The History

Ghost Posse was fortunate enough to get tickets to Ghost Adventures live 2 day Ghost Hunt, and all we can say is WOW! This was by far, the creepiest, and the most paranormal activity we have yet to experience in our travels. This 2 night event kept us on our toes, as well it should have, since the hotel is considered one of the scariest places on the planet.

Goldfield, born in 1902, located just 25 miles south of Tonopah, only claims to 500 residents, but in it's prime, the town boasted a population of over 35,000 due to the millions of dollars extracted from nearby mines, and was once the biggest city in the state of Nevada. In addition to its numerous saloons, the city once boasted three newspapers, five banks, and a mining stock exchange.

In 1908, the Goldfield Hotel was erected over a mine shaft that had gone dry. Designed by Architect George E. Holesworth, the Hotel was rushed into production, and was a welcome site to local merchants and townsfolk alike, . The hotel was owned by George Wingfield, primary owner of the Goldfield Consolidated Mines Company. The four story building of stone and brick cost over $400,000 to build and included 154 rooms equipped with telephones, electric lights and heated steam. The lobby was paneled with mahogany and furnished in black leather upholstery, beneath genuine 24K gold-leaf ceilings, which was pulled out of local mines. The hotel had chefs from Europe and the gourmet food was one of a kind. The hotel also had one of the first Otis elevators west of the Mississippi River. Considered to be the most luxurious hotel between Chicago and San Francisco, it appealed to society’s elite, making owner George Wingfield an even wealthier man.

When Goldfield was in its prime, the hotel entertained and housed all kinds of guests. However, as the gold began to run out and the town's population started to leave, the Goldfield Hotel began to gradually decline. By the 1930s, when the town's population was fewer than 1,000, it had become a flop house for cowboys and unwanted weary travelers. During World War II, it housed Army Air Corp personnel assigned to the Tonopah Air Base. After the soldiers checked out of the hotel in 1945, the hotel closed its doors forever.

As for the ghosts in the old hotel, there are several, the most famous of which is a woman named Elizabeth. Elizabeth was a prostitute that George Wingfield had a relationship with in the 1930s. When she turned up pregnant, she claimed the child was Wingfield’s. George for a while paid her to stay away, fearful of how the situation might affect his business. However, when she could no longer hide the pregnancy, Wingfield was said to have lured her into room 109 of the hotel, where he chained her to a radiator. Supplied with food and water, she was left there until her child could be born. Reportedly she cried out over and over for mercy, only to be met with silence, as George would close the section of the hotel where she was staying so her cries could not be heard. Some say that Wingfield murdered her after the child was born. Her baby was then thrown into the old mine shaft at the northern end of the basement over which the hotel was built. Afterwards, rumors surfaced that Elizabeth continued to visit Wingfield and the sound of a crying child could sometimes be heard coming from the depths of the hotel. When Elizabeth has been sighted, she has been described as having long flowing hair, wearing a white gown, and looking terribly sad. Others have reported her being sighted in Room 109, which is often described as being intensely cold, and on one occasion a ghostly figure appeared in a photograph of the room. However, most people report that while their cameras function normally everywhere else in the hotel, they refuse to work in spooky room 109.

Findings

We are very excited to bring you this photograph from Goldfield. Taken on 2/10/2008 during our ghost walk, we believe there is a male apparition in the window on the 4th floor. The entire floor was believed to be vacant at the time, and if it were to be an actual person, we believe there would be more detail, as the figure in the window is transparent. Other investigators who visited that end of the building on the 4th floor, experienced paranormal activity also. Click on the picture to enlarge, and let us know what you think? We value your input, and would love to hear from you, so if you want to contact us feel free to do so.

Ghost Posse arrived in Goldfield, Nevada on February 8, 2008 for the first of 2 investigations on this incredible Hotel. On the first night we were given the late shift of 11-3am. It was on the fourth floor when we had our first paranormal experience. As we were walking down the south end of the building we heard something get thrown behind us, and it sounded like a peice of wood hitting the ground. Not a minute later we started hearing footsteps. We started heading in the same direction with nothing there. We did investigate all the floors but the fourth floor and the basement seemed to be the most active for the team.

