Haunted Crook Tunnel in Benson
The deserts of the United States’ Southwest have claimed many lives over the years, their unrelenting heat and deadly inhabitants making each trip perilous and risky. Eventually, travel was simplified, and settlements started to become interconnected via a network of railroads. Among them was the El Paso & Southwestern line, which cut through Benson, Arizona. Near Benson, travelers would come to a tunnel cut into the rock, one side of its exterior unpolished and left natural.
It’s at this tunnel that a tragic story bubbles to the surface, reminding all of the gruesome details that left one man broken and dying in Crook Tunnel. To the casual eye, it’s merely a tunnel, the small light on the opposite end lending minimal illumination to light the way. To those who know the history of the Benson tunnel and have heard tales of the tragic accident that befell the otherwise innocuous stretch of railway in the early 20th century, it’s a resting ground for an unfortunate soul forever trapped within its darkened confines.
Why is the Crook Tunnel Haunted?
The construction of any railroad is bound to come with its fair share of horror stories. However, records of the development of Crook Tunnel don’t mention any loss of life. That doesn’t come until a decade after development began, several years after the train started passing through the tunnel.
As the story goes, a drunk man was found one evening in 1912 in the darkness of the tunnel, battered and nearly dismembered. It’s believed a train hit him as he was passing through the tunnel, killing him. The now-abandoned railway is a breeding ground for stories of the otherworldly and attracts amateur ghost hunters seeking a sign of what awaits on the other side.
Uncover more tales of Arizona’s dark past on a chilling Phoenix ghost tour. Book your experience to visit many haunted sites of the Valley of the Sun.
Simplifying Traversal in the Southwest
If you want to travel from El Paso to Bisbee, Arizona, today, it would be a little over four hours driving along I-9 and I-80. It’s a simple route that merely requires some road music and possibly a stop-off for gas. Rewind the clock to the late 19th century, shortly after Brisbee was settled in southern Arizona by a civilian tracker who stumbled upon signs of lead and copper, and that trip is considerably longer and far more perilous.
Needing a more conventional means of traveling to other towns, the Southern Pacific Railroad laid the foundation for a route that would ultimately connect El Paso, TX, with Douglas, a city set east of Bisbee. As more and more of Arizona was connected by the railway, additional lines were added and landscapes were altered to accommodate.
Among these accommodations was the Crook Tunnel, a rocky formation jutting from Arizona’s soil impeding the progress of a train through Benson. Rocky on one side and reinforced with grey brick on the other, the tunnel is presented as a safe passageway, but as passengers soon found out, safety was merely an illusion.
The Rock Slide at Crook Tunnel
One of Crook Tunnel’s biggest hazards is the rock-lined hill that surrounded trains as they passed through. A single shift in the ground could result in them crashing down, which several did during one train’s run through the tunnel in 1905.
The details of this first incident have been passed down from generation to generation, but the reality of what actually happened has been lost to time. According to the most popular version, only three years after the tunnel was completed, rocks dislodged from the wall and slammed into the side of a passenger train. One version states that the rocks simply blocked the tunnel and required passengers to remove them.
In the former version, though, it’s believed that several passengers were killed. Whispers of their untimely passing mark the tunnel for a supernatural presence, which may explain some of the activity experienced by curious passersby. However, there’s a more widely known tale that has few variations, one that would put a restless, angered spirit in the heart of the tunnel.
The Death of Henry A. Marks
For seven years after the rock slide incident, Crook Tunnel and the railway line that ran through it experienced no additional notable events. Then, on an otherwise normal evening in 1912, a man traveling from Bisbee, a town more than 40 miles south of Benson, Arizona, crossed into the tunnel.
Possibly in an alcoholic haze, as he was believed to have been inebriated when he left Bisbee, Henry A. Marks either didn’t hear the train barreling down on him or had nowhere to go as it sped through the carved-out passageway. Whatever the reason, an evening train struck him, breaking his arms and legs, nearly severing one completely. It’s unclear if Marks survived the initial impact from the train, but he was dead as he was dead by the time he was found hours later.
As Mark’s body waited to be found, his blood soaked into the very dirt and rock propping up the manmade passage. It’s not unfathomable that his presence remains a permanent fixture within the tunnel, his spirit angered by the carelessness of the conductor that hit him and left him in the cold of Crook Tunnel.
Haunting Crook Tunnel
Though a symbol of progress that connected two towns in a time where speedy travel was rare, Crook Tunnel’s history is sullied by its dark past. With one known death and a potential for more tied to the 1905 rockslide, there’s a heavy air that lingers. Is it the ghost of Henry A. Marks, the hapless man struck down by an oncoming train? Or perhaps it’s a restless soul from an earlier unknown accident, forever tied to the very thing that killed them. Whoever roams the dark of the tunnel, their presence is unmistakable.
Want even more haunting stories from the deserts surrounding Phoenix? Book your Phoenix ghost tour for an overview of some of Arizona’s spookiest haunts. Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and check in with our blog often for horrific tales from the Southwest.
Sources:
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/experiences/arizona/haunted-tunnel-az
