Ghosts, history and magic

When Julia Brown took a tour of Old Town, she decided she wanted to do it every day.

"One night I went on the ghost tour, and it was a lot of fun," she said. "And I got involved, and I ended up becoming the manager for the ghost tour, and then a year ago, I actually purchased it and expanded to the history tour."

Brown moved to New Mexico from Seattle 11 years ago.

Before operating the tours, Brown had a career in retail.

"I left that to do this," she said. "I work way harder, make less money, but it's a lot more fun."

Tours of Old Town provide three walking tours of the historic area - a history tour, a ghost tour and a magic tour. The magic tour tells of the area's histories and ghosts but incorporates a magic show. Brown said the area is about two blocks by three blocks, and the tours are about a 1 1/2 mile walk.

On the history tour, the guides take guests to different buildings and sites in the area and give facts about their history. Brown said they do a lot of research by reading old newspapers.

"We include historic photographs but also the legends and lore - some of the stories that have been passed down," she said.

Brown said one building, now called La Placita, was built before 1880 and owned by the Armijo family. Brown said it is rumored that the family sympathized with the Confederates. An underground tunnel connects the building to the one next door.

"It comes out to the street and then it turns," she said. "We got about to the intersection when we had to stop. We couldn't go any further because of all the bones that were sticking out."

Tour guide Pat Ward said the bones were from goats.

"The building was later used by a butcher," he said. "He must have been a lazy man and didn't want to throw the bones out. So, he threw them in the tunnel and covered them with a coat of lime, and that's where they remain today."

Nancy Vise, who went on the history tour, said she liked the educational aspect of the tour.

"I like learning how Albuquerque belonged to Mexico and Texas and then the United States - turning Victorian (buildings) into pueblos," she said.

Ward said that before the arrival of the railroad in Albuquerque, the law was an organization of citizens. He said they had a special custom they performed each spring to elect a sheriff.

"The way the elections went, anyone who wanted to run for the office of sheriff, they would all gather up here in the plaza," he said. "The way the election went was last man standing. So, we always were assured the biggest, toughest guy got to be sheriff."

Leslie Walker from San Francisco went on the history tour. She said she enjoyed learning about what Albuquerque was really like.

"I also liked that they don't glorify what Albuquerque was," she said. "It had a lot of rowdy. It had a lot of stuff going on that made it interesting."

Brown said that on the ghost tour, guests learn a little history but mostly ghost stories and facts from paranormal investigations of the area.

"We work with a variety of ghost hunters," she said. "All of the buildings here we have investigated several times. The tour also includes video and audio and photographs of possible paranormal activity in the Old Town area."

Brown said the tour works with New Mexico Paranormal Investigations, the Ghost Hunters of the 505, the Albuquerque Area Paranormal Meetup Group and International Ghost Hunters. Brown said some groups look for scientific evidence and others use psychic mediums.

"A lot of people say that you can't prove the paranormal with the paranormal, meaning no one has been able to prove that a psychic is real," she said. "So, if a psychic is getting things, how do you use that as evidence? We've also learned that we haven't been able to prove the paranormal with the scientific, either. So, we use a little bit of both."

Brown said there are many ghosts but only 13 have been sighted more than once.

"There are a variety from a Confederate soldier to the ghost of children to the ghosts of murdered lovers that lived here to mainly their residents," she said. "The ghosts of Old Town seem to haunt a particular building, either the person lived there or something."

Tours of Old Town

303 Romero St. S.W.

For information, call 246-8687

or visit toursofoldtown.com