"Every story researched from the record" appears all over this website, so this page shows the receipts. Our tours are built by Susan Johnson, our co-founder, a published local historian, and the reason a Freaky Foot Tours ghost story survives a fact-check.
The method
A story earns its place on a route the slow way. It starts in primary sources: courthouse records, period newspapers, city directories and archival collections in each town we work. Names get verified, dates get checked against more than one source, and the versions that circulate on the internet get treated as leads, not facts. If the record contradicts the legend, the tour tells you both, and tells you which is which.
The sources we lean on
- Courthouse and county records in Coconino, Yavapai and Pima counties
- Period newspapers, including decades of the Arizona Daily Sun and its predecessors
- City directories, maps and archival photograph collections
- Local historical societies and museum archives in each city we tour
- First-person accounts from longtime residents, clearly labeled as such on tour
The published work behind the tours
Susan's research became three books with The History Press: Haunted Flagstaff, Wicked Flagstaff, and The Walkup Family Murders. She also wrote a weekly history column for the Arizona Daily Sun. The Flagstaff tours draw directly from that body of work; the Prescott and Tucson routes were researched the same way, archive by archive.
What our guides do with it
No scripts, no recordings. Our guides internalize the research and tell it in their own voice, which is why no two nights run quite the same and why a guide can answer the question you ask instead of the one the script expected. When guests or locals correct a detail, we go back to the record and fix it: getting it right matters more than getting it spooky.
Questions people ask
Are the ghost stories on your tours real?
The history is documented: the names, dates, fires, crimes and deaths on our routes come from courthouse records, period newspapers and archives. What that history left behind is the part you can decide for yourself at the stops. We tell you which parts are record and which parts are experience.
Who researches Freaky Foot Tours' stories?
Co-founder Susan Johnson, a published local historian with three Arizona history books through The History Press and a former weekly history column in the Arizona Daily Sun. Guides build on her research with their own verified additions.
What happens if a story turns out to be wrong?
We correct it. Locals keep us honest, the record gets rechecked, and the tour changes. A story that cannot survive a fact-check does not keep its spot on the route.