The Museum Club carries one of the strongest haunted reputations in Flagstaff, and the stories center on Don and Thorna Scott, the couple who made the roadhouse famous and who, local accounts insist, never entirely left it. Two answers up front. Is it haunted? Generations of staff and patrons have reported things they could not explain, and this page passes their stories along as reported lore, not settled fact. Is it open? No. As of July 2026 the Museum Club is closed and for sale. It poured its last drinks on Halloween night, October 31, 2025, and the log building now waits on old Route 66 for a new owner to write its next chapter.
Flagstaffians call it the Zoo. It sits about three miles east of historic downtown on Route 66, beyond the range of our walking tours but squarely inside the story of the road. Below is the full timeline from 1931 to the present, the reported hauntings sorted from the documented history, and honest answers to the questions people ask. Our Stories page also keeps a companion piece on the Museum Club for the longer bar-stool version.
From taxidermy museum to honky-tonk: the timeline
The building went up in 1931 as a museum, not a bar. Dean Eldredge, a sportsman and taxidermist with an entrepreneur's streak, raised what he billed as the biggest log cabin in the world on a parcel then considered well outside town limits, filled it with his mounted animals and curiosities, and let Route 66 deliver the visitors. Travelers learned to watch for the forked ponderosa trunk framing the front door, and locals took to calling the place the Zoo, a nickname that has outlived every owner since. Eldredge died in 1936, and Doc Williams, a saddle maker, bought the building and reopened it as a nightclub in the years after Prohibition's repeal.
The golden era arrived in 1963, when Don Scott, a steel guitarist who had played with Bob Wills' Texas Playboys, bought the roadhouse with his wife Thorna and built it into northern Arizona's country-western landmark. Scott's connections kept the stage full: Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Wanda Jackson and Wynn Stewart all played the Zoo, and two contracts signed by Nelson in those years were still in the building when its contents were cataloged in 2025. Then came the club's darkest decade. In 1973 Thorna fell on the stairs to the couple's upstairs apartment and did not survive. Don, inconsolable by every account, took his own life in the bar in 1975. Those two deaths are where the ghost stories begin.
Martin and Stacie Zanzucchi bought the Museum Club in 1978 and spent decades restoring and running it as it grew into a Route 66 landmark. The recent years were bumpier: an abrupt closure in 2017 and a reopening that December, a hiatus at the end of 2020, and a 2021 reopening under a new operating group. Through all of it the dance floor, the taxidermy and the stories stayed put.
Closed and for sale: the Museum Club in 2026
Here is the current status, dated so you can trust it. The property was listed for sale in June 2025 at $2.3 million. In October 2025 the operators announced the closure, and the club went dark after Halloween night, October 31, 2025. An auction of the building's contents, scheduled for November 8, 2025, was canceled at the last minute after property owner Martin Zanzucchi bought back the interior to keep the collection with the building. By mid-November 2025 the business operations had been folded into the real estate listing and the asking price reduced to $2.2 million, covering the trade name, furniture, fixtures, historic signage and the liquor license.
As of July 2026 the building remains closed and for sale, so there is nothing to visit: no shows, no bar, no way inside. Arizona's Family television returned to the story twice in spring 2026, in April with a segment on the ghost stories that linger inside the shuttered club, and in May as the Zanzucchi family made a public appeal for a buyer who would preserve nearly a century of history. If the Zoo reopens, this page will say so. Until then, treat any site that describes it as an operating venue as out of date.
The ghosts of Don and Thorna Scott
The reported hauntings belong to Don and Thorna. The couple lived above the club, and for five decades staff and patrons have described footsteps and creaking boards overhead in an empty building, lights flickering or burning in rooms where the power was off, chairs rocking on their own and fires found lit in the hearth that no one would claim. Bartenders told of locked shelves rearranged overnight, bottles and mixers in different places by morning.
Some accounts get more personal. The story goes that patrons have bought a drink for a woman at the bar, taken her for staff, and turned back to find her gone. Another account, retold in Flagstaff for decades, describes a caretaker held fast in the night by a presence that told him he need only fear the living. We were not there for any of it, so we pass these along as exactly what they are, the reported lore of a building that came by its reputation honestly. Whether the closed doors have quieted the Zoo, or simply left the Scotts the dance floor to themselves, nobody can currently say.
Walk the road that made it famous
The Museum Club is closed, but the highway out front never closed, and it runs straight through downtown Flagstaff, one of the last places in Arizona where Route 66 is still a working main street. Our Route 66 Centennial Walking Tour covers that stretch at 6 PM, 90 minutes at an easy pace, $29 for adults, $25 for students and $22 for children, timed to the Mother Road's 100th birthday in 2026. Roadhouse culture, neon and the highway's stranger residents all come up along the way.
For hauntings you can stand in front of tonight, downtown holds its own: the storied rooms of the Hotel Monte Vista, the Weatherford's honeymoon legend, and the rest of our Flagstaff haunted places guide. If you want to sleep where the stories happened, the haunted hotels overnight guide covers which rooms guests request and how to book them by number.
Questions people ask
Is the Museum Club haunted?
It carries one of Flagstaff's strongest haunted reputations. Local accounts going back decades describe footsteps from the upstairs apartment where Don and Thorna Scott lived, lights and chairs moving on their own, fires lit in an unattended hearth and a woman at the bar who vanishes when a patron looks away. These are reported stories rather than settled facts, and we present them that way, but few buildings in Flagstaff have gathered more of them.
Is the Museum Club still open?
No. The Museum Club closed on Halloween night, October 31, 2025, and as of July 2026 it remains closed and listed for sale at $2.2 million, including the trade name, fixtures, historic signage and liquor license. Its owners have said publicly that they hope a buyer will preserve it. There is nothing to visit at the building right now.
What was the Museum Club?
It opened in 1931 as Dean Eldredge's taxidermy museum, billed as the biggest log cabin in the world, became a nightclub under Doc Williams in 1936, and grew into a legendary country-western roadhouse after Don and Thorna Scott bought it in 1963. Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Wanda Jackson and Wynn Stewart all played its stage on old Route 66 east of downtown Flagstaff.
Why is the Museum Club called the Zoo?
Because it opened full of animals. Dean Eldredge packed his log building with mounted wildlife and curiosities, so Flagstaff called the place the Zoo. The nickname outlasted the museum, the honky-tonk decades and every owner since, and locals rarely call it anything else.
Hear the stories downtown at 7 PM
The Zoo's stage is dark for now, but Flagstaff's haunted history is still told out loud a few miles west. The Downtown Flagstaff Haunted History Tour departs at 7 PM from Wheeler Park, runs 75 minutes at an easy pace and costs $29 for adults, $25 for students and $22 for children, walking the downtown blocks whose stories our co-founder Susan Johnson documented in her book Haunted Flagstaff.
Company-wide, Freaky Foot Tours holds a 4.9 of 5 rating across 325+ TripAdvisor reviews as of July 2026 and ranks #1 of 65 Tours and Activities in Flagstaff on TripAdvisor. 1,000+ five-star reviews. Best of Flagstaff three years running. Check current departure times in the booking calendar below and hear the documented versions on the sidewalk.
