If you’re craving creakin’ wood floors, dust on your soles, hair-raising history or the Wild West in general, look to the Superstition Mountains. With Halloween around the corner, the tiny mountain town of Tortilla Flat – current population: six – has stories to last you days around a campfire. Katie Ellering and her husband, Chris Field, took over operations of the town and its restaurant, saloon, museum, mercantile and country store in September 2019. “There’s 500 years of Western tragedy here, which is really interesting,” Field says, including Massacre Grounds, where an expedition of Mexican gold miners perished in a battle with Apaches circa 1848. Some history is a bit more abstract. “When it comes to a place that’s so old, there’s gotta be spirits,” Ellering says. Reports of spectral figures, lights turning on after closing time and wandering furniture are trademark tales in Tortilla Flat. In recent months, a visitor snuck in after-hours and accidentally snapped a photo with what the town operators believe is a ghost. Bring the kids this month for spooks and mystery with a little Western flair.
