Weatherford Hotel

Early Flagstaff was a rough frontier settlement that had a terrible habit of going up in flames. After a particularly disastrous series of blazes in 1897, the city passed a strict ordinance, meaning a local municipal law, requiring all buildings in the business district to be constructed entirely of brick, stone, or iron. That intense demand for survival forced the town to harden its edges, transforming fragile wooden camps into a permanent, resilient city. John W. Weatherford, a merchant and local Justice of the Peace, saw this forced evolution as an incredible opportunity. Originally, he and his brother just wanted to build a simple general store. But after being bought out by a prominent local family, Weatherford pivoted to a massive, highly ambitious vision. He would build a grand luxury hotel. He brought that dream to life with elegant style, opening the doors on New Year's Day in 1900. The town had matured from a rugged outpost into a true destination, and the Weatherford became its most prominent social hub. It drew truly remarkable guests. The artist Thomas Moran spent his nights here working on stunning western sketches that helped popularize the magnificent Grand Canyon. The famous western author Zane Grey even wrote his novel The Call of the Canyon in the third-floor ballroom. But survival out west was rarely a straight line. In 1929, another fire damaged that gorgeous three-sided balcony and the original roof. The hotel began to severely decline, struggling to compete with newer lodgings. Weatherford lost ownership by 1933 and died heartbroken a year later in Phoenix. With that mid-century decline came some seriously dark legends. Local lore says a newlywed couple staying in Room 54 during the 1930s met a grisly end. Some say the husband got caught in a hunting blizzard and was presumed dead, leading his distraught wife to hang herself, only for the surviving husband to return and end his own life in grief. Others claim it was a violent murder-suicide. Today, Room 54 is a storage closet, but people still report hearing angry voices inside. Down in the basement, employees have even reported the heavy footsteps of a murdered bootlegger... an illegal alcohol smuggler from the Prohibition era... heavily pacing the floorboards. The entire hotel almost met the wrecking ball in 1975. Thankfully, a man named Henry Taylor, who loved Zane Grey's writing, walked into the dilapidated building and bought it to save it. He and his wife Pamela fought for decades to fund the restoration, running it as a state rehab facility and a youth hostel just to keep the lights on. Their tireless dedication ultimately paid off. To celebrate the building's one hundredth anniversary in 1999, Pamela created a giant pinecone out of a garbage can and string lights, lowering it from the roof at midnight. The Great Pinecone Drop was an absolute hit and is now a massive annual street celebration.