Who was the Lady in Red?

(I am a historian. My interest in ghost towns is often taken to mean my main interest in the paranormal. I leave that for others to research and document. My goal is to document Nevada’s history, one story at a time)

USA Today voted the Mizpah the #1 most haunted hotel in America, mainly due to its famous ghost, the “Lady in Red.” Patrons come from far and wide to enjoy the historic opulence of Tonopah’s grand hotel and to investigate the reported hauntings.

I stayed in room 502, one of the three rooms said to have belonged to the Lady in Red. Guests report this is the room where unusual activity occurs. I wasn’t afraid, but I was tired and in need of a good night’s sleep, so I offered the Lady in Red a deal… let me sleep and I would tell her story.

I slept well for three nights. Living up to my end, I started researching and writing about the Lady in Red.

Background on Tonopah: Queen of the Silver Camps

On May 19, 1900, James Butler discovered the second-richest silver strike in Nevada. Due to assay errors, the ore value was not realized until a second assay was completed later in the year. By early 1901, the rush to Butler (now Tonopah) was on.

The first stage arrived on March 24, 1901, bringing seven prospectors. By 1901, forty miners were living and working in Butler. A post office was awarded on April 10, 1901, and on March 3, 1905, the town’s name was changed to Tonopah. Early Tonopah boasted six saloons, restaurants, assay offices, lodging houses, and various professionals, including physicians and attorneys.

The Mizpah

As Tonopah mines boomed, the town expanded. Permanent buildings, constructed of brick and stone were quickly raised. Senator George Nixon and businessmen George Wingfield, Cal Brougher and Bob Govan saw the need for a high-class hotel, saloon, and restaurant. They chose the location of the one-story Mizpah Saloon & Grill adjacent to the Tonopah Banking Company.

In 1907 construction of the Mizpah began; it was a five-story hotel, the tallest in Nevada at the time. The grand opening was on November 17, 1908. Amenities included steam heat, hot and cold water, stained glass windows and one of the first electric elevators in Nevada.

Each hotel room claimed its own bathroom, surprising travelers from larger cities.

..a room with a bath-If anyone in the east had told me such a thing could be secured in the Southern Nevada mining camps, I would have laughed at them.

The Golden Years

Between 1900 and 1921, Tonopah mines produced almost $121 million. The district’s best year was 1913, when almost $10 million in gold, silver, copper, and lead was produced. Tonopah’s night life was a sight to behold with dances and socials – many held at the Mizpah.

The Mizpah welcomed travelers for over ninety years until it closed in 1999. Sonoma winery owners Fred and Nancy Cline purchased the Mizpah in 2011. They accomplished what previous owners had not; they restored the Mizpah to its previous grandeur. Today the Mizpah is a destination, historic hotel. Some travelers request the suite of the Lady in Red in hopes of meeting her.

The Lady in Red at the Mizpah

In 2018, USA Today voted the Mizpah as the #1 haunted hotel in America, making the Lady in Red the most famous ghost in Nevada. Men report having sweet nothings whispered in their ears or having found pearls beneath their pillows. It is said these are from the necklace torn from her neck during her murder.

Stories vary, but most say the Lady in Red was a prostitute with the “call name” Rose. A jealous client caught her with another man and in a rage, strangled and or stabbed her to death in the hallway between her rooms. She is said to be seen in the trio of rooms or the hallway connecting them on the fifth floor.

LET’S MAKE A DEAL

Exploring Nevada ghost towns over the past three years, the Mizpah is sometimes my home away from home.

I often book the “Romance Package.” It doesn’t cost much more and sometimes is less expensive. At the Mizpah, you get candies, wine glasses, and a bottle of Lady in Red wine. I think you get a better room with the package and this time I had the 5th-floor corner room which was large and bright.

