In downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, stands the Rio Grande Train Depot, today the Utah State Historical Society. Built in the early 1900s, the building served the Rio Grande Western Railroad until just after World War II.
The railroad years are where the Rio Grande’s ghost stories begin. It is said that during the depot’s construction, a worker was killed as he toiled on the tunnel connecting the depot to the adjacent power plant. Today, visitors to the depot report seeing the figure of a man walking the halls. It’s clear he’s not from the land of the living and vanishes without warning.
The most famous ghost is that of the Purple Lady, the vengeful spirit of a jilted lover. Legend has it that, in life, the Purple Lady was seeing her fiancé off to war at the depot. Something happened and the couple began to argue. In a fit of rage, the man took her engagement ring and threw it onto the tracks. The woman ran to retrieve it… failing to see the train barreling toward her. She was killed when it struck.
Visitors to the depot sometimes tell of a sudden, oppressive atmosphere that descends suddenly and without explanation. They look around to see a woman in a purple dress and black hair standing where no one had been a moment earlier. She glares, heartbreak mixing with anger, before fading away.