University Of Arizona Mystery's

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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 U of A campus, many experiences with the supernatural have been reported since even before the school opened in 1885.

One the U of A's mystery's is centered at Maricopa Residence Hall concerning a ghost of the past. Reports have it that a despondent female student killed herself there very late one night on October 30th. The circumstances surrounding her death involve the Maricopa Hall's original purpose as the designed private mansion for a past President of the University.

Sandy Mercer, a history major and former Maricopa resident, said what she had found out was also based on the hall being built on the site of a shootout between two rival Tucson dancehall girls in the 1860's. 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 "mining the miners." Diamond Lil always carried a small Smith & Wesson .32 in her garter, while Two Tooth Gertie learned to throw a knife lightning fast as a kid working in the circus and kept one in a hidden pocket.

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 flew. Both dance hall girls stormed out of the meeting and took their small wagons out east into what was then the open desert. After some words, Two Tooth suddenly reached in 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 striking Two Tooth in the upper right eye and lodging into her brain. Two Tooth died right on the spot.

Our mystery then fast forwards years later to 1918 when the then University President's daughter was engaged to be married and she found her husband to be 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 Maricopa Hall was first proposed, designed, and authorized to be built by the then UofA President in 1914 and was constructed between 1918 and 1921. But for reasons known only to the president he refused to ever set foot in the mansion.

Many students have reported seeing the sobbing ghost 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 1918.