El Paso has only, officially, existed since 1850 but its history goes much farther back. Its first indigenous peeps were here for centuries before Europeans arrived in the 1500’s.

That’s a long time and over the course of the last several hundred years, a lot has happened here and it hasn’t all been good.

READ MORE: El Paso’s Scariest Places

El Paso has tons of ghosts, especially in the downtown area and I think I know why downtown has so many more than other areas. It’s pretty simple really, a Hollywood cliché.

For years, visitors and indigenous peeps fought over the area and in the 1800’s, as what would become the downtown area of El Paso grew; things got really violent. That period of lawlessness and sudden death are why some think downtown is so ghost heavy.

Why Is Downtown El Paso So Haunted?

Here comes the Hollywood cliché part, are you ready? Downtown El Paso was built on an old cemetery. Not an ancient Indian burial ground or land cursed by a Shaman or something along those horror movie lines. It was a regular cemetery, established near where, (today), Santa Fe Street and Franklin Avenue meet.

The whole “cursed land” thing really would have been trademark, Hollywood shtick. This wasn’t that sinister though, just a plain old cemetery on the (then) edge of town like zillions of others across the country.

Once it was decided we needed a downtown more than a graveyard, up went the buildings and who knows where the bodies went. If anywhere. Over the years, skeletons from that era have been found all over as the city overgrew it.

To the east of downtown, Concordia cemetery was established in 1856 and is also said to be haunted AF.  Lot’s of people, including Jelly Roll’s wife, ghost hunt there regularly and quite often spot “things”.

Some of those “mean spirited” spirits are probably those that weren’t properly treated when I-10, which splits the cemetery in 2, was built. There have actually been several “old school” cemeteries throughout El Paso’s history, read more here.

Haunted El Paso Neighborhoods

Haunted History: Texas Landmarks Where the Past Still Walks

Gallery Credit: Chaz