Haunted hotel guide · Jerome, Arizona
The Haunted Jerome Grand Hotel: Jerome's Old Mining Hospital on the Hill
For 23 years this concrete giant above Jerome was the copper company’s hospital. Today it is a hotel, and plenty of its guests say the old patients and staff never checked out.
The Jerome Grand Hotel is the largest building in Jerome, a former copper boomtown clinging to Cleopatra Hill in central Arizona. It sits at the top of town in the Spanish Mission style hospital the United Verde Copper Company opened in January 1927, and from almost every room you look out across the Verde Valley toward the red rocks of Sedona. It is one of the best-known haunted hotels in Arizona, in a town often described as one of the most haunted in Arizona.
The hotel does not run on ghost stories alone: it is family owned, has the Asylum restaurant on its top floor, and still uses the 1926 Otis elevator that carried patients between floors. But it has never hidden its past. Binders of guest testimonials sit in the lobby, the building has appeared on paranormal television, and the staff are used to questions about Claude “Scotty” Harvey, the maintenance man found dead beneath that elevator in 1935.
Jerome Grand Hotel at a glance
Haunted Rooms Score
- Address 200 Hill St, Jerome, AZ 86331, at the top of town above Main Street
- Opened January 1927 as the United Verde Hospital; reopened as a hotel in July 1996
- Most haunted spots The 1926 elevator and basement, Room 32, the second and third floors and the stairwells
- Best-known ghosts Claude “Scotty” Harvey, a bearded miner, a woman in white, a small boy and the Head Nurse
- Booking the haunted room Rooms are sold by type (valley side, mountain side, balcony), so call the hotel and ask about Room 32 or an upper floor.
- Good to know The roads into Jerome are steep and winding. The hotel has free parking, a gift shop and the Asylum restaurant upstairs.
The ghosts of Jerome Grand Hotel
Claude "Scotty" Harvey and the elevator
The story everyone in Jerome knows is that of Claude Harvey, a hospital maintenance man known locally as Scotty. In 1935 his body was found pinned beneath the elevator in the basement. The death was ruled an accident, but accounts of the inquest say his only marks were a broken neck and a small scrape behind the ear, and many in town suspected he was killed somewhere else and left in the shaft.
Guests and staff describe a shadowy, angry man in the basement, on the stairs and near the elevator, lights moving inside the shaft and the creak of the elevator when nobody is using it. Storytellers say Scotty will not rest until someone names his killer. Nothing in the record proves murder, so treat this one as Jerome’s favorite unsolved mystery.
The bearded miner
An old miner with a beard is the hotel’s most common sighting. He has been seen turning on lights as he walks the halls and standing at the far end of corridors, and today most reports place him on the second and third floors. ABC15 also heard about a bearded miner wandering the halls when it visited in 2017.
Jerome was a mining town first and last, and the hospital treated the men injured underground, so it is not hard to see why guests take him for a former patient.
The woman in white and the Head Nurse
Soon after the hospital opened, staff reported a woman in white on a balcony, thought to be a nurse. An elderly woman in white has also been seen near the old elevator.
The owner tells his own nurse story on the hotel’s history page. He says two psychics who did not know each other both told him that “the Head Nurse” was upset that the old dispensary desks had been taken out. In 2003 the desks were found in storage and put back within a few feet of where they had stood, and he says the complaints stopped.
Children on the upper floors
A boy of about six has been seen on the third floor, and a small child has been reported running through the bar area. The hotel’s proprietor told ABC15 that staff hear giggling and the sound of children running up and down the halls near the former pediatric area on an upper floor.
Other guests have described a newborn crying on the third and fourth floors, which fits a hospital that cared for miners’ families as well as the miners themselves.
Room 32 and other stories
Room 32 is the room ghost hunters ask for most often. Local legend links it to a death from its balcony, and both 12News and ABC15 have named it as the hotel’s most active room. Other tales tell of a man in a wheelchair who fell from a balcony and a caretaker who took his own life; we could not find records for these, so take them as stories.
Housekeepers report hearing their names called and say the activity stops for a few days if they ask it to. Chairs in the lobby have been rearranged overnight, items have fallen from gift shop shelves, and the front desk has taken calls from rooms that were empty. Guests also mention smells with no source: cigar smoke, whiskey, flowers and baby powder.
The most haunted rooms and places to look
- Room 32: The most requested room for anyone hoping for an encounter, linked by legend to a death from its balcony. Ask for it by number when you call.
