Moved by the Spirits: New ghost tour company comes to Tucson | News

For Matthew “Monk” Gore, “haunted” is a loaded word. 

“I think that word is a little slanted,” said Gore, a tour guide for Freaky Foot’s Historic Downtown Tucson Ghost Walk. “I like to say there’s an energy to it.”

A new presence in Tucson, Freaky Foot’s tour meets behind Hotel Congress at 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. daily. Reservations are required.

Gore carries an electronic device on his tours that lights up when it senses ghostly energy, he said. For example, in front of the TEP building.

Freaky Foot Tours is owned by son and mother Nick Jones and Susan Johnson, both of Flagstaff, where their haunted tour has proven to be quite successful. After nine years in business, there are several guides and four different tours. For now, though, there is one guide and one tour in Tucson.

Jones said he chose Gore for the guide because he has a true affection and affinity for the Old Pueblo. 

“I love Tucson, and the more I started reading the stories and learning about them, the more I would research them and find even more about them,” Gore said. 

“It just got a hold of me for its own history and took hold in a way that the first time we walked it together to practice it, Nick let me know that I was 20 minutes over the tour.”

Gore likes to talk and tell stories, too.

“Throughout my childhood and teenage years, I would have people tell me, like, ‘Do you realize you talk a lot?’” Gore said. “I connect with people through the moment of shared stories.”

One of Gore’s most compelling stories happened within the living memory of the Old Pueblo’s older residents — the Pioneer Hotel fire in December 1970. Twenty-nine people died.

The edifice has been rebuilt and now acts as an office building. “It absolutely has its own life,” Gore added. “I think that place definitely still holds its own energy, and I think a lot of people still feel that when they’re there.”

Another interesting — albeit tragic — place, which is part of the tour, is the old Santa Rita Hotel, now the TEP building. When it was built in the early 1900s, it was quite advanced. 

“The thing that they really touted was their modern moment,” Gore said. “They had indoor plumbing. They had this rooftop garden and pool, all these things that brought amenity and clout to how fantastic this place was. But even in that 1900s moment, they were a queer-safe place.” 

Tour origins

The story of Freaky Foot Tours begins when Johnson noticed there was nothing like a ghost tour in Flagstaff. She had always been interested in spirits and when she traveled, she enjoyed touring cities. 

After deep dives into Flagstaff’s history, Johnson said she thought she might like to lead a tour or two. What she really found, however, was that the more she read and researched, the more the stories became a part of her. These weren’t just stories; they were about real people dealing with real tragedy.

“As I sank into the stories, I felt like I was becoming really entwined with this town,” Johnson said. 

During these years, Jones was away at school, but he returned during the pandemic. He thought he could do something with the small business. 

Then, what was terrible for the rest of us, became fertile soil for this outdoor business. People were starved for something to do, the ghost tours hit the spot and with $250 between them, the business took off.

“No additional money has been put into the business,” Jones said. “I’m proud of that. We’ve grown slow but we’ve also grown, purposefully and organically.”

Any funds put into Freaky Foot comes from what the business generates.

Now, the Flagstaff business has grown enough to need new pastures. Jones traveled to Tucson, a place he still loved from his UA days.

“When I was thinking about growing the ghost tours, I had a gut feeling toward Tucson to begin with,” he said. “Then the more I kept looking into it, it felt like, ‘Oh, everything kind of made sense that way, too. So much work has been done Downtown.’”

Jones noticed, however, that there was another ghost tour company in town, the Tucson Ghost Company. He said he is not interested in taking business from them. Freaky Foot operates year-round, while Tucson Ghost Company operates seasonally.

“The way to think about it is there are people … who deeply care about the history and the culture of their community and that extends to ghost stuff,” Jones said. 

“I just want to be careful to make sure that we’re not just a franchise coming in to plop down a new outpost. We want to tell these stories. We want to do them justice.”