Haunted hotel guide · Jerome, Arizona
The Haunted Connor Hotel, Jerome: Rooms 1, 2 and 4
An 1898 brick hotel on Main Street in America’s most famous copper ghost town, above one of Arizona’s best-loved bars. Three of its rooms have stories of their own.
Jerome clings to a steep hillside above the Verde Valley, a copper boomtown that emptied out in the 1950s and was brought back by artists and the counterculture crowd. The Connor Hotel sits right in the middle of it, on the corner of Main Street and Jerome Avenue. David Connor built and rebuilt it through a run of fires at the end of the 1890s, and for a time it was advertised as second to none in the Southwest.
Today the hotel’s rooms sit directly above the Spirit Room, a saloon that has been pouring drinks in the building in one form or another since the mining days. The ghost stories here are specific: whispering women in Room 1, things that move in Room 2, and an old man’s cough and an invisible dog’s growl in Room 4. Nobody claims to know who any of them are.
Connor Hotel at a glance
Haunted Rooms Score
- Address 160 Main Street, Jerome, AZ 86331, at the corner of Main Street and Jerome Avenue
- Built Rebuilt in brick in 1898 after earlier buildings on the site burned; reopened after another fire in August 1899
- Most haunted spots Rooms 1, 2 and 4, and the Spirit Room bar downstairs
- Best-known ghosts Unseen women whispering and laughing, an old man coughing, a growling dog that is never there, and a shadowy gambler in the bar
- Booking the haunted room Ask for Room 1, 2 or 4 when you book. Requests are not guaranteed.
- Good to know About a dozen rooms on the upper floor. Live music in the Spirit Room below most days, so expect noise on weekends. Jerome’s streets are steep.
The ghosts of the Connor Hotel
The women in Room 1
Room 1 has the hotel’s founding ghost story. According to Legends of America, the first person to stay in the room after the 2000s restoration was an electrician working on the building. During the night he heard women whispering and laughing in the room with him, felt a chill come over him, and gave up on the bed. He spent the rest of the night sleeping in his van.
Later guests in Room 1 have reported the doors of the armoire opening by themselves and strange shapes showing up in their photographs. Jerome was famous for its saloons and brothels, and many people connect the voices to the women who worked in the town during the boom years, though there is no record linking anyone in particular to this room.
The moving objects of Room 2
Guests in Room 2 describe furniture and small personal items moving on their own: things left on a table found somewhere else, or a chair that is not where it was. It is the least dramatic of the three rooms but the one people seem to come back to.
The old man and the dog in Room 4
Room 4 is linked to two sounds. Both guests and staff have reported hearing an old man coughing, and the low growl of a dog, sometimes said to come from under the door, when there is no dog anywhere in the building.
The gambler in the Spirit Room
The bar downstairs has its own stories. Staff, musicians and regulars talk about glasses moving, cold spots behind the bar, doors opening after closing and a feeling of being watched. The best known is a miner or gambler said to have lost his fortune drinking there, who appears as a shadow by the bar and seems to listen when the band plays. Musicians blame him for snapped strings and amps that switch on after they are unplugged.
The lady in red and the male spirit
Older versions of this guide mentioned a Lady in Red and a mischievous male spirit who interferes with electrical equipment. We could not find a current source for the Lady in Red at the Connor, so treat that one as a story passed around rather than one the hotel or its guests have reported recently.
The most haunted rooms and places to look
- Room 1: The room where the first guest after the restoration heard women whispering and laughing and moved out to his van. Armoire doors are said to open by themselves.
- Room 2: Furnishings and guests’ belongings reportedly move around.
- Room 4: An old man coughing and a dog growling, heard by guests and staff.
- The Spirit Room: The saloon on the ground floor, open to the public. Its shadowy gambler is said to like live music.
History of Connor Hotel
David Connor, an Irish American, first ran a stone saloon on this corner. In 1897 he added a second floor and called the building the Hotel Connor, with about 20 rooms upstairs at a dollar a night and a barroom, card rooms and billiards downstairs for miners and travelers waiting for trains. Jerome burned again and again in those years. A wooden lodging house on the site went up in 1897, and the hotel burned in September 1898.
Connor was one of only two business owners in town who carried fire insurance. He collected $14,500 and immediately rebuilt in red brick fired in Cottonwood, on a foundation of locally quarried stone. Fire gutted the interior again in 1899, but the walls held, and the hotel reopened in August 1899 with electric lights, a call bell in every room and its own bus to the depot. Its masonry walls are credited with helping stop later fires from taking the rest of downtown.
The hotel prospered as long as the mines did. It closed in 1931, as the copper business slowed, though the bar and shops on the ground floor kept going and the upstairs rooms sat empty. After the mines shut in the 1950s, Jerome nearly emptied. In the 1960s the Connor reopened as a cheap lodging house with fewer, larger rooms, while the bar downstairs took the name Spirit Room and became a gathering place for the artists and counterculture crowd who were bringing the town back to life.
Safety violations closed the hotel again in the 1980s, and the upper floor stood empty for years. Around 2000 the Conlin family bought the building and restored it, adding a fire escape, sprinklers and new wiring and enlarging the rooms. Today the red brick facade with its round-arched corner entrance looks much as it did in 1899, and Thrillist named the Spirit Room the best small-town bar in Arizona in 2018.
Tips for a haunted stay
- Go midweek for quiet. The Spirit Room has live music most days, and on weekends it carries upstairs late into the night.
- Ask for Room 1, 2 or 4. These are the rooms with stories. Make the request when you book and again at check-in.
- Wear good shoes. Jerome is built on a steep hillside, with stairs and narrow streets everywhere.
- Make a night of it. The Jerome Grand Hotel, a former hospital, is up the hill, and the town runs ghost walks most evenings.
- Park early. Parking on Main Street is limited and fills up on weekends and holidays.
More haunted hotels nearby
- Jerome Grand Hotel: the town’s former hospital, up the hill
- Ghost City Inn, Jerome: a small bed and breakfast a few minutes’ walk away
- Hotel Vendome, Prescott: Abby and Noble the cat in Room 16, about an hour away
- Copper Queen Hotel, Bisbee: another haunted copper town hotel in the south of the state
- 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 Connor Hotel in Jerome haunted?
It is one of Jerome’s best-known haunted hotels. Guests report women whispering in Room 1, objects moving in Room 2 and an old man coughing and a dog growling in Room 4. These are guest and staff accounts, not proven events.
Which rooms are haunted at the Connor Hotel?
Rooms 1, 2 and 4 are the rooms named in published accounts.
Is the Spirit Room in Jerome haunted?
Staff and musicians say so. They describe a shadowy miner or gambler at the bar, cold spots, moving glasses and equipment that switches itself on.
When was the Connor Hotel built?
David Connor opened the Hotel Connor in 1897. After fires, he rebuilt it in brick in 1898, and it reopened after another fire in August 1899.
Is the Connor Hotel noisy?
It can be. The rooms sit above the Spirit Room, which has live music most days. Go midweek if you want a quieter night.
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.
- Legends of America: Ghosts of Jerome, Arizona
- Legends of America: Sleeping With Ghosts in Arizona
- SAH Archipedia: Connor Hotel
- HMDB: Jerome historical marker
- Spirit Room: history
- KTAR: Spirit Room named best small town bar in Arizona
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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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