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Haunting Of  Maricopa Hall

There are many sightings of ghosts and other unexplainable things that go bump in the night around the University of Arizona, in Tucson Arizona U.S.A.

It's campus contains classic old brick buildings built in the late 1800's and early 1900's. On the University of Arizona campus, many experiences with the supernatural have been reported since even before the school opened in 1885.

One the University of Arizona's mystery's is centered at Maricopa Residence Hall concerning more than one ghost from the past. One report has it that a despondent female student killed herself there very late one night on a very dark and windy October 30th night.

The circumstances surrounding her death involve the Maricopa Hall's original purpose as the designed private mansion by then 6th University President  Arthur Herbert Wilde in 1914 for the President of the University.

Sandy Mercer, a history major and former Maricopa Hall resident, said what she had found out was also based on the Maricopa dormitory hall being built on top of the site of a bloody fight between two rival Tucson dance hall girls in the 1860's.

Diamond Lil

Diamond Lil and Two Tooth Gertie had been working in rival saloons down on Congress Street and both of them were engaged in the very profitable business of  the time, "mining the miners." 

 Diamond Lil always carried a small Smith & Wesson .32 caliber silver plated six shot pistol in her garter, while Two Tooth Gertie learned to throw a knife lightning fast as a young kid working in the circus, and always kept one in a hidden pocket under her clothes.

Two Tooth Gertie

One night as both ladies tried to separate a miner from his newly found gold while at a meeting of the Tucson Vigilante Committee, the sparks inevitably flew.

Upstanding Members of the Tucson Vigilante Committee

Both dance hall girls stormed out of the meeting and took their small horse drawn wagons out east of town into what was then the open desert, but is now under the land the University of Arizona now sits on. After a heated exchange of some words usually only spoken by frustrated uneducated men, Two Tooth Gertie suddenly reached under her dress and in an instant her knife found it's mark in Diamond Lil's left upper shoulder. Diamond Lil, a crack shot, then fired once, the bullet first striking Two Tooth Gertie in the upper right eye and lodging into her brain. Two Tooth Gertie died right on the spot. 

The Maricopa Hall mystery then fast forwards years later to 1919 when the daughter of wealthy eastern railroad robber baron was engaged to be married and one night she found her prospective husband with another man from town in an 'embarrassing' moment. The despondent girl then went back to campus that night sobbing, and she was found hanging from the bathroom ceiling gas pipes on the 2nd floor of the then unfinished Maricopa Hall early the next morning when the workmen showed up.

The building that is now known as Maricopa Hall was first proposed, designed, and authorized to be built by the then 6th University of Arizona President, (1911-1914) Arthur Herbert Wilde  in 1914 just before he retired. But the original 2 story building was actually constructed between June 1918 and October 1920 during the time World War 1 raged in Europe for the amount of $174,666 dollars. By 1921 an additional 3rd floor was added to the structure for the cost of $45,000 dollars. But for reasons known only to the 7th President 1914-1921 Rufus Bernard von Kleinsmid  refused to ever set foot in the mansion.

To this day many students, visitors, and employees have reported seeing the sobbing ghost of a young girl when they lived or even just visited there at night. Maricopa's basement is no joke either, and is known as a really really, really scary place. Countless students, maintenance workers, and others have heard strange sounds coming from there ever since the death of the heart broken girl back in 1919.

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