The Haunted Plaza Hotel, Las Vegas, New Mexico: Byron T. Mills and Room 310

The Plaza Hotel stands on the old plaza of Las Vegas, New Mexico, a high-plains railroad town about an hour east of Santa Fe that has nothing to do with the casinos in Nevada. It opened in 1882 as the grandest hotel in New Mexico Territory, hosted Theodore Roosevelt and the first Rough Riders reunion, and later turned up in silent westerns and in No Country for Old Men. Today it has 70 rooms split between the original building and the neighboring Ilfeld building, and it is one of the best-known haunted hotels in New Mexico.

The ghost everyone asks about is Byron T. Mills, a former owner whose office is now Room 310. Guests there, very often women traveling alone, report cigar smoke, old-fashioned cologne and a dent in the bed as if someone has just sat down. Staff also talk about a little girl in the basement. Here is what is told, what the records say and how to plan a night.

The ghosts of the Plaza Hotel

Byron T. Mills in Room 310

Byron T. Mills owned the Plaza in the early 1900s. Old newspaper references describe him as a tall man, about six foot four, a notary and businessman who also served a term as mayor; a street near the plaza still carries his name. He died in 1947, and the circumstances are not clear. The hotel’s old bar was named Byron T’s in his honor.

His former office is now Room 310, and it gets most of the hotel’s ghost reports. Guests describe the smell of cigar smoke and old cologne in a non-smoking room, and wake to find a dent in the covers at the foot of the bed, as if someone had sat down to chat. Front desk staff told the Santa Fe New Mexican in 2025 that the people who report this are almost always women on their own, and some have asked to move floors in the night.

A friendly landlord, or a skeptic's hotel?

Longtime front desk worker Sean Williams does not think Mills died in the building. He sees the activity as an old owner checking on his guests. Local investigator Cody Polston, who has run about a dozen investigations at the Plaza, has heard the story of a dresser pushed against the door of an empty Room 310, but he also points out that Mills never lived in that room and has concluded the hotel is probably not haunted. He still recommends a stay for the history.

The little girl in the basement

The newer story comes from the basement, near the old coal tunnel. Williams told the New Mexican he once heard a little girl call out “Grandma, grandma” down there. Night auditor Melissa Wells says she saw a curly-haired girl walking between the laundry machines, and now runs through the basement when she checks the boiler room.

Nobody knows who the girl might be. Maintenance worker Cody Lucero, who has been at the hotel for about 20 years, has left food and water in the coal tunnel as an offering.

Shadows on camera

Lucero has also described a smoky orb racing down a staircase on the security footage, and a figure in black walking into the locked basement when no one was there. Staff keep a lobby photo taken by a visiting family, after their young daughter told an employee “They’re here with us”; the parents later noticed a shadowy figure in the shot. Ask at the desk and they may show it to you.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Room 310: Byron T. Mills’ old office and the room with the most reports: cigar smoke, cologne and the dent on the bed. Bookable on request.
• The basement and coal tunnel: Where staff hear and see the little girl. It is a working area, not open to guests, but it is worth asking staff about.
• The lobby and staircases: The twin staircases from the lobby to the second floor are original, and the lobby is where the family photo was taken.
• Rooms facing the plaza: Not known for ghosts, but the best place to feel the hotel’s age, with high ceilings and views across Plaza Park.

History of Plaza Hotel

The railroad reached Las Vegas in 1879, with its station about a mile east of the old Spanish plaza. A group of local businessmen led by Don Benigno Romero answered by building a fine brick hotel on the plaza itself, at a cost of about $25,000. The three-story Italianate building opened in 1882, and its owners called it the “Belle of the Southwest”. Charles Ilfeld opened his Great Emporium department store next door the following year.

The Plaza was the center of town life. In the 1890s it housed so many tuberculosis patients, drawn by the dry mountain air, that they formed a One Lung Club. In 1899 the hotel hosted the first reunion of the Rough Riders, and Theodore Roosevelt stayed here twice. Once the Santa Fe Railway built La Castañeda hotel beside the depot in the late 1890s, the Plaza lost some of its shine, but it stayed open.

Hollywood came early. Director and actor Romaine Fielding leased the hotel from 1913 to 1915, renamed it the Hotel Romaine and made films around the plaza; traces of that name are still on the facade. Tom Mix westerns were shot here, and in 2007 so were scenes from No Country for Old Men. Older accounts, including our previous version of this page, also link the hotel to Easy Rider; parts of that film were shot in Las Vegas, but we could not confirm the hotel itself is on screen.

Byron T. Mills owned the hotel in the early 1900s. After years of decline, new owners restored it in 1982 with 36 rooms and a dining room, and later added the Ilfeld building next door, bringing the total to around 70 rooms. Entrepreneur Allan Affeldt, who also restored La Posada in Winslow, Arizona, bought the Plaza and La Castañeda in 2014 and spent a decade renovating both. In 2025 he put them on the market; La Castañeda sold to local buyers that summer, and the Plaza has kept operating during the sale.

The hotel is a contributing building in the Las Vegas Plaza historic district, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. Las Vegas itself has hundreds of listed buildings, and the plaza is where the town was founded in 1835.

Tips for a haunted stay

• If you want Room 310, ask for it by number when you book. It is a request, and staff will not assign it to a woman traveling alone unless she asks.
• Ask the front desk about the basement girl and the family photo; staff here are open about the stories.
• Book a plaza-view room for the setting even if you skip 310. Only 19 rooms face the park.
• Walk across to La Castañeda by the railroad depot, the town’s other great historic hotel.
• Pair the trip with a night at the St. James Hotel in Cimarron, about 90 minutes north, for a Santa Fe Trail ghost road trip.

More haunted hotels nearby

• St. James Hotel, Cimarron: the Wild West hotel with the locked Room 18, about 90 minutes north
• La Fonda on the Plaza, Santa Fe: Santa Fe’s historic inn at the end of the trail, about an hour west
• La Posada de Santa Fe: home of Julia Staab’s ghost
• Drury Plaza Hotel, Santa Fe: a hotel in Santa Fe’s old St. Vincent Hospital
• Haunted hotels in New Mexico

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.

• Santa Fe New Mexican: There ain't nothing in Room 310, or is there? (2025)
• Wikipedia: Plaza Hotel (Las Vegas, New Mexico)
• Plaza Hotel: official site
• Las Vegas Optic: Affeldt to sell Plaza and Castaneda hotels (2025)

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