Quick answer: The Gaslamp Quarter’s best-known haunted spots are the William Heath Davis House, the Horton Grand Hotel (Room 309), the Yuma Building and the old Stingaree blocks south of Market Street. Most of the stories trace back to the district’s saloon, gambling and brothel days in the 1880s to 1910s.

Beneath the restaurants and rooftop bars, San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter hides a darker history. In the late 1800s its southern blocks were the Stingaree, a red-light district of saloons, gambling halls and brothels. Many of the original Victorian buildings still stand, and so do the stories.

Why is the Gaslamp so haunted?

When the railroad reached San Diego in the 1880s, the town boomed almost overnight. Gamblers, sailors, land speculators and lawmen like Wyatt Earp crowded into a few blocks near the waterfront. Fights, cons and sudden deaths were part of daily life. In 1912 the city cracked down on the Stingaree, but the buildings, and the legends attached to them, outlasted it.

The most haunted places in the Gaslamp

  1. William Heath Davis House (410 Island Ave). A prefabricated saltbox house shipped around Cape Horn in 1850, now the oldest surviving structure in the district and home to the Gaslamp Museum. Staff and visitors have reported footsteps and cold spots.
  2. Horton Grand Hotel (311 Island Ave). Built from two 1880s hotels that were taken apart and rebuilt here in the 1980s. Room 309 is linked to the legend of “Roger,” a gambler said to have died in the hotel.
  3. The Yuma Building (631 Fifth Ave). An 1888 commercial building said to have housed one of the first brothels closed in the 1912 Stingaree raids.
  4. The Canary Cottage. The home of Ida Bailey, the Stingaree’s most notorious madam. Read her full story in Ida Bailey and the Canary Cottage.
  5. Wyatt Earp’s gambling halls. Earp ran gaming halls in the Gaslamp in the 1880s. See Wyatt Earp in San Diego.

Is a ghost tour scary?

It’s more storytelling than jump scares. The stories are about real people and documented crimes, told on a walk through lit, busy streets. There’s no minimum age; parents are the best judge of what their kids enjoy.

Hear the stories on the street where they happened

Our Gaslamp Ghosts and True Crime Walking Tour is 90 minutes and $29 per person, in a small group with a local guide. It’s wheelchair accessible and runs rain or shine unless severe weather arises.