The Bird Cage Theatre, Tombstone: History, Ghosts and Night Tours

The Bird Cage Theatre stands on Allen Street, Tombstone’s main drag, a plain whitewashed adobe and brick front with three arched doors and its name painted across the parapet. It opened on December 26, 1881, two months after the gunfight near the O.K. Corral, and it is one of the few buildings from the boom years that survived the fires of 1881 and 1882. Inside, the stage, the curtained boxes, the bar, a faro table and an ornate hearse are still on show, with bullet holes in the walls and ceiling.

It is also the building most people mean when they call Tombstone haunted. Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures and other shows have filmed here, the museum runs a ghost tour every night, and the staff have plenty of stories. Below we separate what the record shows from what the guides tell, and explain how to visit.

History of the Bird Cage Theatre

Tombstone grew almost overnight after Ed Schieffelin found silver in 1877 and the town was laid out in March 1879. Billy Hutchinson, a variety performer, and his wife Lottie opened the Bird Cage on December 26, 1881. Billy wanted respectable shows, and the theater even tried a free Ladies’ Night for the town’s respectable women, but a mining town with money to spend wanted something rougher, and the Bird Cage gave it to them.

It became a saloon, gambling hall and variety theater, with twelve curtained boxes, the ‘bird cages’ that may have given it its name, hanging above the main floor. Prostitutes worked in the boxes, and Roadside America’s guide described downstairs rooms rented by the night. Acts included Mademoiselle De Granville, billed as the Female Hercules, cross-dressing comedians at masquerade balls and Cornish wrestling bouts whose results were printed in Britain. Later owners renamed it the Elite Theatre.

Tombstone’s luck turned underground. The mines began hitting water in 1880 and the Grand Central struck it at 620 feet in March 1882. On May 26, 1886, the Grand Central’s hoist and pumping plant burned, silver prices fell, and people left. The Bird Cage hung on intermittently and then closed around 1892 (sources differ on the exact year), and the story goes that it was locked up with much of its contents still inside.

It reopened for the first Helldorado Days in 1929 and again in 1934, when it was leased as a coffee shop, and it has been a tourist attraction ever since. The building is part of the Tombstone Historic District, a National Historic Landmark since 1961. It appeared in the 1993 film Tombstone.

A good deal of what you are told inside comes from the museum’s own telling. Guides have said 26 people died in the building and that there are 120 to 140 bullet holes; an 1882 New York Times line calling it the wildest, wickedest night spot between Basin Street and the Barbary Coast is repeated everywhere. The museum says its Black Moriah hearse ran from 1881 and values it at more than two million dollars. We could not find records for the death toll or those claims, so treat the numbers as legend.

The ghosts of the Bird Cage Theatre

The women of the boxes

The most common reports are of women in period dress, usually taken to be the prostitutes who worked the balcony boxes. The museum’s own site says guests report apparitions in dim corners and on the stairs. A narrow hallway behind the stage is known as the Lady in White hallway because of repeated sightings there.

Ghost City Tours, which runs tours in Tombstone, tells of a woman called Margarita said to have been killed in one of the boxes; we found no record of her, so treat the name as tour lore.

The man in the visor

Several accounts describe a man in black, sometimes wearing a dealer’s visor, who walks across the stage and vanishes. Writer Michael Kleen, summing up the reports, notes that visitors and employees also describe men in cowboy hats, and some say they have been touched or pushed.

The endless poker game

Downstairs is the poker room, with one of the few original faro tables left anywhere. Guides say a single game ran there for eight years, and that card shuffles and chips can still be heard. On Ghost Hunters in 2006 the investigators said they heard cards being shuffled, a ball bouncing and an iron gate opening. The eight-year game is the theater’s own legend; there is no record of it.

Music, laughter and smoke

Staff and visitors report laughter, yelling and piano music after hours, and the smell of cigar smoke and perfume where nobody is smoking. Kleen repeats a story that children at a school across the street in the 1920s heard noise from the locked, empty building.

The skeptics

Not everyone is convinced. Roadside America’s writers reviewed their photos and found one ghostly smear, caused by a German tourist walking through a long exposure, and noted that some exhibits sold as original were not. Kleen visited in 2009 and saw nothing. Go for the history and let the stories be what they are.

Where to look

• The stage: where the man in the visor is said to walk; look up at the original drop curtain.
• The balcony boxes: the ‘bird cages’ where the women worked, and the source of most sightings.
• The hallway behind the stage: known to staff as the Lady in White hallway.
• The basement poker room: the faro table and the scene of the eight-year game legend.
• The Black Moriah: the ornate hearse that the night ghost tours gather around.

Visiting the Bird Cage Theatre

The Bird Cage is open daily for self-guided visits, and the museum runs a guided ghost tour every night. Check the official site for current times and prices, which change by season. Allow about an hour for a day visit: the rooms are small but packed with objects, and the basement is easy to miss.

Tombstone is about 70 miles southeast of Tucson. Allen Street is closed to through traffic in the historic core, so park on a side street and walk. Boothill Graveyard is at the northwest edge of town and Big Nose Kate’s Saloon, in the old Grand Hotel building, is a short walk along Allen Street.

• Visiting Privately owned museum on Allen Street, open daily
• Tours Self-guided day visits and a nightly guided ghost tour
• Ghost hunting The museum runs its own nightly ghost tours; ask the museum about private investigations

Tips for your visit

• Do the day visit first to see the bullet holes and the faro table in good light, then come back for the night tour.
• Bring a flashlight for the basement on the night tour.
• Visit in spring or fall; summer afternoons in Tombstone are hot.
• Combine it with Boothill and a drink at Big Nose Kate’s.
• Stay the night in town at the Tombstone Bordello, the Larian Motel or the Tombstone Motel.

More haunted places nearby

• Haunted places in Tombstone: Boothill, Big Nose Kate’s and the town’s haunted places to stay
• Haunted hotels in Tombstone: for a haunted bed in town
• Copper Queen Hotel, Bisbee: Arizona’s best-known haunted hotel, 25 miles south
• Haunted places in Arizona
• Haunted places in Tombstone

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the official website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as staff, visitors and investigators tell them, and we say where records contradict a story.

• Bird Cage Theatre: official site
• Wikipedia: Bird Cage Theatre
• Wikipedia: Tombstone, Arizona
• Roadside America: Bird Cage Theater Museum
• Michael Kleen: Tombstone's Bird Cage Theater (2017)
• Ghost City Tours: The haunted Bird Cage Theatre