Haunted hotel guide · Death Valley Junction, California

The Haunted Amargosa Hotel, Death Valley Junction: Rooms 9, 24 and 32

A 1920s borax company town on the edge of Death Valley, a ballerina who painted her own audience, and a hotel where guests still check out in the middle of the night.

By The Haunted Rooms Team · Updated November 2026 · How we rate hotels

3.5/5Haunted Rooms Score
1923Construction began
Room 9Most requested room

Check availabilityMeet the ghosts

The Amargosa Opera House and Hotel sits alone at a desert crossroads just east of Death Valley National Park: a long, white Spanish Colonial building that was once the Pacific Coast Borax Company’s town of Death Valley Junction. Half of it is an opera house, painted floor to ceiling by the dancer Marta Becket. The other half is a small, old-fashioned hotel with no TVs. It is one of the most unusual stays in our guide to haunted hotels in California.

It also has one of the strongest ghost reputations in the state. Guests describe a child crying at night in Room 24, a heavy, unwelcoming presence in Room 32 and something holding their legs down in bed in Room 9. Ghost Adventures investigated in 2010 and The Dead Files followed in 2013, and many people now drive out specifically hoping for a sleepless night.

Amargosa Hotel at a glance

3.5/5
Haunted Rooms Score
Haunted reputation4
History4
Ghost hunter access2
$ · Under $150Hotel embraces its ghosts
  • Address 608 Death Valley Junction, CA 92328 (Highway 127 and State Line Road)
  • Built 1923 to 1925 by the Pacific Coast Borax Company
  • Most haunted spots Rooms 9, 24 and 32, the unrenovated wing known as Spooky Hollow, the dining room and the opera house
  • Best-known ghosts A crying child; a hostile presence in Room 32; a ghost cat; Marta Becket’s late partner in the audience
  • Booking the haunted room There is no online booking for specific rooms. Call the front desk (760-852-4441) and ask for Room 9, 24 or 32; it is not guaranteed
  • Good to know No TVs, limited services, no gas station in town. Opera house tours run daily at 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Check availability

The ghosts of Amargosa Opera House and Hotel

The crying child of Room 24

The most repeated story belongs to Room 24, where guests say they hear a small child crying at night when there are no children staying in the hotel. Local legend says a little girl drowned in a bathtub here, and Legends of America gives the year as 1967. We have found no record of the death itself, so treat the date as part of the story rather than history.

Elsewhere in the building, guests describe a child giggling and running along the corridor late at night, which some link to the same girl.

Room 32 and the mining boss

Room 32 has the darkest reputation. Visitors describe a threatening, malevolent atmosphere strong enough to drive some of them out of the room. The story told about it is that it was a mining boss’s room during the borax years and that men were hanged there. Some versions shrink this to a single man who hanged himself. Nothing in the town’s documented history confirms either, but this is the room the TV crews and serious ghost hunters ask about.

Room 9, the most active

Legends of America calls Room 9 the most haunted room in the hotel. Sleepers say they wake feeling their legs and feet pinned to the bed. Others watch the doorknob turn with nobody outside, and hear a child laughing and running in the hall.

Spooky Hollow and the dining room

Staff call the unrenovated part of the building Spooky Hollow. It was once a dormitory for borax workers and, by local account, included a hospital and a morgue. Reports from here and around the hotel include knocking in the walls, footsteps in empty rooms, showers turning on by themselves and a sudden scent of lilacs. In the old dining room, guests hear the murmur of a crowd and one high-pitched woman’s voice. Some guests pack up and leave in the middle of the night.

The ghost cat and the man in the audience

In the opera house, a cat that nobody can account for is said to have wandered across the stage during Marta Becket’s performances, a story repeated by Nevada Public Radio’s Desert Companion. Some performers and visitors also describe shadows moving across the stage. And a gentler story says Becket’s former stage partner, Tom Willet, still takes a seat in the audience to watch the show.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

  • Room 9: Described as the most active room: legs held down in bed, turning doorknobs, a child’s laughter in the hall.
  • Room 24: The crying child. Reports of crying at night when no children are staying.
  • Room 32: The room with the threatening atmosphere, linked by legend to a mining boss and hangings.
  • Spooky Hollow: The unrenovated former workers’ dormitory, said to have held a hospital and morgue.
  • The opera house: Marta Becket’s painted audience, the ghost cat and the figure some say sits watching the stage. Visit on a tour.

