by Jane St. Clair

It’s almost Halloween out West, and the coyotes are squealing and the wolves are howling like they know something spooky comes this way. We’ve got our own version of a spooky vampire Dracula castle right near Phoenix, yes sir – the Phoenix Mystery Castle itself.

Built by a miner for his beautiful only daughter,

the Phoenix Mystery Castle is a mystery of Western architecture and Goth.

Like Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, the family liked to decorate with anthers and bones and such.  The bedroom has lighted saguaro bones in it.

The floors are mostly dirt and stone. The barroom is attached to a ready grave for those who drink too much. A knight stands guard next to his crocodile.

People get married at the wedding chapel here, taking their vows while standing on a romantic snake in the floor …

With music from an organ that looks like the Phantom of the Opera owned it..

One statue in the castle looks a lot like the mother in Hitchcock’s Psycho ..

Legend has it that the ghosts of the cowboys,

the miners, and the Apache come out here on Halloween night to rise up and take the West one more time…

If you listen hard, you can hear the clip clop of their horses and the tap tap taping of the miner’s hammers and the dance hall music of long ago.

Some places get stuck in your mind, like a song that keeps playing in your head over and over. The Mystery castle’s like that, especially in late October. HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM THE WILD WEST! whoo whoo mystery castle!