We then went into the basement. It was cold, dark, and the floors were covered in water from ground seepage from the snow melting above. The long dark corridors seemed endless, and seemed as if they went nowhere. We entered the north area of the basement where the famous mine shaft was located. At this time one of our team members received strong signals to the EMF meter near the shaft. We checked the area and there was nothing that would cause this kind of reading, and as a matter of fact, we checked out the same area the next night, and obtained no readings at all. We had a very tough time getting any decent audio recordings the first night due to the seemingly endless noise that we were hearing from other guests that had purchased tickets also. Due to the excitement, and location of this event, we were not surprised by this and we were expecting it, however we made up for it during our second night.

On February 9, 2007 we reentered the hotel for the second half of our investigation, but this time we were assigned the early shift from 7-11pm. Upon entering the hotel we went back up to the fourth floor and we were very surprised to find out that the amount of investigators attending this shift were diminished by more than half, and that we practically had the entire top 3 floors to ourselves. When we arrived up there, we split into two groups. One group went to the north end and the other team went to the south end of the building. We decided to meet in the middle of the floor, walking towards one another to try to force any spirits out into the open. When we did this, we noticed that there was something at the end of the hall on the north end, that looked like a dark shadow figure. We started calling out and asking for it to come closer. This entity started coming closer, moving from door to door, slowly moving down the hallway. We kept asking what it's name was, but we received no reply on our audio recordings, and the entity seemed to vanish in the darkness. We then went to the second floor, but we did not have anything happening on this floor.

Now we journeyed down to the cold depths of the wet basement, and our first stop was the room where the mine shaft was. As stated before, we did try to recreate the EMF spike we received the first night, but we had no success. We decided to move into an area of the basement, that had water on the floor. This area led us down a narrow, cold and wet hallway to an eventual dead end with a small room at the end. We then proceeded to turn off all flashlights, and face the dark empty room with our backs to the wall behind us. After one of our team memebers tried to get any nearby spirit to show itself, we heard a loud deep breath, and one of our team members was touched on the top of the head. This room was so cold, that our digital laser thermometer recorded temperatures of 19 degrees...almost 20 degrees colder than nearby rooms. In fact, the room was so cold, that our breath could be seen forming a dense white fog, that seemed to float across the room without dissipating.

Finding that we were getting wet and cold in the basement, we agreed to move upstairs to the Lobby. When we arrived, we found a lovely woman who used to work at the hotel when it was in it's prime, and she offered to take us to room 109, where the famous womans spirit named "Elizabeth" was said to linger. Allthough we did not obtain any evidence in this room, we did expereience very cold temperatures, and several equipment failures. In fact, we must mention that out Lead Tech's brand new camera permanently failed shortly after using it in room 109, and it can't be repaired. It is said that the energy in this room is famous for making digital cameras malfunction, and this event sure is a testiment to that fact.

Finally, it came time to wrap up for the evening, and the head of the Ghost Adventure Crew, Zak Bagans, informed us that we were going to do a group EVP session upstairs. We all then went upstairs, and all the remaining investigators in the hotel placed themselves in front of each room on the floor, with their backs to the doorways. After about 20 minutes of lights out, Zak began to ask if the spirits could show themselves, and they did! Not moments after, a small stone was thrown to our end of the hall where our whole team was sitting. Also during this time, another investigator was recording with an infrared camcorder, and his battery drained instantly at the exact same time the stone was thrown. Zak, asked if the spirit could do it again, and another stone was thrown. Once again the man with the camera had problems, but this time the camera turned itself off. We are not sure as to what threw the rocks towards us, but we do know one thing for sure...whatever it was, it was not among the living! The entire audio recording of this event can be heard in the EVP section on this page below.

In conclusion, we definately believe, without any doubt, that this hotel is haunted. It is a goldmine of paranormal activity, and it's definately going to be a stop on the Ghost Posse tour again in the future. We had a blast, and we would like to thank the Ghost Adventure Crew for taking good care of us, and for giving Ghost Posse the oportunity to attend the event. We look forward to going back!

EVPs

Here are the EVPs we recovered from the Goldfield Hotel. For best results please wear headphones and if you hear something different feel free to contact us.

We believe that something or someone says "Doctor" at the end of this EVP.

This is a group EVP session with Zak from GAC. It is a long one but interesting none the less.

The Lead Investigator asks for anything to let itself be known when we cought, "I'm in the wall."

A spirit breaths heavily into the recorder after an investigator asks, "Whos Here."