Santa Fe’s spooky season has returned, a time to dust off old ghost stories for telling on long, dark nights, as the veil between worlds grows thinner and Halloween approaches. And you can bet that a city more than 400 years old has ghost stores galore, tales of spirits seen wandering arroyos and ancient streets and lingering in historic houses as well famous hotels and restaurants. If you’d like to encounter some of these spirits this Halloween, here’s a list of places they’ve been known to haunt.
La Llorona
La Llorona may be the area’s most famous ghost tale, about a weeping woman who roams the riverside, searching for her children after she threw them into the river. She had an immediate change of heart and ran after them, reaching out to save them, from the waters, but she fell and died. Legend has it you can still hear her calling their names in mournful cries in her endless search to find them.
Heads Will Roll
The oldest house in Santa Fe is reputed to be haunted by two sisters who once lived there and were said to be witches, offering love spells and other potions to those in search of otherworldly aid. The sisters took revenge on a customer who refused to pay when his love spell didn’t work, and the man ended up dead. It could be his ghost who’s been seen wandering the lane beside the house. The sisters were later beheaded after a trial resulting in guilty verdicts, and there have been reported sightings of a head rolling right down De Vargas Street.
Pauper’s Grave
Just around the corner is the P.E.R.A. Building, which was built on top of an old pauper’s cemetery. Employees have felt invisible hands tripping them as they’ve headed down the stairs into the basement, and heard moans and cries from the bowels of the building. We’re told not a single state employee who works in the building will go down to the basement…alone…after sunset.
Something (or Someone) in the Well
If you head out to dine this Halloween, you may encounter some infamous ghosts at La Fonda on the Plaza, standing on what may be the country’s oldest hotel corner, where an inn has stood since the city was founded circa 1610. Keep an eye out for the ghost of a politician who killed a man for having an affair with his wife while they were guests at the hotel, and then was hanged for his crime from a tree in the courtyard. La Plaza now occupies the courtyard, where the politician has been spotted. During the 1930s, a salesman from St. Louis gambled and drank away his money, then threw himself in despair down the well in the courtyard. His ghost has been seen walking toward that well, now a fountain inside La Plazuela, and disappearing into the floor.
The Haunting of Room 311
The Drury Plaza Hotel occupies another famously haunted building, which used to be the old St. Vincent’s Hospital. The ghost of a young boy is said to haunt Room 311, which hospital officials closed, and another ghost has been seen on the fourth floor. Mysteriously slamming doors, flickering lights, and other unexplained phenomenon are among the many urban legends attached to this building.
Happy Haunted Halloween!
Story written by Lynn Cline
This article was posted by Jesse Williams
