Haunted Places in Nevada: 10 Sites With Real History

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The best-documented haunted places in Nevada are the ones where a real event sits under the ghost story: a 1950 televised Senate hearing in a Las Vegas courthouse, a 1947 gangland shooting that ended a casino founder's career, and a silver-boom town that emptied out in a few years. Below are 10 haunted places in Nevada, from the Las Vegas Strip to Virginia City and the desert ghost towns, each split into what the record supports and what is only told as legend. Many Nevada hotel and casino ghost stories are tourism lore, so we flag that clearly.

Quick answer if you're short on time: Of the haunted places in Nevada here, the Mizpah Hotel, the Mob Museum, the Washoe Club, and the Fourth Ward School are the easiest to visit legally, the Goldfield Hotel is the most famous legend, and the Tropicana is gone entirely.

1. The Mob Museum (Downtown Las Vegas)

The building at 300 E. Stewart Avenue opened in 1933 as the Las Vegas post office and federal courthouse and is on the National Register of Historic Places. On November 15, 1950, the second-floor courtroom hosted a session of the Kefauver Committee, the Senate panel that investigated organized crime. The hearings were broadcast nationally. The building became The Mob Museum on February 14, 2012, and it now displays a brick wall from the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre site. Ghost claims come from commercial ghost-tour operators and Las Vegas haunted-listing sites: shadow figures, footsteps, and a feeling of being watched. We found no museum statement or independent record of any specific sighting. Among the haunted places in Nevada, it has some of the strongest documented history and some of the thinnest ghost evidence.

Can you visit: Yes. It is a working museum with ticketed admission; confirm current hours and prices on its website.

2. The Flamingo (Las Vegas Strip)

The Flamingo's casino opened on December 26, 1946, and the hotel followed on March 1, 1947. Gangster Bugsy Siegel took over the project from founder Billy Wilkerson, and the cost climbed from about $1 million to $6 million. Siegel was shot and killed on June 20, 1947, in Beverly Hills, about three months after the hotel opened. All of the original buildings have since been demolished, though the Flamingo is the oldest continuously operating resort on the Strip, and a memorial plaque to Siegel sits in the pool area. The ghost story says Siegel's spirit appears in the presidential suite, near his memorial, or on the casino floor, with cigar smoke and running faucets. It has been repeated in the press for decades, including a 1999 Las Vegas Sun Halloween piece, but it is a retelling, not a record. Because the suite and wing Siegel is linked to no longer stand, the legend is one of the most clearly “moved” ghost stories among haunted places in Nevada.

Can you visit: Yes. It is an open resort and casino. Stay on public areas.

3. The Tropicana (Las Vegas Strip, demolished)

The Tropicana opened on April 4, 1957, at a cost of about $15 million, and closed on April 2, 2024. Its two hotel towers were imploded on October 9, 2024. The site is being redeveloped for a baseball stadium and a new Bally's resort. Ghost claims about a cursed tiki mask and a performer who walks the halls appear on travel-listicle and haunted-hotel sites, and we found no news or archival account of them. We include it because it shows how Las Vegas ghost lore outlives the buildings: the story is still online, the rooms are gone.

Can you visit: No. The site is a construction zone.

4. Cal Neva Resort (Crystal Bay, Lake Tahoe)

The Cal Neva straddles the Nevada and California state line at Lake Tahoe. It opened in 1926, burned in 1937, and was rebuilt in 30 days. Frank Sinatra bought it in 1960 and held about half of it by 1962; his gambling license was suspended after mobster Sam Giancana was seen on the property. Robert F. Kennedy arranged for Marilyn Monroe to stay at a cabin there shortly before her death on August 4, 1962. Paranormal media has covered the Sinatra and Monroe cabins, including a Fox News Radio segment, but we found no documentation behind any specific sighting. The resort closed on March 31, 2010, was bought by Larry Ellison in January 2018, and was sold to the McWhinney company in April 2023, which planned to convert it to a luxury hotel. Treat its reputation among haunted places in Nevada as celebrity-history spillover.

Can you visit: Check the current status first; it has been closed and under redevelopment, and the cabins were reported to be slated for demolition.

5. The Goldfield Hotel (Goldfield)

Completed in 1908, the Goldfield Hotel was one of the grandest hotels in the Nevada desert, built at a cost reported as $300,000 to $400,000. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 14, 1982, and has been closed to regular guests since World War II. The famous ghost is Elizabeth, said to have been a woman pursued by mining magnate George Wingfield, who is said to have chained her in Room 109, where she died. We found no historical document for Elizabeth. A researcher at the Central Nevada Museum is quoted on Wikipedia noting “inconsistencies” in the stories and that most apparently stem from a book by a former owner. The hotel has appeared on Ghost Adventures and Ghost Hunters. It was put up for sale in 2022 for $4.9 million. This is the best-known of the haunted places in Nevada and one of the least supported by records.

Can you visit: Not freely. The hotel is private property and has been unoccupied; look for scheduled tours rather than entering.

6. The Mizpah Hotel (Tonopah)

Built in the Tonopah silver boom (sources give 1905 to 1907), the five-story Mizpah shared the title of tallest building in Nevada with the nearby Belvada Building until 1927. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 7, 1978. The hotel was shuttered around 1999 to 2000 and was bought by Fred and Nancy Cline of Cline Cellars, who renovated and reopened it in 2011. Its ghost is the “Lady in Red,” said to be a woman killed on the fifth floor in a jealous rage; the legend comes in two versions, one calling her a prostitute and one a cheating wife, which is a sign of folklore rather than a case file. The hotel was featured on Ghost Adventures and ranked first on USA Today's 2018 list of haunted hotels. A ranking is a popularity measure, not evidence. This is one of the haunted places in Nevada you can sleep in.

