Bird Cage Theater Tombstone AZ - Scores 6 of 6



I know my AZ friends will want to know how the Bird Cage scored. This building in Tombstone, AZ was built in 1881 and ran nonstop 24-hours a day/7 days a week for eight years. There was drinking, gambling, prostitution, and when all is said and done 26 people died in this small building.

I admit in doing my research putting off this particular location because I had doubts it could meet the criteria and yet I know that it's got a heavy body of evidence for haunting. If you recall the "Ghost Hunters" episode at the Bird Cage it was an entirely insane night. They had an extension cord thrown, the sound of music picked up on EVP, loads and loads of booted footstep sounds, card shuffling, and let us not forget--a full body apparition seen by the group leaders, Jason and Grant who both described the same woman to their team on separate interviews. It was one of the stand-out episodes in my memory. I don't know why I waited so long to get to this particular location but perhaps this says something about my point system, because if a location in the desert in AZ (we're talking no-man's land) can have the right elements, that's pretty amazing.

The Bird Cage Theater scores like this:
1. Under a mile from a train track.
2. Under a mile from a stream (as well as arroyos/dry washes)
3. Land is sedimentary rock and dry washes contain silver from mine washout.
4. The building is masonry with a rock fascia.
5. The building is older than 50 years.
6. The building has a history of death/trauma.

Optional point: The Bird Cage Theater is also less than one mile from the Boot Hill Cemetery.

I have to say that I'm impressed so far with how the scoring goes. I'm still not entirely sure that railroads don't just appear where folks need them. Tombstone is a very dry area and the mining was the thing that brought folks there, but once it was a boomtown, the railway would appear. The railway didn't appear in Tombstone until 1903. By then, the murders at Bird Cage had already occurred. So, did it become haunted once the railway showed up, or was it reported before then? I can't find reports of people complaining of hauntings in the turn-of-the-century, but during that time period around 1890-1920 it remained empty and unused, so with no one there to report hauntings, it's hard to verify if there was activity once the train track arrived or not.

So far as I've found in research, the appearance of train tracks could be incidental. Of course, the water wasn't what brought folks to Tombstone, as they barely could find enough water to mine silver. It was the appearance of silver that brought them there, so my assumption that water sources dictate homesteading may not be always applicable.

The mystery grows...

Comments

  1. Thanks for blogging about this place. I have been there several times with family and had no experiences to speak of. Mike and I along with others, plan to visit Tombstone and The Bird Cage Theater as an investigation. Not only is the theater known for its ghost reportings but the whole town as well. I love this place and did a blog on it on our TAGO blog in 2008. I may just repost it because I point out all the hauntings. I'm not surprised that The Birdcage Theater scored a 6 of 6. That particular episode of Ghost Hunters was a favorite of mine and Mike as well.

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  2. Have you ever been to the real Tombstone Cemetery? I believe it's on 1st Avenue--it's way down a dirty roadway and well worth the trip. We went there once on a stormy late afternoon and it was so amazingly powerful feeling. We kept seeing something dark moving around between the headstones and when we'd look at it head-on, it'd vanish. It was so infuriating that I cupped my hands up along the sides of my head to not see out of the corner of my eyes. Jeez! That seemed like a classic shadowperson situation. I felt an intense sense of being watched there like nowhere else I've ever been. Yeah, that town, Globe, Bisbee, and Jerome have definitely strong haunting vibes. I think Kingman does too. Of course, Sedona has a lot of energy. What really surprised me was how I felt in Winslow. I want to go back there, but I don't. I can't explain it except to say that my hackles were raised the entire time and I felt unbelievably threatened and weird. I'd like to know why that was. I think it was something geological, but I need to study it more. In fact, when hubby said we were staying the night there on our road trip to meteor crater, I almost became hysterical. I don't think I slept a wink. It was like being in a town of pod people. Something just didn't feel right... The hairs on my arms stand on end just thinking about it.

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  3. I'd like to go there too one day. That Ghost Hunters episode is one of favorites as well.

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  4. Went there for ghost hunting...nothing

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