ghost Stories

Buy this book Sleeping with Ghosts on Amazon and the rest of Debe Brannings library of books on ghosts and haunted locations including:  Haunted Phoenix,  Dining with the Dead,  Grand Canyon Ghost Stories, The Graveyard Shift and more!

Debe Branning, author of Sleeping with Ghosts!

Excerpt from book:

Buford House Bed and Breakfast 

History

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Buford House was designed and built in 1880 by George Buford, a mine owner and mining engineer originally from East Texas, one year before the famous Gunfight at the OK Corral occurred. Buford built the two-story adobe house during the height of the Tombstone silver mining bonanza and brought a little bit of European flavor and class to the wild town with his home, even installing two sunken, tiled concrete bathtubs on the ground floor. Today, the Garden Room features one of the old sunken tubs.

The house was once the home of George Daves Jr., whose father, George Daves Sr., lodged in the house after Buford. The young Daves was twenty-one years old and in love with Petra Edmonds, the seventeen-year-old across the street. They had known each other during the five years since his family moved to Tombstone. Petra had befriended George and over time their friendship turned to love. George wished to make her his bride but before he proposed, he wanted to have an honest amount of money, enough to provide her with a comfortable home and financial security. So he left Tombstone for the silver mines located forty-five minutes away
from Casa Grande. For nine months he toiled in the mines, enduring many backbreaking hardships. When George returned, prepared to propose, he discovered that Petra had turned her attentions toward another young man. He was heartbroken-his dreams shattered-and his heartache soon turned into rage.

On April 14, 1888, George loaded a gun and walked across the street to Petra's house. As she ran from him, heading for her front porch, George fired the gun four times, hitting her twice and severely wounding her. The first bullet entered the top of her right shoulder resulting in a rather minor flesh wound - but the other bullet entered her back, just to the right of the lowest point of her shoulder blade, passing through the right lung and coming out on the left of her right armpit. Horrified and grief-stricken, assuming her injuries were fatal, George then turned the gun on himself, pointed it to his right temple and took his own life. He died almost instantly. However, in a miraculous and ironic twist of fate, Petra's wounds turned out not to be fatal. A doctor by the name of Goodfellow attended her wounds and was able to remove the bullet and save Petra from death. She lived another 70 years without her star-crossed lover.

(The preceding information was condensed from an article written by Douglas D. Martin, published April 14, 1888, in The Tombstone Epitaph.)

Over the years, George's old house has been home to some of Tombstone's most prominent citizens, including two sheriffs, a mayor, a marshal and a state senator. And no, the Earps never owned the property. Brenda Reger opened the Buford House as a Bed and Breakfast in 1990. In 1999, Richard and Ruth Allen purchased the Buford House and have been making improvements ever since.

The Allens like their guests to feel special (including the guest who prefers to hang around unseen) and so carry on the tradition of providing a hearty, homestyle country breakfast each morning. There is a territorial-style wraparound porch where guests can relax to that slower pace that Tombstone seems to emit. The Buford House Bed and Breakfast's laid-back atmosphere is enhanced by the goldfish in the pond, the gardens and the birds that flock to the feeders. Coming here is like visiting Grandma's house in the country (except Grandma's house probably doesn't have ghosts!).