Hello Everyone,
It is time for me to start a new set of blogs on here and this one happens to be more haunted places. Or at least places that have some eerie history that gives them the potential to be haunted. However, most of them have some sort of story and are considered to be haunted. To start it out we are going to hear a little about one of my favorites that happens to be only an hour away. It’s a little building in the famous town of Tombstone called The Birdcage Theater.
The Birdcage Theater:
The Birdcage Theater as mentioned, resides in the town to tough to die, Tombstone. Many of us have seen the movies or movies that are filmed in Tombstone. Most of them concentrate around the “Shoot-out at the OK Corral” or the Earp brothers and their stories.
Yet, nestled there on the main drag of the street is a place that was famous to every local of the town then and now. And to the many visitors the historic town brings in every year. This is the Bird Cage Theater.
The theater opened its doors in 1861 and unlike many theater we know today, The Birdcage Theater had many other purposes. It was also a local bar, gambling parlor and brothel. Although it was only originally open for 8 years as a theater it received a wide variety of visitors and workers in that short span.
A Haunted Place?
Many of the stories revolve around the spirits of cowboys, merchants, homesteaders, miners and other locals of the time who lost their lives there. Also it is believed that the spirits of the prostitutes that worked the brothel still reside within.
Many people report seeing the apparitions of these spirits floating around in the distance, or shadowy areas. Many of them in the middle of the day while on one of the walk alone tours that provide a large amount of relics on display. Some have reported taking pictures of these spirits while on the tour and a certain mirror in the theater stands out in particular. I have heard that if you take your picture in the mirror you have a good chance of capturing something else on the film.
Others have reported even being physically touched or assaulted by these spirits that perhaps only want to relive that theater life form so long ago. Still, the fact that over 26 people lost their lives in that short time of its original opening stands as a testament that something very possibly could lurk there. Most of them were bar fights and disputes that erupted in the theater after nights of drinking and other worldly pleasures.
Gold Dollar:
The tale of Gold Dollar stands out the most to me. Gold Dollar was a lady of the theater and one day became jealous of another working lady of the theater who took interest in one of her regular gentlemen callers. In blind fury she took a knife and stabbed the other woman repeatedly until she died. Perhaps even after.
Gold Dollar fled the scene but was later apprehended. With no murder weapon found the charges were dropped and she was let go.
The victim’s name, or stage name, was Margarita. She was never avenged and no justice was given in her untimely death at The Birdcage Theater. Almost a hundred years later, when nothing could be done about it all, the knife was found. It was found hidden in the theater.
Kind of makes you wonder if one of these spirits might seek out that knife to make sure your visit there lasts a little longer. Maybe they are just hoping to get a few more spirits in there to relive those past memories of a packed theater. Maybe they might choose some of the next visitors on a tour to help fill those ghostly and eerie vacancies.
Thanks for Reading,
Joshua Crane Dowidat
