The Haunted History of the Luhrs Building in Downtown Phoenix

In 1924, Phoenix was becoming a very different city. And rising above the corner of Central and Jefferson was something Phoenix had never seen before.

The Luhrs Building.

Ten stories tall, built for $553,000 and filled with marble, offices and some of the most powerful people in Arizona, it became Phoenix's first 10-story high-rise. At the time, it was the tallest building in the city and a pretty big statement about what Phoenix was becoming. But spend more than 100 years in downtown Phoenix and you're bound to collect a few stories...and the Luhrs has collected some very strange ones.

First, there was the Arizona Club.

For nearly five decades, the top four floors of the Luhrs Building were home to the exclusive, men-only Arizona Club. And this wasn't exactly your neighborhood Rotary meeting. There were private rooms for overnight stays, a library, billiards room, lounges and dining rooms. The tenth floor featured a 22-foot-tall arched ceiling, crystal chandeliers and incredible views over the Valley. And, for a time, there were even slot machines. The Arizona Club became a gathering place for some of Phoenix's most influential businessmen and political leaders. In other words, if those walls could talk, we'd probably have questions.

Then Prohibition came to Phoenix.

Here's where the history starts getting a little more colorful. The U.S. Treasury Department occupied space in the Luhrs Building during the Prohibition era, when the federal government was very busy making sure Americans absolutely, positively were not drinking alcohol. You can probably guess how well that went. Stories passed down from longtime Luhrs employees paint a much more entertaining picture of what happened to some of the confiscated booze that made its way into the building. According to those accounts, workers figured out that when liquor was being dumped for destruction, some of the better stuff didn't necessarily have to disappear forever. Apparently, even during Prohibition...Phoenix was gonna Phoenix.

The building also crossed paths with some darker characters.

Over the decades, the offices inside Luhrs were occupied by lawyers, businessmen, government agencies and plenty of people whose stories became part of Arizona history. And some of those stories were considerably darker than others.The Luhrs complex has also been connected through Phoenix lore and historical accounts to figures from the city's gambling and organized-crime era—another chapter of downtown Phoenix history that tends to get a little messy once you start digging. Because if there's one thing we've learned researching Phoenix history, it's this: The respectable version of the story is rarely the whole story.

And then there are the deaths.

Not every story attached to the Luhrs complex is fun. Over its long history, deaths have been associated with the property.Those stories have inevitably become part of the building's darker history. Which brings us to the obvious question...

Does any of that history linger?

Buildings don't need ghosts to be interesting. Sometimes the lives lived inside them are strange enough. But when a building has stood in the same place for more than a century—through Prohibition, the Depression, war, gambling, accidents, political deals and generations of people coming and going...We think it's at least worth asking.

Experience Haunted & Historic Phoenix

Want to hear more of the strange, dark and haunted history hiding throughout downtown Phoenix? Haunted & Historic Phoenix takes you deeper into the stories, legends and hauntings connected to some of the city's most historic places.This is a seated indoor experience, not a walking tour, blending real Phoenix history with the darker stories that don't always make it into the history books. And because ghost stories are always better with a drink in hand...your ticket includes a drink.

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