by Desert Rose

Created on: September 26, 2006   Last Updated: April 18, 2011

The Bird Cage Theatre in Tombstone, Arizona had a reputation in the 1800s as being one of the most iniquitous nightspots of the old west. In its prime it was a combination bordello, gambling hall, theater and saloon.

Its bullet riddled floors and ceilings give silent testament to a violent past, and this nightclub was the scene for twenty-six murders during its eight years of operation from 1881-1889. In the past century it has gained a new reputation for being one of the most haunted places in Tombstone.

"The ghosts here are friendly and like to play," says Bird Cage Theatre manager Cheryl Leavere, speaking of the twenty-six ghosts that are said to haunt the building. "They move things around and hide them on you." Reports of supernatural activity in the Bird Cage are not new. They began as far back as 1921, when a high school was built across the street from the theatre, which at that time had been abandoned since 1889. School children who walked near the theatre on their way to school began to tell tales of hearing laughter, old time music, and smelling stale cigar smoke coming from the interior of the vacant building.

The Hunley family reopened the abandoned Bird Cage as a tourist attraction in 1934. Opening the Bird Cage to the public did little to discourage its spectral patrons and their revelry, the ghost sightings continued and began to draw attention from local and national media, as well as paranormal investigators.

"We have twenty-six documented ghosts at the Bird Cage," boasts Cheryl Leavere, who finds the ghostly phenomena inside the theatre exhilarating. "When you start becoming bored with it all, someone will come along with a story of seeing a ghost and it will bring all the excitement back to you again."

Leavere said that one evening her son, Lincoln, and Boothill Cemetery owner, Paula Jean Reed, went down to a bordello room in the basement some time after closing. "Nobody goes in there... As soon as Paula unlocked the door to the bordello room, the song Red River Valley began playing, you could smell cigar smoke and hear the sounds of the casino this place lit up like it was the 1800s again," stated Leavere.

"You don't want to be in here after about nine o'clock at night. That's when stuff really starts happening," said Leavere's son Lincoln, referring to the abundance of spirit activity in the theatre after hours. "A lot of the employees don't want to be in here alone at night."

Tourists passing through the Bird Cage have also witnessed spirit

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