Every town has one story it lowers its voice for. In Flagstaff, that story is the Walkup family tragedy of 1937. It is the most disturbing stop on our downtown ghost tour, and the one stop where we never actually stand at the address. People live in the old Walkup house today, so we keep four to five blocks of distance out of respect. The distance does not soften the story one bit.
What happened to the Walkup family?
In the summer of 1937, Marie Walkup took the lives of her four children and then her own. The children were all aged ten and under. Her husband, JD Walkup, was a prominent man about town. After that terrible night at the house, Marie drove north to the old Flagstaff Country Club and ended her life there. That is the outline. The story behind that night, what led to it and what people whispered afterward, is where the case gets truly strange, and it is the part we save for the tour.
A modern town, stopped cold
Part of what makes the case so haunting is the setting. Many people picture early Arizona as a cowtown, and parts of it were. Flagstaff was not. By 1937 it was a proud, surprisingly progressive railroad town, hosting cultural events, home to museums, welcoming visitors up to Lowell Observatory, where Percival Lowell had once chased his Martians on Mars Hill. It was in the middle of an active, event-packed July that the murders occurred, and the whole town ground to a stop.
The case that became a book
Our co-founder Susan Johnson could not let this one go. Susan dug past the newspaper record, hunting for sources nobody had used, and turned the research into a book, The Walkup Family Murders, published by The History Press. A few new sources surfaced, but sadly there are not many people left who can give first-hand accounts. Susan later wrote an all-new chapter in the book Haunted Flagstaff about the freaky phenomena reported inside the house itself, and told the Walkup story on camera when Travel Channel's The Dead Files came to Flagstaff.
The corner where the shoes appeared
We tell the Walkup story from a corner blocks away, and that corner has produced its own strangeness. One night, with several tours moving through around the same time, four pairs of children's shoes appeared lined up under the eaves of the building where we stop. The corner was empty, and then it was not. That account, and others like it, are in our post on whether you will actually see a ghost on tour.
Questions people ask
Is the Walkup house on the ghost tour?
No. We tell the story from four to five blocks away because the house is a private home. Guests still hear the full account, they just hear it at a respectful distance.
Is the Walkup house haunted?
People connected to the house have reported strange phenomena inside over the years. Susan Johnson collected those accounts in a chapter of Haunted Flagstaff, and the reports were compelling enough that the case featured when The Dead Files investigated the town.
Where can I read the full story?
Susan Johnson's book The Walkup Family Murders, from The History Press, is the deepest dive available on the case. The tour version covers the history and the hauntings in about ten minutes, and plenty of guests go find the book afterward.
Hear the rest on the tour
The Walkup story is one chapter of a much longer night. The Flagstaff Haunted History Tour runs nightly at 7 PM, with an 8 PM walk added Fridays and Saturdays. It is 75 minutes, $29 for adults, and it covers the murders, the hotels, and the history the guidebooks skip. The rest of the Walkup story gets told on the tour.
Keep reading
- The Original Flagstaff Country Club
- Dead Files came to Flagstaff
- Discover the Haunted History of Flagstaff
Boo.
