Weatherford Hotel

John W. Weatherford came to Flagstaff in 1886, when the town was a raw railroad settlement, and opened his hotel at the corner of Leroux Street and Aspen Avenue on New Year’s Day, 1900. It was the finest address in early Flagstaff. Zane Grey wrote here. William Randolph Hearst and the painter Thomas Moran signed the register.

The third-floor ballroom that now carries Zane Grey’s name occupies the hotel’s original bridal suite area, and the building has stayed in continuous service for more than 120 years: hotel, offices, theater, billiard hall, and hotel again. Few buildings in Arizona have watched more of a town’s life pass through their doors.

Staff and guests describe a figure that crosses the Zane Grey Ballroom floor and vanishes at the wall, reported over the years as a young woman by some and an older, thin woman by others. The accounts do not agree with each other, which is part of what makes them worth taking seriously as a record of the building.

Then there is the story of Room 54, the honeymoon suite tragedy that hotel lore says ended with the room retired from service. What actually happened there, and what the hotel’s own records support, is a question the campfire versions skip past.