I started thinking about room 502, and bells started going off in my head. After checking with a friend, I learned I was indeed in the room where visitors report the most encounters with the Lady in Red. The stories of hauntings didn’t bother me, but the thought of a young woman having her life tragically ended, possibly in my room, creeped me out.

I made a deal.

“We are both women and are always taking care of others. I have taken care of my family and my mom, who had surgery. I’m tired. Let me sleep for the nights I’m here, no hauntings or creeping me out. I will tell your story as best as possible, not the hauntings, but the story of who you were.“

– Tired Tami

Holding up my end of the bargain

On the last day of the trip, my travel companion had to head home. This gave me a day on my own in Tonopah. On Monday I had a meeting with Radio Goldfield.

After breakfast, I made a cup of tea, sat on the bed, and researched the Lady in Red. The next thing I realized, it was noon. I had spent the morning lost in local history and writing.

I found a plethora of information on Mizpah, prostitution in Nye County and Tonopah’s Red Light District. The research was filled with missing or conflicting information regarding the murder of the Lady in Red. This created another mystery, was a woman murdered on the 5th floor of the Mizpah, and if so, was she a prostitute?

A clue to the Lady in Red?

Several sources say the Lady in Red’s name may have been Evelyn Mae Johnson, born in Baltimore in 1879. Of the fifty-two records for Evelyn Johnson in Baltimore in 1879 on Ancestry.com none appear to match, and there is no record of a birth announcement in the newspapers.

The Mizpah Review states the Lady in Red arrived in the 1920s.

Tonopah’s red-light districts

The term “red light” has several possible origins. Some say it was named after the “Red Light House Saloon” (brothel) in Dodge, Kansas. Another theory is that railroad workers left their lit lanterns with a red light outside of the brothel so that they could be found during an emergency.

…women in the red-light district were plentiful and many were beautiful and could promise a good time to anyone who could pay the price

Prostitution in Nevada 

Tonopah had two red-light districts. The larger district bordered Main Street, Central Street, Oddie Avenue and Knapp Avenue.

The second red light district was on the east side of Main Street off Corona Avenue.

Tonopah had two types of prostitution establishments, brothels and cribs.

The business of prostitution

Brothels issued tokens, which patrons could use to purchase services. Many provided appetizers and sold a “good” meat sandwich and a beer for 5 cents. Some, such as Big Casino, had an orchestra. Rooms were above or behind the public areas.

Brothels had a madam who oversaw the prostitutes and collected payment. Prostitutes could see up to twenty-five men an evening. Half of their earnings went to the house.

A step down from the brothels were cribs. Prostitutes rented cribs where they lived and worked, often overseen by a pimp. The rooms were sparsely furnished, having only a bed, pot-bellied stove and a water bucket. Girls sat in the windows to advertise their services. A busy “working girl” could see up to eighty men an evening.

Rarely in Nevada, a “lady of the evening’ worked independently. Julia Bullete was a famous independent in Virginia City. She rented a cabin in the “entertainment district” and personally selected her clients. Only a handful were fortunate to have this level of control.

I drove the boundary of the red-light districts. The first thing I noticed was that the Mizpah was outside the red-light districts, regulated by zoning.

The Mizpah was a high-class hotel, the focus of Tonopah’s economic and social life. It is doubtful they would have knowingly allowed prostitution on premises. The Central Nevada Museum confirmed the Mizpah was never a brothel-at least officially. Could the Lady in Red have been a “kept lady” or mistress instead?

A Mistress?

In the Tonopah heyday, up to three hundred dance girls and three hundred “hurdy-gurdy girls” worked in the red-light districts. In their off-hours, they were allowed to travel “uptown” to shop and eat. Tonopah did not allow them at bars or to work outside of the district.

The Lady in Red’s rooms were at the most exclusive hotel in town and the most expensive. Would the fanciest hotel in Tonopah allow a prostitute to work in their respectable hotel, alongside wives and children?

