The St. James Hotel

Cimarron, New Mexico

   One of the most famous ghost stories in New Mexico is the ghost of Room 18 at the St. James Hotel in Cimarron. According to the story a man named T.J. Wright wins the hotel in a poker game and is shot after he leaves the poker room. He crawls back to his room and dies there.  His ghost now haunts the room and doesn't like it when people enter. Two other ghosts are rumored to haunt the old​ hotel, including Mary Lambert, the wife of the hotel's founder.

History

  The St. James started out as a saloon  first built in 1872  by Henri (later Henry) Lambert,  who was the personal chef to President Abraham Lincoln. Lambert moved west and settled in Elizabethtown, New Mexico, with hopes of making a wealthy strike. When he found little gold, he opened a restaurant and saloon. At this time, Elizabethtown, Cimarron, and much of the surrounding area was owned by Lucien B. Maxwell and was a part of the vast Maxwell Land Grant. Maxwell enticed Lambert to come to Cimarron, after that he founded the Lambert Inn (later to become the St. James).  
   Built during a time when law and order were non-existent, the saloon quickly gained a reputation as a place of violence, where it is said that 26 men were shot and killed within its adobe walls.