Arizona's ghost stories did not start with ghost tours. They started in newspapers, court records, and the memories of people who lived through the hard years, and the best of that material lives in books. Here are twelve worth your shelf, covering everything from Whiskey Row to Route 66, including one written by our own co-founder.
Haunted Arizona: Ghosts of the Grand Canyon State
(Charles A Stansfield Jr.)
A statewide survey and a good first stop. It covers hauntings in Phoenix and Tucson, UFO sightings, the spirits of Tombstone, and more, so you can see the whole map before you pick a town.
Flagstaff's Walkup Family Murders: A Shocking 1937 Tragedy
(Susan Johnson)
Written by our co-founder Susan Johnson and published by The History Press, this is the definitive account of the case that still shadows Flagstaff. In the summer of 1937, Marie Walkup took the lives of her four children and herself, and the town has never fully let the story go. Susan researched the case deeply enough that it became a book, and later told the story on Travel Channel's The Dead Files. Start with our post on the Walkup family tragedy, then read the book for the full account.
Haunted Phoenix
(Debe Branning)
A look at the ghosts hiding inside a modern metropolis: haunted mansions, legends of the Hohokam, and the stories collected around the Pioneer Living History Museum.
Haunted Prescott
(Parker Anderson, Darlene Watson)
Arizona's first territorial capital, seated in 1864, packs a lot of the strange into a few blocks: haunted hotels, restaurants, theaters, and cemeteries. Read it before you visit, then hear those streets tell it back on the Prescott Ghost Tour.
Haunted Jerome
(Patricia Jacobson, Midge Steuber)
Once a hotbed of gambling, prostitution, and violence, Jerome collected more tragedy per capita than almost any town in the territory. This one gathers the stories of the people who died too soon and, as locals tell it, stuck around anyway.
Haunted Bisbee
(Francine Powers)
Bisbee was once among the richest mining sites in the world, and it now ranks among the most haunted small towns in the country. Powers, an award-winning journalist, covers a screaming entity in the Mule Mountains, a floating figure at the School House Inn, and a haunted fire station.
Sleeping with Ghosts
(Debe Branning)
The practical one. It details hauntings at 29 Arizona hotels and inns that remain open to the public, so you can book a room in the story instead of just reading it.
Southern Arizona's Most Haunted
(Renee Gardner)
A tour of 41 haunted sites across Bisbee, Tombstone, and Tucson. Good preparation for the Old Pueblo, where the ghost stories run as deep as anywhere in the state.
Haunted Tombstone
(Cody Polston)
The town too tough to die, covered properly: the Swamper, said to still guard his hoard of silver, the cabin murders of the late 1800s, and the hauntings of Boot Hill Graveyard.
Haunted Highway: The Spirits of Route 66
(Ellen Robson)
Route 66 turns 100 in 2026, and its ghost stories have been accumulating the whole century. Robson follows the road from Chicago to Los Angeles through 66 haunted sites, Arizona included. Pair it with our post on the dark side of Route 66, then walk the road itself: Flagstaff is the only city in Arizona where Route 66 is still a working main street.
Haunted Southwest
(Alan Brown)
For readers who want the wider region. Brown documents haunted sites in Arizona alongside stops like Yuma prison, the White Sanitarium in Wichita Falls, and Union Station in Ogden.
Ghost Towns of the West
(Philip Varney, Jim Hinckley)
An in-depth guide to the ghost towns of Arizona and the western states, with photos, maps, and historical notes. It is organized by geographic area, which makes it the best of the twelve for planning a road trip with deliberately eerie stops.
Questions People Ask
Which book should I start with?
Start with Haunted Arizona for the statewide view, or Flagstaff's Walkup Family Murders if you want one true story told all the way through. The city-specific titles pay off best right before you visit that city.
Are these books connected to your tours?
One of them is. Co-founder Susan Johnson wrote Flagstaff's Walkup Family Murders, and the same research standard shapes every story we tell in Flagstaff, Tucson, and Prescott. The rest are books we think a haunted Arizona reading list would be poorer without.
Read It, Then Walk It
Books get you the history. The streets get you the feeling. The Flagstaff Haunted History Tour runs nightly at 7 PM, with an 8 PM walk added Fridays and Saturdays; tickets are $29 and the route covers 75 minutes of downtown, including buildings that appear in more than one book on this list. Bring your questions. Our guides have read them too.
