The Monte Vista Hotel in downtown Flagstaff

This hotel was built by residents who wanted the city to have first-class accommodations as the tourism industry grew in the 1920s. A fundraising effort that included a donation from the novelist Zane Grey brought in $200,000, and ground was broken in 1926. The 50-room hotel opened in 1927, with its name chosen through a contest won by a 12-year-old schoolgirl.

The hotel’s business boomed in the 1940s and 1950s as dozens of movies were filmed in the area, including the John Ford westerns in Monument Valley. The hotel has continued to draw celebrities and lists more than two doze notable guests ranging from Hollywood stars Humphrey Bogart, Debbie Reynolds and John Wayne to singers Michael Stipe of R.E.M., Jon Bon Jovi and Bing Crosby to TV stars J. Michael Fox and Barbara Stanwyk. The hotel has named a number of its rooms after the celebrities who stayed there.

The Monte Vista also has a history of ghost stories, including a bank robber, prostitutes, a baby, a dancing couple, a bellboy, and a boarder who hangs raw meat from the chandelier of his room, plus poltergeists.

Details
100 N. San Francisco St.
Flagstaff, Arizona, 86001
(928) 779-6971

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