{"id":1801,"slug":"fosters-hotel-chama-new-mexico","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Chama was a railroad instant town: when the Denver & Rio Grande's narrow gauge arrived in 1881, the Santa Fe press reported the settlement was 'fast gaining a reputation for lawlessness' and tagged it 'the Hurrah town at the front of the Narrow Gauge.' Foster's Hotel rose about then at Fourth and Terrace — a two-story wood-frame lodging house with a saloon and dance hall and, by reputation, a brothel upstairs. Wings were added around 1927 and 1932; it is the only commercial building in town to have survived Chama's fires, and it has been on the National Register since 1986."]},{"heading":"The closed second floor","paragraphs":["The old wing's upper story is closed to guests, and the filed reports concentrate there, three rooms deep. In the southwest corner: a woman elected local judge in the late 1800s, said to have been poisoned through her water pitcher by men who objected to her office — her choking and gasping reportedly still heard, with cold spots. Across the hall: a girl who died of illness in the hotel more than a century ago, heard crying at night by bar staff who find the floor locked and empty. Down the south side: an unidentified railroad-era cowboy whose footsteps walk the boards above the bar after close. Rooms 21 and 25 add a dark figure and shifting temperatures to the file."]},{"heading":"What the record supports","paragraphs":["The judge's election and poisoning have no documentary spine yet — territorial newspapers are silent where the legend is loud — so the file keeps her as Chama's most elaborate unverified story, layered over a building whose survival through fire, lawlessness, and railroad decline is fully on record."]}],"name":"Foster’s Hotel","aliases":["Foster Hotel & Cafe","Foster’s Hotel, Saloon & Restaurant"],"type":"HOTEL","type_label":"Hotel","cats":["HAUNTED_LOCATION"],"groups":["hauntings","lodging"],"desc":"Hotel associated with several local ghost stories.","full_desc":"A hotel in Chama, New Mexico, Foster’s Hotel is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Hotel associated with several local ghost stories. It sits in the archive under haunted locations. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 1 legend, every one filed as account rather than fact. Visitor status is unverified; confirm before making the trip.","address":null,"city":"Chama","county":null,"state":"New Mexico","postal":null,"region":"West","lat":36.890126,"lon":-106.584163,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"UNKNOWN","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Pass 1 source-grounded discovery; independent historical verification, coordinates and current access still pending. Confidence measures attribution quality, not paranormal reality.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"LOW","score":43.1,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0,"source_quality":0.6,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":930,"type":"CRYING","description":"New Mexico Tourism Department recounts stories of a crying girl and wandering cowboy. A hotel in Chama, New Mexico with more than a century of check-ins gives the reports plenty of rooms to work with. 'Haunted New Mexico' preserves the telling; the record keeps it filed where it belongs, as lore. The sounds are the site's most consistent claim — the one detail witnesses agree on.","evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","evidence_label":"Documented legend","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.6,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Haunted New Mexico","url":"https://www.newmexico.org/haunted/","publisher":"New Mexico Tourism Department","type":"TOURISM","authority":3},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"New Mexico Tourism Department recounts stories of a crying girl and wandering cowboy. Foster’s Hotel, a hotel in Chama, New Mexico, has kept the story in circulation longer than most of its guest registers. The story is documented as legend — recorded and retold, never verified as fact. As folklore it's unkillable: the story is too good, and the place too fitting, to let go.","earliest":null,"evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","source":{"name":"Haunted New Mexico","url":"https://www.newmexico.org/haunted/","publisher":"New Mexico Tourism Department","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}}],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Haunted New Mexico","url":"https://www.newmexico.org/haunted/","publisher":"New Mexico Tourism Department","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":1,"history":0,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":1}}