Haunted Museum Club Flagstaff, AZ | Freaky Foot Tours
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Museum Club

Freaky Foot Tours - Flagstaff's Premier Haunted Walking Tour

Museum Club

About three miles east of historic downtown off old Route 66 sits an eclectic (some say strange) wooden building with an even stranger entry. This is the Museum Club–known affectionately by most Flagstaffians as The Zoo. This taxidermy shop turned museum turned country-western bar has a rich and varied history that had its beginnings in 1931. Dean Eldridge was a sportsman and collector with a bit of the entrepreneur in his makeup. Around 1930 he bought the land that the Museum Club sits on with an eye toward building a store. At the time, the parcel was considered well outside the town’s limits. According to the Zoo’s website, Eldridge proclaimed that he was building “the world’s largest log cabin” although he later amended that to “Arizona’s largest.” He filled the store with products from his taxidermy and soon visitors travelling the Mother Road knew to look for “The Zoo.” The front entry, with its distinctive tree-branch doorway, was impossible to miss. Sadly, Eldridge died a few years after he opened the store. The building was bought by a saddlemaker named Doc Williams, who reopened the museum as a nightclub. He ran a fairly successful establishment but it was in 1962 that the Museum Club cemented its place in the Flagstaff community.

Monte Vista Hotel

Don Scott was a steel guitarist from Texas who, in 1963 with his wife Thorna, created the country-western bar that resembles the Club today. Scott had many connections among the country music stars of the era and it was not unusual to see Willie Nelson or Waylon Jennings on his stage. The Zoo had a raucous decade until tragedy struck the Club again. In 1973, Thorna was going upstairs to the couple’s apartment when she tripped and fell, breaking her neck and dying soon after. Inconsolable, Don committed suicide a few years later, reportedly in the bar by the fireplace. The ghosts of both Thorna and Don have made their presence felt inside the Zoo ever since. If you visit the Club’s website you can read more tales of apparitions and hauntings–as well as check out what’s happening on the stage.

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True-Crime Tales Of Murder, Suicide, Arson And Rivalry Await You…

Freaky Foot Tours - Flagstaff's Premier Haunted Walking Tour