The Fort Lowell Ghost: A 'Soldier' in the Ruins, Tucson, 1900–1901

The Army left Fort Lowell, east of Tucson, in 1891. Mexican-American families moved into and around its adobe ruins, and the neighborhood became known as El Fuerte, “the fort.” Nine years later, in December 1900, those families started reporting a visitor.

What the residents reported

The Phoenix Arizona Republican picked up the story on 17 December 1900 under the headline “GHOST AT FORT LOWELL.” (The Tucson Citizen had reported it a few days earlier, according to the Tucson Presidio Museum.) The figure had appeared “a few nights ago,” the paper said, and came out of the ruins almost every night. Residents described it as “of unusual stature, wearing high boots, and the uniform of a soldier.”

They didn’t just watch. On the Friday night, several shots were fired at it and the neighborhood dogs were set on it as it dodged among the broken walls. It got away each time, fading into the adobe when chased. Once, a man who got within about twenty yards said it turned and threw stones at him. One resident went into Tucson to buy ammunition. According to the paper, the residents were willing to swear affidavits to what they had seen.

The same article noted that, so far, only the Mexican-American residents had seen the figure. That line set the tone for much of the coverage that followed: the people closest to the events were reported on, but rarely treated as reliable witnesses.

The woman at the well

On 8 January 1901 the Republican ran a longer account. T. F. Grindell, clerk of the territorial Supreme Court, had visited his brother, who lived at the fort, and looked into the stories. The most serious thing he found was a woman who had been badly frightened the Thursday before.

She told him she had gone to the well for water. As she bent over it, something white climbed up the rope and stood for a moment on the edge. It was “very tall and of no describable shape, a dim outline of a human form.” It crossed quickly to one of the ruined post buildings, went up the wall and over. Then it came back with a smaller figure, and the two slid down the wall and went out of sight. She ran to the house and collapsed. Days later, the paper said, her friends still weren’t sure she would recover.

Her name isn’t given. Her account reached the paper secondhand, through a visitor.

A ghost becomes a joke

The Tucson Arizona Daily Citizen claimed the story. On 9 January it called the Fort Lowell ghost “probably one of the best known ghosts in the country today,” credited itself with bringing it to the world’s attention, and reprinted the Republican’s account. A week later it announced, on a rancher’s authority, that the ghost was dead. It then printed a mock-dialect “letter” boasting of a better ghost at Tanque Verde. The letter’s humor depended partly on dismissing the Fort Lowell residents’ testimony, and we don’t reproduce it.

On 13 April the Citizen reported that “Capt. Ed. Grindell, the sole commander of Fort Lowell,” said the ghost was back, “looking well from the benefits of a vacation of two months.” A resident had been sitting by his fire when smoke poured down the chimney and formed into a man who stood staring at him. He spoke to it in Spanish, and it didn’t answer. The paper’s punchline was that the ghost didn’t understand Spanish.

The Citizen also said “some of the eastern papers printed the story.” The research desk couldn’t find a clear out-of-state reprint, so the ledger treats that as the paper’s boast. By September 1901, the last time the ghost was mentioned, the press was writing about the fort’s residents mainly as satire. We don’t repeat that coverage.

What might explain it

Explanation	What supports it	What doesn’t
A prowler in the ruins	The figure ran, hid, dodged dogs and once threw stones. The ruins were full of hiding places.	Nobody was ever caught or named.
Fear and suggestion in a ruined Army post at night	The reports came at night, among broken walls, from a community that had been living with the stories for weeks.	It doesn’t explain why the figure was physically chased and shot at.
A newspaper ghost	The Citizen took credit for its fame, declared it dead, revived it and printed a parody. Two Anglo informants, the Grindell brothers, became the voices of the story.	The first reports came from the residents themselves, before the jokes started.
A soldier’s ghost	That’s what the residents described, and they offered to swear to it.	Nothing in the record tests it.

Ledger status

Folklore. The reports are well documented in two territorial dailies, and the ghost was never explained or exposed. Most of what survives is told by outsiders, and much of it was written as a joke. The people who saw it, and the woman who was nearly frightened to death, are barely named.

Visiting

Fort Lowell Park and the Fort Lowell Museum (2900 N. Craycroft Rd., Tucson) are public. The adobe ruins are fragile: stay on paths and don’t climb the walls. The museum’s blog describes a “Mysteries of Fort Lowell” day with a ghost exhibit, held on Saturday 25 October 2025. When we checked its 2026 calendar on 4 October, no 2026 date was listed. See the Tucson Presidio Museum’s events page for current programs.

We don’t pin the neighborhood cemetery, which is an active community burial ground, or any private homes.

Sources

• Arizona Republican (Phoenix), 17 Dec 1900, p.1, “Ghost at Fort Lowell” (OCR checked) — loc.gov
• Arizona Republican, 8 Jan 1901, p.4 (T. F. Grindell’s account; OCR checked) — loc.gov
• Arizona Daily Citizen (Tucson), 9 Jan 1901, p.1, “The Fame of Ft. Lowell’s Ghost” (OCR checked) — loc.gov
• Arizona Daily Citizen, 17 Jan 1901, p.1, “Tanque Verde Has a Ghost” (OCR checked) — loc.gov
• Arizona Daily Citizen, 13 Apr 1901, p.1, “The Ghost Again Appears at Fort Lowell” (OCR checked) — loc.gov
• Arizona Republican, 13 Sep 1901, p.3 (research desk reading; not quoted here) — loc.gov
• Kate Avalos, “The Famous Ghost of Fort Lowell,” Tucson Presidio Museum blog — tucsonpresidio.com