The night television called the whole town engulfed

In the spring of 2022, Travel Channel’s The Dead Files aired a two-hour special, Special Investigation: The Haunting of Flagstaff. The show came to town to look at one haunted shop, Crystal Magic on San Francisco Street, and ended up somewhere bigger: by the team’s own telling, the entire town was engulfed by activity.

The cameras moved through the downtown blocks this site maps: the Weatherford Hotel, the Orpheum Theater, the Downtown Diner, and the streets between them. Flagstaff watched itself on national television and mostly nodded along.

The history underneath that episode came from somewhere. Susan Johnson, author of Haunted Flagstaff, provided the documented background on the town’s darkest chapters for the investigation, including the 1937 Walkup family tragedy, the case she literally wrote the book on. The Weatherford hosted a premiere screening at Charly’s Pub and Grill the night it aired.

A television hour is a highlight reel. The archive it drew from is a book.