Globe, Arizona, has a rich history. It is known for mining, gambling, debauchery, murder, and ghosts. Recently, my brothers and I were all in Phoenix together, which rarely happens. Two of us lived there, while the third lived in the Dakotas.

I bought tickets to visit the Gila County Jail (circa 1910) in Globe, Arizona, for a private investigation. This was my brother’s second paranormal investigation. The first was in Bozeman, Montana, and the last time we got together was for skiing, food, and whiskey.

We had dinner in Phoenix without the whiskey and then headed to Globe, a two-hour drive away. Vinny and Roger with the AZ Ghost Tours were there to unlock the doors and give us an initial tour. Mind you, this was my third or fourth time investigating the old jail, so I was interested in how the newbies would react.

After the tour, we started as a group, walking around and getting a feel for the place. Since I had been there before, I knew about the different areas where I felt spirits around me. So, I wanted to see what the boys thought as they walked around. We visited the sheriff’s office and residence on the first floor. After that, they moved to the tank (cell block) behind the sheriff’s area and entered the various cells. There wasn’t much of a reaction there. You enter the room through a massive steel door supposedly brought in by a horse-drawn wagon from the Yuma Territorial Prison over 250 miles away. The tank is a steel box in the middle of a room surrounded by a walkway. This walkway allows the guards to access the prisoner’s cells without entering the tank. This area is more tense than inside the tank on the ground floor. As with most hauntings, different parts of the building have other activities.

My brothers were wandering around the first-floor tank and reported they had no jitters or goosebumps. So, we moved upstairs to the second-floor men’s tank. This, to me, is the creepiest part of the whole building. The feeling of intimidation, of being very uncomfortable right at the entrance to the tank, gets me every time. My brothers remarked the same thing. They entered the tank and wandered around. It was just the three of us there as Vinny and Roger were getting some equipment ready for a few experiments later in the evening. There had been some very violent men kept in the second-floor tank; white supremacists are the leading group, I think, as there is graffiti written all over the walls.

Walking around the tank is more intense as it seems people reach out from the cells to grab you. Of course, this may be because it’s dark and a jail, but it’s not the same in the other areas of the jail.

We moved the women’s tank, the solitary cell, and the interrogation room half a floor up.

The women’s cell seemed very quiet that night, though I had overheard other people talk about being touched on their heads and shoulders during other investigations. After a quarter of an hour, nothing happened to the three of us, so we moved on to the solitary cell.

In 1911, a year after that jail opened, a man named Kinsley Olds supposedly killed two little girls, Lulu and Myrtle Goswick, having drowned them in the river. The townsfolk wanted him dragged out and hanged on the spot, but the law wanted him to stand trial. Mr. Olds was asleep in the solitary cell when a bullet hit him from the courthouse next door. No one has ever been certain of who made the shot, but Kingsley Olds was dead. Some have stated they felt Mr. Olds wandering around the cell, and there is always some activity there. A cot, a male mannequin, and a little girl mannequin are in the room. If you don’t know the little girl is standing just outside the cell in the back corner, you may jump a bit when you enter the room. One of my brothers, not sure which one, uttered an expletive when he went in there at first.

The interrogation room is the calmest room in the jail. I could sit in the provided chair all night and even nap there, but my brothers were nervous, creeped out, and uncomfortable. It was time for my favorite room.

The trustee’s quarters/dorm is on the jail’s third floor, just before you walk to the Bridge of Sighs. The room is used for storage. So, there isn’t much room to move around. A meandering trail through the props and set material from the theater next door and things hidden away over the past forty years. This room has an entity that is very present almost all the time. I don’t know what it is, but there is a heavy, foreboding feeling, especially on the opposite side of the room from the door. We spent thirty minutes trying to figure out what haunted that room. Then on to the Bridge of Sighs.

The Bridge of Sighs is how prisoners move from the jail to the courtroom. Two inmates jumped from this bridge to their deaths. Sadly, one jumped before hearing that he was found not guilty.  The bridge is about forty feet above ground. I have heard of people seeing spirits walking along the bridge.

We wound up back in the second-floor men’s tank for a round of the Estes Method. In this method, you blindfold one person and put headphones on them with staticky white noise played loud enough that they can’t hear anyone else talking. Their job is to repeat aloud anything they hear on the headphones. The others in the room ask questions aloud. This usually elicits exciting results; my brothers were surprised at all that matched up, questions and answers. If you haven’t done this, or at least seen it in action, you should do so.

The 1910 Gila County Jail is a great place to tour from a historical perspective and investigate the paranormal. If you are anywhere near Globe, Arizona, or even the Phoenix Metropolitan area, you should go out to the Jail.

AZ Ghost Tours does a fantastic job of running the various locations that offer ghost tours. Go to https://www.azpirs.com/events to get your tickets. They also work as the Arizona Paranormal Investigations and Research Society (AZPIRS), helping people and businesses with paranormal problems. Both organizations are under the umbrella of The Paranormal Group. They sponsor the Ghosts of Globe Paranormal Convention in Globe. This is the third year of the Paracon. The event is on April 12-13, 2024, in Globe. See https://gogparacon.info/ for information. You can visit the jail and several other locations while you are there.

Joe Thompson has been involved in the paranormal for over 34 years. He investigates the paranormal and works with a group of exorcists for the darker cases that pop up occasionally. He is an author who has written two books and is working on four more. Joe now lives in southern France and works on historical/paranormal videos for social media.