History of Amargosa Opera House and Hotel

The Paiute name Amargosa means bitter water. The Pacific Coast Borax Company built the Death Valley Railroad here in 1914 to meet the Tonopah and Tidewater line, and between 1923 and 1925 it built a planned company town designed by architect Alexander Hamilton McCulloch. The U-shaped Spanish Colonial Revival complex held company offices, a dormitory, a 23-room hotel with a dining room and store, and a recreation hall known as Corkhill Hall. At its peak the town had around 300 to 350 residents.

Borax moved on quickly. The company moved its headquarters in 1927, the railroad between Ryan and the junction stopped in 1928, and rail service ended for good in 1940. The creation of Death Valley National Monument in 1933 brought some tourists, but by the 1960s the town was close to empty.

In 1967 Marta Becket, a New York dancer who had performed at Radio City Music Hall and on Broadway, was camping in Death Valley with her husband when a flat tire stranded them at the junction. She found the old hall, rented it for $45 a month, renamed it the Amargosa and began performing her own one-woman shows. When audiences were small she painted one: from 1968 to 1972 she covered the walls with a painted audience, and she finished the painted ceiling in 1974.

National Geographic and Life profiled her in 1970, and in 1974 she founded the nonprofit Amargosa Opera House, Inc., which went on to buy the town. The Death Valley Junction Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in December 1981. Becket gave her last performance in February 2012 and died at her home in Death Valley Junction on January 30, 2017, aged 92. The nonprofit still runs the hotel, tours and occasional performances.

The building has had a long screen life of its own. It appeared as the Lost Highway Hotel in David Lynch’s Lost Highway and in The Hitcher and the 2020 series The Stand, and the documentary Amargosa (2000) about Becket won an Emmy for its cinematography.

Tips for a haunted stay

  • Call the front desk to book and ask for Room 9, 24 or 32 by number. There is no online booking for specific rooms.
  • Fill your tank and bring food and water. There is no gas station in Death Valley Junction, and the cafe keeps limited hours, so call ahead.
  • Take the opera house tour (daily at 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.) to see Marta Becket’s painted audience; check for occasional performances on the nonprofit’s website.
  • Step outside after dark. With no town lights around, the night sky is one of the best in California.
  • Expect a simple, historic room with no TV. Bring a book, a flashlight and a little patience with the plumbing.
  • Continue east to the Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah or the Clown Motel for a desert road trip of haunted stays.

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Frequently asked questions

Is the Amargosa Hotel haunted?

The Amargosa Hotel is one of California’s best-known haunted hotels. Guests report a child crying in Room 24, a hostile presence in Room 32, being held down in bed in Room 9, footsteps, voices and a ghost cat in the opera house. Ghost Adventures and The Dead Files both investigated.

What is the most haunted room at the Amargosa Hotel?

Room 9 is usually called the most active, with Room 24 (the crying child) and Room 32 (the hostile presence) close behind.

Can you stay at the Amargosa Opera House?

Yes. The hotel still rents rooms. Book by calling the front desk on 760-852-4441 or emailing frontdesk@amargosaoperahouse.org.

Who was Marta Becket?

A New York dancer and artist who found the abandoned hall in 1967 after a flat tire, painted its walls with an imaginary audience and performed there until 2012. She died at Death Valley Junction in 2017.

Was the Amargosa Hotel on Ghost Adventures?

Yes. Ghost Adventures investigated in 2010, and The Dead Files featured the hotel in 2013.

How far is the Amargosa Hotel from Death Valley?

It sits at Death Valley Junction, just outside the park’s eastern edge, at the meeting of Highways 127 and 190.

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

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About the authors

The Haunted Rooms Team runs public ghost hunts and overnight investigations at historic venues across the United States. We research every hotel in our guides using hotel histories, local archives, news coverage and the accounts of guests and staff, and we review each guide regularly so you are not booking a hotel that has closed or changed its name. Spotted something out of date? Let us know.

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