It’s a quaint and charming town with some streets so narrow and winding you cannot navigate a vehicle down them, or up them as the case may be. Walking or cycling are a few of the options. It was also interesting to note that the access from the street to houses on the second and third level of the mountainside was via stairs – yes, stairs – sometimes as much as 60 – 70 steps straight up! Can you imagine doing that trek with a load of groceries? Every October they host an event called The Bisbee 1000 Stair Climb. It is a five kilometer run through Bisbee that goes up and down 1,034 stairs. Billed as "The most unique physical fitness challenge in the USA!" by the organizers, it includes being serenaded by musicians at various locations across the city of stairs. The event has grown to include the Ice Man Competition, designed to honor the history of men delivering blocks of ice by hand before the advent of refrigeration. In the Ice Man Competition, entrants race up 155 steps carrying a ten-pound block of ice with antique ice tongs. It helps raise money to renovate the stair systems of the city crumbling as they age. People from all over the world come to this event to compete. With a bed and breakfast on every other corner and several vintage hotels, the visitors get to experience how life was back in the day. They also have a chance to meet the locals – and those OTHER residents . . . more on that later.
My trip to Arizona had the usual agenda of cool places to eat, things to see and do with best friend Sue and a trip to Tombstone and Bisbee. Tombstone, by all accounts of the tourist industry, is supposed to be fun, historical and interesting. Let me tell you, Tombstone is a wart on the hind quarters of a hog compared to Bisbee. Bisbee had the first public golf course in the country. Yes, you read correctly. It also had the first professional baseball field. Yup, again, correct. Lil’ old Bisbee’s Warren Field predates Chicago’s Wrigley Field by almost five years, and it boasts that it is the oldest baseball field in continuous use today. And some of those spectators from 1909 are still hanging around today . . . more on that later.
Our hotel of choice was the Bisbee Grand. It was constructed in 1906 and restored in 1986 in the Old West Victorian style. I have created a photo album on my Facebook account for those interested in checking it out. We had to check in at the bar. I thought that was very appropriate for the old west and made a mental note that Sue and I needed to plant ourselves at that bar sometime later that evening. We were given keys to the front door and to our rooms. The clerk informed us the front door was locked at a certain hour in the evening, but our keys would allow us to come and go as we pleased. When one enters the front door of the Bisbee Grand Hotel, you walk straight up the grand staircase to the second floor. A lovely landing wraps around the stairwell and hallways break away to the different suites and rooms. Now, let me confess that I didn’t have time to surf the web and read up on everything about Bisbee. Our attendant led us to Sue’s room first. We entered, and his first words were, “This room gets a lot of activity.” ACTIVITY? WHAT KIND OF ACTIVITY? They have a ghost. Wait, let me correct that. They have two ghosts – one upstairs and one downstairs. The lady upstairs, he said, is harmless – all she does is check on you. My brain made a mental snort and said, “Yeah, right.” (I attended a mini-convention in Jefferson, Texas and stayed in what was supposed to be a very haunted hotel. Not a one of us in the group saw anything.) Next we made our way down the hall to my room, which was perched over the bar. Sue’s room was very Victorian and cute. My room was called the Hunter’s Room, with a hunting theme décor. It was also pretty neat. We spent the rest of the day with Sue’s friend who gave us a private tour of the area. We did some snooping around in the shops and bar hopped a bit.
At some point we decided to call it a night. I watched some late night TV. The band downstairs rocked out until way past eleven. I turned off the TV the minute the band shut down, even though the occupants of the bar were still quite rowdy. Jimmy Fallon was talking about a comedian coming on after the commercial break as I was pressing the off button. I rolled over and flipped the covers up over my shoulders, telling myself to ignore the noise from downstairs. When the bed depressed at the location of my calf on the mattress my instant thought was that something fell off the ceiling onto the bed or a critter had jumped up on the bed. I immediately started to roll over to turn on the lamp and the bed depressed with a heavier impression at my hip level with two smaller depressions landing on either side of my head. In the instant it took to roll over, someone sat beside me and leaned over me to look me in the face. It was a dark enough image to block the light streaming through the lace curtains of the transom over the door with longish hair hanging down. Noise gurgled in my throat. I was frozen for that split second before a groan of a scream came out of my throat. It was gone as fast as it came. I hit the lights. Turned on the TV and Jimmy Fallon’s comedian was starting his bit. It was that fast. I was not asleep and dreaming. I called Sue. No answer. I bolted down the hall to her room as I called the bar downstairs. I frantically asked them if there was ever any report of ‘activity’ in my room above the noisy bar. The answer: 'Honey, there’s activity in every room. Did she visit you? Come on down to the bar if you need to relax.' I hauled Sue down to the bar and got a gin and tonic. Once for each hand. The bartender told me they don’t close up alone because the male ghost downstairs is a prankster who likes to turn on the beer taps when they’re not looking and lets the beer spill over the clean floor. He also likes to enter the ladies’ restroom and bang on the garbage can.
I spent the rest of the night with the television blaring and every light on. The next morning I was in a shop and the shop owner asked where I was staying. After I mentioned The Grand we discussed the ghost situation. I bought a book about the haunted places in Arizona. I read that all the hotels and bed and breakfasts in Bisbee have house 'residents' who cannot be explained. It is a town well noted for its non-paying-continuously-staying guests.
I can still feel the sensation of it weeks after it happened.
It was a very cool place to visit.
ONCE.
