to demolish it, accumulating ghosts in the meantime.