Datebook: May 2022

WILLIE WAS A HORSE WRANGLER and maybe a rustler, which might explain why, after the sheriff shot him dead, they tossed his bones aside. Willie now resides beneath the floorboards of the Victoria 913 gift shop, in downtown Alamogordo. In his afterlife, he has proved to be a trustworthy soul—a protective lookout for those of us who still leave footprints. His story joins the tales of other spirits during the Alamogordo Ghost & History Tour. (The tour is usually held the second Saturday of each month, but for May it’s pushed back a week.)

Chris Edwards, the proprietor of Roadrunner Emporium Fine Arts Gallery, Antiques & More, helped dream up the event, which launched in October, as a way to revitalize downtown.

Participants start with a 10:30 a.m. champagne toast, then wander with guides on a walking tour that begins at his shop, a former First National Bank, built in 1900. (He has the antique safes to prove it.) Stops include lunch at the Flickinger Center for the Performing Arts (formerly the 1956 Sierra Theater), a guided tour of the Tularosa Basin Museum of History, and entry to a 16,000-square-foot art-filled home that once was a Coca-Cola plant.

Edwards won’t promise any sightings, but Willie could appear, along with Judy, Maggie, and the long-deceased members of the Railroad Men’s Club.

But enough about ghosts. “It’s a four-hour tour with only 45 minutes of ghost stories,” Edwards says. “People really get into the history more. And it’s a history that even the locals don’t know about.”

Take it slow. “You walk a four-block radius, and it’s all flat.”

Don’t be afraid. “We had one lady at our building’s downstairs safe who started losing her breath and feeling a spirit. She didn’t know if it radiated off of a painting or the building. She was very happy with it.”