- The elevator and basement: The 1926 Otis elevator still serves all five levels. Ride it, then take the stairs back down, where Scotty Harvey is said to wait.
- Second and third floors: Where the bearded miner and the small boy are most often reported. Valley-side rooms here also have the best views.
- The Asylum restaurant: Dinner on the top floor, with the Verde Valley below. The name is a nod to the building’s past, not an actual history as an asylum.
History of Jerome Grand Hotel
Copper made Jerome. Prospectors filed the first claims on Cleopatra Hill in 1876, the United Verde Copper Company was formed in 1883, and by the 1920s the town was one of the richest mining camps in the West. The company built its first hospital on this site in 1917, but blasting in the mines caused a fault to shift and damaged its south wing.
Plans for a replacement are dated February 1926. The company wanted a building that was fireproof and could stand up to the blasting, so it built in reinforced concrete: 30,000 square feet over five levels. Patients moved in during January 1927, and by 1930 it was described as the most modern hospital in Arizona. Phelps Dodge took over the United Verde holdings in 1935 and ran the hospital until it closed in 1950. The mines followed in 1953, and Jerome’s population fell to fewer than a hundred.
Phelps Dodge kept the building furnished for about 20 years, then stripped most of it in the 1970s and 1980s. After the last caretaker died, it was boarded up and watched by local police and company staff. Larry Altherr of Phoenix made an offer in December 1993, took possession on May 29, 1994, and opened the first hotel rooms in July 1996. The original elevator was kept running.
Since then the family has added a restaurant, now the Asylum, climate control in every room and parking dug out of the hillside for about 70 cars. Jerome became a National Historic Landmark in 1967 and is now a town of artists, wine rooms and tourists, with the Jerome Grand looking down on all of it. The hotel has been featured on television shows about the paranormal, including Ghost Adventures, and Sightings covered it in the 1990s.
Tips for a haunted stay
- Call the hotel to request Room 32 or a valley-side room on the second or third floor; online room types do not let you pick a number.
- Read the guest testimonial binders in the lobby before you head upstairs.
- Book dinner at the Asylum on the top floor and watch the lights come on across the Verde Valley.
- Jerome is steep. Wear good shoes, and leave your car at the hotel when you walk down to Main Street.
- Stay two nights and try the Ghost City Inn or the Connor Hotel down the hill for a second haunted night. See our Arizona ghost hunts for event dates.
More haunted hotels nearby
- Ghost City Inn, Jerome: a Victorian boarding house B&B on Main Street
- Connor Hotel, Jerome: the 1898 hotel on Main Street
- Hassayampa Inn, Prescott: Faith the bride, about an hour’s drive over Mingus Mountain
- Hotel Vendome, Prescott: Abby and her cat in Room 16
- Haunted hotels in Arizona
Stayed in one of these hotels? Tell us what happened
We collect first-hand accounts from guests and add the best ones to our guides, with your first name and the date of your stay. We read every story before it’s published.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Jerome Grand Hotel really haunted?
Nobody can prove it, but guests and staff have reported footsteps, voices, apparitions and moving objects since the hospital years, and the lobby holds binders of guest stories. The family that runs it has described it as the most haunted building in the state.
What is the most haunted room at the Jerome Grand Hotel?
Room 32 is the room most often named by guests and local TV. The basement and elevator, linked to Claude “Scotty” Harvey, and the second and third floors are also popular.
Who was Claude Harvey?
A hospital maintenance man known as Scotty, found dead beneath the elevator in 1935. His death was ruled an accident, but many in Jerome suspected foul play, and he is the hotel’s best-known ghost.
Was the Jerome Grand Hotel a hospital?
Yes. It opened in January 1927 as the United Verde Copper Company’s hospital and closed in 1950. It reopened as a hotel in 1996.
Was the Jerome Grand Hotel an asylum?
No. It was a general hospital for the mining town. The top-floor restaurant is called the Asylum as a playful name.
Was the Jerome Grand Hotel on Ghost Adventures?
Yes, it has been featured on paranormal TV including Ghost Adventures, and Sightings covered it in the 1990s.
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.
- Jerome Grand Hotel (official site)
- Hotel history (Jerome Grand Hotel)
- Ghosts of Jerome, Arizona (Legends of America)
- Jerome Grand Hotel (ABC15, 2017)
- The dark history lurking inside the Jerome Grand Hotel (12News)
- Northern Arizona haunted landmarks (AAA Via)
- Jerome, Arizona (Wikipedia)
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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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