Pioneer Saloon
Pioneer Saloon is a bar in Goodsprings, Nevada, built in 1913. Historic saloon associated with ghost legends. It sits in the archive under haunted locations, historic taverns and dark history. The dossier holds 2 reported claims, 2 legends and 3 documented facts — documented record and retelling kept side by side. It still pours. For HauntHunt it is exactly the kind of file the archive exists for: a real place, a real record, and a story still being told.
· in your passport — stamped · open it
Is Pioneer Saloon haunted?
The record holds 2 claims, 2 legends — filed as reported, not verified. The heaviest filing is classed documented legend. The archive documents the claim; it takes no position on the ghost.
The record — long form
In 1915, inside a two-year-old tin-walled saloon in Goodsprings, an out-of-work miner named Paul Coski was shot dead across a poker table. The dealer, Joe Armstrong, had caught him cheating — the coroner's report, which hangs framed on the saloon wall to this day, records that Coski was "caught gambling crooked," and the town ruled it justifiable homicide. Three bullet holes in the original stamped tin beside the report are popularly believed to be from that night; the staff note, honestly, that nobody actually knows.
The building itself was ordered through the mail. Clark County commissioner George Fayle put up the saloon and its neighboring general store in 1913 — catalog buildings, pressed-tin walls and ceiling still original — as Goodsprings rode the Yellow Pine Mining Company boom toward a 1916 peak of some 800 residents, nine saloons, and the 20-room Hotel Fayle, advertised as the finest in the West.
The documented record
Prohibition killed every other bar in town; the Pioneer, the sole survivor, sat shuttered until it was reopened in 1960. Fayle himself died in the 1918 flu epidemic. The saloon is now the oldest in Clark County — possibly in southern Nevada — and was added to the state historic register in 2006-07, with its cherrywood Brunswick bar, built in Maine in the late 1800s, still in service.
Then there is the record's asterisk. On January 16, 1942, a TWA flight carrying actress Carole Lombard — returning from a war-bond tour — hit Mount Potosi nearby at 8,200 feet, killing all 22 aboard, Lombard's mother among them. The story goes that Clark Gable waited at the Pioneer for word, burning cigarette holes into the bar top that patrons still poke their fingers into. The record is cooler: Lombard's body had already been recovered before Gable arrived, and while his name does appear on a hotel registry dated January 18, the only two telephones in Goodsprings were elsewhere. A memorial wall and wrought-iron gates now mark what is best filed as beloved legend.
What witnesses file
Paul Coski is the anchor presence — bartenders and the local ghost-hunt operation place him behind the bar he died in front of. Lombard is said to favor the jukebox. Staff who have worked the saloon for years report a woman crying in the women's bathroom when no one is inside, a vintage telephone ringing while unplugged, small practical jokes on the staff, and at least one pizza dish allegedly leaving the bar of its own volition.
Owner Noel Sheckells, who bought the place in the mid-2000s, took the reports seriously enough to let Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures spend a night inside — and moved out to Goodsprings himself to keep the bar running as-is, stamped tin and all.
What remains
Goodsprings is called a ghost town with about 200 residents still in it, and the Pioneer is its reason for visitors: a mining-era saloon where the bullet holes are real if misattributed, the coroner's report is genuine, the Gable story is probably false, and the ghosts — Coski's chief among them — are the only patrons the record shows never settling their tab.
The long record
- 1913Built
Bar constructed
- 1913Opened
Opened to use
- 1913History
The saloon dates to 1913; a 1915 card-game shooting left documented bullet holes in the walls. An old bar with its history on record gives the dossier a verified foundation. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. The detail is preserved in 'Pioneer Saloon'. The date is part of the site's documented spine.
The record of claims
Travel Nevada recounts apparitions at Pioneer Saloon linked to a gambler killed at the card table and to Carole Lombard — the actress mourned at the bar after her 1942 plane crash on Potosi Mountain. The saloon keeps both: a bullet hole in the wall and the counter where Clark Gable waited three days for news.
Staff report a card-player's presence near the bullet-marked wall and a woman's voice attributed to the Lombard vigil — the two documented wounds in the saloon's history, still producing reports. The bullet hole is real; the vigil was real; the presences are the saloon's way of not letting either close.
Travel Nevada recounts stories linking alleged apparitions to a gambler and Carole Lombard. The bar's reports are the kind old establishments accumulate — footsteps after close, presences in empty rooms. It's a documented legend: the telling is real, the contents remain folklore. The account appears in '13 Ways to Creep into Nevada’s Haunted History'. The retelling is the record now — the legend metabolized the facts long ago.
Staff report a card-player’s presence near the bullet-marked wall and a woman’s voice attributed to the Lombard vigil. Pioneer Saloon, a bar in Goodsprings, Nevada, keeps the story on the menu alongside everything else it serves. It survives as local folklore, which is to say it survives because people keep telling it. The legend does what legends do — it explains the place in a way the records can't.
Two accounts on file
BAR
SALOON
Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite.
Historic saloon associated with ghost legends.
1913 tin-sided saloon tied to Carole Lombard’s 1942 plane crash.
Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite.
Pass 1 source-grounded discovery; independent historical verification, coordinates and current access still pending. Confidence measures attribution quality, not paranormal reality.
New record from encyclopedia/official-source pass; VERIFY task auto-queued for primary-source corroboration.
Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite.
Documented history
The saloon opened in 1913. The bar in Goodsprings, Nevada has a documented past — this entry belongs to that layer, not the lore. The press recorded it; the detail stands as reported history. '13 Ways to Creep into Nevada’s Haunted History' documents the entry. The date is part of the site's documented spine.
Media reportedTravel NevadaThe saloon dates to 1913; a 1915 card-game shooting left documented bullet holes in the walls. An old bar with its history on record gives the dossier a verified foundation. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. The detail is preserved in 'Pioneer Saloon'. The date is part of the site's documented spine.
After Lombard’s 1942 crash on nearby Mount Potosi, Clark Gable waited at the saloon for news. The bar's documented history in Goodsprings, Nevada is the record the rest of the file stands on. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. The record appears in 'Pioneer Saloon'. The record keeps it — history, not lore.
Verified historyWikipedia
Sources on file
- 0113 Ways to Creep into Nevada’s Haunted HistoryTravel Nevada · tourism · A3
- 02Pioneer SaloonWikipedia · encyclopedia · A4
- 03Pioneer Saloon — official sitePioneer Saloon · official site · A3
Field notes & open questions
Pass 1 source-grounded discovery; independent historical verification, coordinates and current access still pending. Confidence measures attribution quality, not paranormal reality.