Death Valley’s Ghost: Headless Joseph “Hooch” Simpson
Skidoo is a ghost town located in a remote section of Death Valley National Park with a fascinating and disturbing history. Like many formally boom towns in the Death Valley Skidoo was once bustling with mining money. Between 1906 and 1917, about 75,000 ounces of gold was pulled from the slopes of the Panamint Mountains. An old mill still stands to this day.
You can drive there today… but keep in mind. You may not be alone. The Ghost of Joseph “Hooch” Simpson, the man who was hanged twice, is said to roam the town.
Joseph “Hooch” Simpson, a rotten scoundrel of a man
By most accounts, Joseph “Hooch” Simpson was not the most upstanding citizen. He was a bartender at the Gold Seal Saloon in Skidoo during the town’s heyday. He’s said to have been a drunk and good-for-nothing quarrelsome bum with a penchant for prostitutes.
He is said to have kept a harem of floozies that he rented out to the highest bidders. These soiled doves would ultimately soil him with a case of syphilis.
April 19th, 1908, Simpson gunned down and robbed Jim Arnold in broad daylight, who was a well-respected member of the community and owner of the Skidoo Trading Company. It’s said “Hooch” Simpson, who was likely drunk, walked into the Trading Company and told Arnold his “time had come.” before murdering him in cold blood.
Three days later in the evening, a posse of angry citizens demanding justice overpowered deputies guarding Simpson.
They lynched him. Hanging him from a telegraph pole for all to see. His body was cut down in the morning and buried. Word of the mob justice spread, and reporters started to flock to town. But when they arrived at Skidoo, they were met with tight lips from locals on who was responsible for the lynching and a body already buried.
Joseph “Hooch” Simpson gets hung twice
Seeking to appease the press, locals dug up his body. Then Joseph “Hooch” Simpson‘s dead body was hung again. Once the photos were taken and the articles were published, a local doctor wanted to research the effects of syphilis on the brain. He did an autopsy and, in the process, cut off Hooch’s head, boiled away the flesh, and kept the skull a souvenir that would ultimately become lost to history.
Death Valley Ghost Story
Years later, long after Skidoo’s decline, an old prospector reported seeing a gaunt, headless man wandering erratically through the remnants of the town as if he was desperately looking for something.
To this day, people visiting Skidoo report seeing the headless ghost of Joseph “Hooch” Simpson, stuck in town… searching for his long-lost noggin.
