Location Description and History

The ghosts of cowboys still haunt this old saloon. They have been seen standing in the doorway, seated at the bar, and knocking over beer cases in the basement. Big Nose Kate, whose real name was Mary Katherine Harmony, was a flamboyant and promiscuous woman who owned the place in the 1800's. Many years ago in the 1800's, Big Nose Kates Saloon was once the Grand Hotel. This great hotel hosted such infamous personalities as Wyatt and Virgil Earp, Doc Holliday, as well as the Clantons, and McLaurys. And as legend and folk lore have it... in this hotel was a janitor and odd job man, known simply as "The Swamper". He was a trusted and honest helper who was given his accommodations as part of his hard earned pay.

"The Swamper" had his own special bedroom which was located in the dark basement of the Grand Hotel. This was his own special and private haven where he could enjoy peace and solitude away from the hustle and bustle of the hotel's many guests. Within his private domain where no guests were invited, he also kept secret his passion for silver.
The basement was deep enough below the surface of the ground to afford entrance into one of the catacombing mine shafts which ran underground beneath the hotel as well as most of Tombstone. "The Swamper" spent many painstaking hours over a period of years tunneling an entrance into the shaft. When the digging was completed, he could gain access to a thick vein of silver where he extracted ounce by ounce of the glorious silver nuggets. This mine entrance is still a prominent feature of the bar's basement.
It is still unknown if "The Swamper" spent his silver or if he hoarded it in an unknown niche somewhere on the premises of the Grand Hotel. However, several workers of the now "Big Nose Kates saloon" will swear that they have seen a ghost wandering the halls and stairs. It has been reasoned that the ghost is indeed "The Swamper" and that his afterlife is being spent protecting the silver that may still perhaps be buried somewhere in this legendary building.

Movement of objects, including glasses on the bar and mannequins on the false balcony.

Unexplainable noises, including the sounds of footsteps in the basement and in the saloon after closing.

Unusual areas of extreme cold and gusts of cold air.

Disembodied voices, especially in the basement.

Female staff have been pushed on the lower section of the back stairs that lead to the basement.

We arrived at the saloon at 9:30pm. We were met by "Whiskers" and he proceeded to take us down to the basement area. We arranged this before hand as we felt that conducting a investigation upstairs during business hours would be too disruptive to the bar's patrons. The ghost (the Swamper) which haunts this building supposedly resides down in the basement which made it a good place to start anyway.
The basement is now a gift shop and the Swamper's old room is preserved as close as possible to the way it was back during his day. The gift shop was closed during our investigation.

The Swamper's room is sealed by a barred door, for safety reasons, so we started taking readings with the EMF detector as best as possible by sticking the EMF through the bars and into the room. We immediately began receiving some interesting results. There was a suspect reading emitting from the room.
The field was fluctuating, possibly indicating that the field was moving. We checked with the management to ensure that there were no electrical lines running through the room which might possibly give us a false reading. These readings were recorded as Target 1.
The EMF readings were between 2.3 mg and 3.1 mg. Unable to get any closer to the source of these readings, we moved on to look at the rest of the basement.
We started at the south end of the basement and worked our way across the room heading north. Most of the area was registering a normal background reading except for the spiral stairs which led up to the main floor. Located in the right center of the basement, the spiral stairs are the main passage for customer from the saloon to the gift shop.
Once again we had fluctuating readings, this time between 3.6mg to 4 mg. This was labeled Target 2.

We turned off the lights and checked the area using a IR video camera. The results were negative. We returned upstairs for a break and to give the suspected targets a rest. For control purposes we gave it a hour before we would go back into the basement. If the readings had moved or changed in frequency, we might have actual phenomena. Otherwise, it might be interference from some sort of man made electrical source. During this break we met Marcie who runs the gift shop and the Longhorn cafe attached to the saloon.
We were briefed by her on what phenomena she has personally encountered. These included the moving of clothing racks, belts moving on their hangers and moving shadows. She was also very uncomfortable when she was in the northeast corner of the basement, where a woman was strangled there back in the late 1880's.

We returned to the basement around 10:30pm, accompanied by Marcie and proceeded to check up on the two targets which we had discovered earlier. Target 1 was still present, but Target 2 had vanished. We requested to be let into the Swamper's room and Marcie removed the screws from the barred door and gave us access.

Almost immediately we began picking readings from the right wall. They ranged from 1.7 mg to 3.6mg. Another oddity was that sometimes we lost the reading on one part of the wall, only to pick it up on another place on the wall. The whole time the readings were fluctuating in intensity. Very curious indeed. Marcie then turned down the lights and we tried viewing the area with the IR video camera. Once again we had negative results.

We thoroughly photographed the area then went back to check on Target 2. When we arrived at the spiral stairs Buck checked the area with the EMF detector and discovered that the field was back. This time the readings were fading in and out, as if the energy field was moving back and forth in front of the detector. We took a photo of this area and then dimmed the lights so we could view the area under IR.
During the time we were monitoring the stairs with the IR video camera, a globule streaked by and was captured by the video camera. The duration is just under two seconds. We are not sure if this was the same phenomena that we were reading so we designated this as Target 3.
we then moved around the rest of the basement, looking for any other abnormal EMF fields, but did not locate any. We then moved upstairs to check the main room of the saloon. No suspect readings were located.