The Haunted Copper Queen Hotel, Bisbee: Julia Lowell, Billy and 120 Years of Ghost Stories

The Copper Queen Hotel stands on Howell Avenue in the old mining town of Bisbee, a few miles from the Mexican border, across from the building that was once the mining company’s headquarters. It opened in February 1902 and calls itself the longest continuously operating hotel in Arizona, older than statehood itself. It is the best-known of Bisbee’s haunted hotels and one of the most famous haunted hotels in Arizona.

Unlike many old hotels, the Copper Queen does not hide its ghosts. Guests have filled close to a dozen ghost journals over the past half century, Fodor’s has listed it among America’s most haunted hotels, and today the hotel sells two of its rooms by their ghosts’ names: Room 315, the Julia Lowell room, and Room 412, Billy’s Room. The building was listed for sale in 2024 at $12.5 million, but it has stayed open throughout, with real keys, a front door that is never locked and a saloon downstairs.

The ghosts of Copper Queen Hotel

Julia Lowell

Julia Lowell is the Copper Queen’s most famous resident. The story told at the hotel and by Bisbee’s ghost tour guides is that she was a woman of the evening who worked out of the hotel in the early 20th century, fell in love with one of her clients and took her own life when he rejected her. Tellings differ on the details: some put her death in the bathtub of Room 315, others outside her third-floor room.

What guests report is more playful than tragic. Men in particular describe a woman’s voice whispering in their ear, a sweet perfume with no source and something tickling their feet at night, especially in Room 315. Others say they have seen a woman in a long dress dancing provocatively at the foot of the stairs. There is no record that confirms Julia was a real person, so treat her as Bisbee legend; the hotel has embraced her all the same.

Billy, the boy on the fourth floor

The second ghost is a little boy, usually called Billy. Legend says his family worked at the hotel and he drowned in the San Pedro River, then came back to the place where his parents were. He is a prankster: guests say he hides shoes, moves jewelry and leaves candy wrappers behind, and some hear a child crying when they run the water.

Billy is linked to the fourth floor, and the hotel now sells Room 412 as Billy’s Room, furnished with antique toys. A guide told FOX 10 in 2015 about a family whose young daughter said she had been playing with a boy under their dinner table. Most accounts say he is heard more than seen.

The gentleman in the top hat

The third of the hotel’s classic ghosts is an older man, tall, with long hair and a beard, dressed in a black cape and top hat. He is said to appear in doorways and as a shadow in fourth-floor rooms, and the smell of cigar smoke often comes before or after he is seen.

Nobody claims to know who he was. Guests usually take him for a mining investor or a well-to-do guest from the hotel’s early years, which fits the reason the Copper Queen was built in the first place.

Up to 16 spirits

Local guides and the hotel’s own staff have said that as many as 16 spirits share the building, including unnamed miners and long-departed guests. Reports include running footsteps in empty halls, giggling, lamps and appliances switching on and off and the words “I can see you” appearing in a steamed bathroom mirror.

An older story names a former front desk clerk called Howard who still keeps an eye on the staff. We could not find a current source for him, so take Howard as hotel lore. In 2016 KTAR reported that the hotel hosted a weekly Thursday ghost hunt with a local paranormal investigator; check with the front desk whether anything similar is running when you visit.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Room 315, the Julia Lowell room: Romantic, antique-filled and the room most linked to Julia’s whispers and foot-tickling. Book it by name on the hotel’s website.
• Room 412, Billy's Room: Sold by the hotel as its haunted room, with antique toys. Leave a sweet out and see if the wrapper moves.
• The fourth floor: Where the gentleman in the top hat and the smell of cigar smoke are reported. Any fourth-floor room is a good second choice if 412 is taken.
• The main staircase: Where Julia is said to dance. Sit in the lobby late in the evening for the best view.
• Celebrity rooms: Room 211 (John Wayne), Room 406 (Teddy Roosevelt) and the Harry Houdini room are popular for history rather than ghosts.

History of Copper Queen Hotel

Bisbee grew up around the copper mines of the Mule Mountains in the 1880s. The Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company, later part of Phelps Dodge, needed somewhere fit to house the investors and officials it was courting, because until then executives stayed in boarding houses. Construction ran from the late 1890s, crews had to cut into the hillside, and the hotel opened in February 1902. According to its general manager in 2023, it cost about $175,000, roughly $6 million today.

At its peak Bisbee had around 20,000 residents, and the Copper Queen was its social center. It survived the town fire of 1908 and, much later, the closing of the Copper Queen mine in 1974, which emptied Bisbee and could easily have ended the hotel too. Instead the town reinvented itself as an artists’ and tourists’ town, and the Copper Queen kept its doors open.

Its guest list explains the room names. John Wayne was a regular and his room is the most requested; the hotel says he and Lee Marvin once had a falling out in the saloon. Theodore Roosevelt visited Bisbee before he became president, and Harry Houdini, Lillie Langtry and Grace Dodge all have rooms named after them. Later the hotel turned up on television, from the Travel Channel’s Resort Rescue to the Hulu series Living for the Dead.

Over the last decade the owners have worked to bring the hotel back to its early look, restoring the dining room and front desk, replacing much of the furniture with pieces from before the 1940s and restoring the original wood floors. In April 2024 the hotel was listed for sale at $12.5 million. As of our last check it was still taking bookings.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Book Room 315 or Room 412 directly on the hotel’s website; third-party sites usually sell standard room types only.
• Bisbee is steep. Expect stairs and hills, and ask about parking when you book.
• Read the ghost journals at the front desk and add your own experience before you leave.
• Take one of Bisbee’s evening ghost walks; most of them start or pass near the Copper Queen.
• Pair your stay with the Oliver House a few minutes’ walk away, where Haunted Rooms has run ghost hunt sleepovers. See our Arizona ghost hunts for new dates.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Bisbee Grand Hotel and The Oliver House: two more haunted stays within a few blocks
• Haunted hotels in Tombstone: about 25 miles away
• The Gadsden Hotel, Douglas: Room 333 and Pancho Villa’s staircase, 25 miles east
• Haunted hotels in Arizona

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.

• Copper Queen Hotel (official site)
• Billy's Room (Copper Queen Hotel)
• Bisbee's Copper Queen Hotel thriving after 117 years (KGUN 9, 2019)
• Mining the story of Bisbee through a tour of the Copper Queen Hotel (KGUN 9, 2023)
• Bisbee icons Copper Queen, Cafe Roka up for sale (ABC15, 2024)
• Bisbee, Arizona: a historic town that many say has a dark side (FOX 10, 2015)
• Fodor's ranks Arizona hotel one of America's most haunted (KTAR, 2016)
• Sleeping With Ghosts in Arizona (Legends of America)

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