Instead, was the Lady in Red a mistress or kept woman? Did she have a rich patron who supported her expensive accommodations? That might explain why she was outside of the red-light district. It could also explain why her lover was enraged to find her with another man.

Murder at the Mizpah?

The Lady in Red’s death is said to have occurred on January 2, 1914, by stabbing and/or strangulation. In contrast, The Mizpah Review, the hotel’s newsletter, said the Lady in Red arrived in Tonopah sometime in the 1920s.

In a busy hotel, wouldn’t a deadly assault have brought attention from other rooms? If the Lady in Red was stabbed, wouldn’t there be signs of a struggle or blood stains on the carpet? Such a story would have been hard to keep out of the papers. I searched newspaper records from 1914-1930 and could find no report of the murder of a woman matching the Lady in Red. Yet, Tonopah newspapers were filled with other reports:

One man was charged with murdering his wife.

The Tonopah Daily Bonanza mentions nothing about murder or death at the Mizpah for the weeks following January 2, 2014, the date of the alleged murder.

If there was a murder at the Mizpah, why was it not reported? Was the killer powerful enough to control the news media?

More questions

What happened to the body?

Tonopah had physicians issuing death certificates in 1914. Of sixty-four death certificates issued that year, none were similar in name or date of death. The same is true of burial records. Of forty-two burials in Tonopah in 1914, three had the last name of Johnson, but all were males. No records of burials were similar to the name, date of death, date of birth or similar circumstances.

If a woman was murdered, what happened to her remains? Could her body have been dumped in the desert or down one of the many mine shafts?

If a jealous lover caught the Lady in Red with another man, what happened to the man? Did he try to prevent the murder? Where is the record of an altercation? Was he also murdered? If so, who was he, and where is the record of death or of a missing person?

One possibility is that she was a married woman whose husband found her with another man and killed her. But, there are no records substantiating this.

Who was the Lady in Red?

I don’t know. Facts and records are sparse and accounts are inconsistent. But I held up my bargain; I did my best to tell her story. It left me with more questions than answers. I look forward to my next trip to Tonopah and stay at the Mizpah. Perhaps more information will come to light.

Until then the story of the Lady in Red will remain a mystery.

***A special thank you to Allen Metscher, a walking history encyclopedia in Nye and Esmerelda Counties, and the Central Nevada Museum.

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References

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• A history of Tonopah
• Annals of the Association of American Geographers: Prostitution in Nevada
• Central Nevada Museum
• Daily Appeal Daily Independent. Arrest expected soon in Tonopah murder case. January 8, 1920
• Daily Independent. Another Tonopah Murder. September 30. 1914
• Dorsea Banning: The Big Casino (Tonopah, Nevada)
• List Verse: 10 Terrifying Ghost Stories Of Dead Prostitutes
• Myhrern, Keith and Allen Metscher. Historic places in central Nevada adjacent to Nellis Air Force Base. Air Force Civil Engineer Center, 2013.
• Mizpah Hotel
• Mizpah Review: The Lady in Red
• Pahrump Valley Times: By turn of century, Nevada towns began regulating red-light districts
• Pahrump Valley Times: In bygone era, federal government once operated Tonopah brothel
• Reno-Gazette Journal. Arrest expected soon in Tonopah murder case. October 5, 1922
• Reno Gazette-Journal: Woman beaten in bar room
• The Silver State. February 23, 1922
• Summit Daily: Ladies of the Night: History of prostitution in the mining days
• Tonopah, Nevada
• Tonopah Dialy Bonanza. Didn’t expect to find baths. December 24, 1908
• Tonopah Daily Bonanza. January 3, 1914
• Travel Nevada: Legendary Nevadans Part II: More Historic Movers & Shakers
• Wikipedia: Julia Bulette
• Wikipedia: List of Brothels in Nevada
• Wikipedia: Red-light district
• Wikipedia: Tonopah, Nevada
• Tonopah Daily Bonanza January 3, 1914

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