Can you visit: Yes. It is a working hotel. Confirm room availability and ask about any ghost-related tours.

7. Rhyolite (near Beatty)

Rhyolite began as a mining camp in 1905 and reached a peak population usually estimated between 3,500 and 5,000 around 1907 to 1908. All three banks had closed by March 1910, the Montgomery-Shoshone mine closed on March 14, 1911, and by 1920 only 14 people lived there. The last train left in July 1914. The Bottle House, built in 1906 from about 50,000 discarded bottles, and the mission-style train depot still stand. The Bureau of Land Management maintains the ghost town, and the Goldwell Open Air Museum is on adjacent private land. Rhyolite is a “ghost town” in the literal sense: we found no documented supernatural claims in the historical sources we checked. It is on this list because visitors searching for haunted places in Nevada often end up here, and it is the cleanest example of the real history.

Can you visit: Yes. The BLM site is open to the public. Do not climb or remove anything from the ruins.

8. The Old Washoe Club (Virginia City)

Virginia City was founded in 1859 after the Comstock Lode silver discovery, and its population peaked around 25,000 in the mid-1870s. A great fire swept the town in October 1875. The three-story brick Washoe Club building at 112 S. C Street is dated to 1875 on its National Register record, and the town became a National Historic Landmark District in 1961. Today the building operates as a “haunted museum” with tours, and the upper floors are unoccupied. The ghost most often named is “Lena,” a woman in a red dress said to have worked there. Tour sites also claim at least 24 deaths in the building, which we could not confirm in an independent source. It was featured on Ghost Hunters. Of the haunted places in Nevada, it is among the clearest examples of a real historic building that has fully embraced its reputation.

Can you visit: Yes, through the museum's tours and the saloon on the ground floor. Check current hours.

9. The Fourth Ward School (Virginia City)

Completed in 1876 and designed by C. M. Bennett in the Second Empire style, the four-story Fourth Ward School at 537 S. C Street was built for more than 1,000 students. The last class graduated in 1936. It reopened in 1986 as the Historic Fourth Ward School Museum, with exhibits on Comstock history and Mark Twain. Ghost stories describe children running on the stairs, a teacher killed outside the school, and a child waving from a window. These come from tour and local-media retellings. We found no records of the incidents. The museum runs a “Haunted Halls” tour, which treats the stories as lore. Among the haunted places in Nevada, it is a good example of an ordinary place that got a ghost story attached.

Can you visit: Yes. It is a museum; check seasonal hours and tour dates.

10. Nevada State Prison (Carson City)

The prison opened in 1862 and closed on May 18, 2012, making it one of the oldest continuously operating prisons in the United States. On February 8, 1924, Gee Jon became the first person in the U.S. executed by lethal gas; the chamber was later moved to Ely State Prison in 2016. The site became an official historic site in 2015 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Nevada State Prison Preservation Society offers tours. The “Dark Prison Haunt” is a commercial Halloween attraction, not a paranormal record, and most ghost talk about the cell blocks comes from entertainment sources. Treat it as a history site first among the haunted places in Nevada.

Can you visit: Yes, through the preservation society's tours. Do not enter outside tour times.

What's Actually Verifiable

Across all 10 of these haunted places in Nevada, the dates, ownership, and landmark listings are documented. The ghosts mostly are not. The Flamingo's Siegel ghost is told about a suite that no longer exists, the Goldfield's Elizabeth has no document behind her, and several hotel-and-casino ghosts appear mainly on tourism-style sites.

Visiting Haunted Places in Nevada Responsibly

Haunted places in Nevada range from open casinos and museums to private ruins in the desert. Stay on public property, book official tours, and do not enter closed buildings, mines, or ghost-town structures without permission. Trespassing is illegal, and old mines and ruins are dangerous. For neighboring ghost stories, see our guide to haunted places in California, and for the wider picture, our guide to haunted places in the United States and the older 20 haunted places in America list.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most haunted place in Nevada?

There is no objective ranking of haunted places in Nevada. The Goldfield Hotel, the Mizpah Hotel, and the Washoe Club in Virginia City are the most often named. None of the ghosts has been verified, but the history behind each building is documented.

Is the Flamingo in Las Vegas really haunted by Bugsy Siegel?

There is no verified evidence that it is. Siegel's 1947 killing and the hotel's opening are documented, but the ghost story is a retelling repeated by the press and tourism sites. The original suite and buildings were demolished, so any claimed sighting is about a different space.

Can you stay at a haunted hotel in Nevada?

Yes. The Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah reopened in 2011 as a working hotel, and the Flamingo is an open resort. The Goldfield Hotel is not open to regular guests. Check availability directly, since hotel ownership and operations change.

Is the Goldfield Hotel's Elizabeth story true?

We found no historical document for Elizabeth. A Central Nevada Museum researcher is quoted noting inconsistencies in the stories, which seem to trace to a book by a former owner. The hotel is real and historic, but the Room 109 tale is best treated as legend.

Is Rhyolite haunted?

Rhyolite is a real ghost town, but the historical sources we checked mention no supernatural claims. It was abandoned between about 1910 and 1920 after the mines closed. It is open to visitors under Bureau of Land Management management.

Are the Las Vegas Tropicana and Cal Neva still open?

No on both counts as of this writing. The Tropicana closed in April 2024 and was imploded that October. The Cal Neva closed in 2010 and has been under redevelopment by new owners since 2023; confirm its status before travel.