The Clown Motel: America's Scariest Motel

At the beginning of the 20th century, prospectors descended into a stretch of Nevada desert and a mining town exploded around them.

And like a lot of mining towns, Tonopah also accumulated dead people.

Right beside the Clown Motel is the old Tonopah Cemetery.

It opened in 1901 and was used for roughly a decade.

Inside are miners, victims of disease, townspeople, and people killed in accidents and mining disasters.

And one of those graves belongs to a man named Clarence David.

I've actually stood before his grave.

Clarence is important because without him, there's no Clown Motel.

Clarence was a minor.

He was also a father, and apparently he loved clowns, like obsessively loved clowns.

Not terrifying clowns, not killer clowns, not clowns with knives or clowns from outer space, just clowns.

happy smiling clowns.

He collected clown figures and artwork, and then Clarence died.

There's a strange discrepancy in the published history surrounding exactly what Clarence died from, or when he died.

The motel's own history has given a later date, while cemetery research identifies Clarence David as one of the miners killed in the Belmont Mine fire on February 23rd, 1911.

So even Clarence's story has a little mystery attached to it.

But what matters to our story is what happened decades later.

In 1985, Clarence's children, Leona and Leroy, opened a motel right beside the cemetery where their father was buried.

And inside, they displayed approximately 150 clowns from their father's collection.

The Clown Motel was born.

That's the part of the story I love, because look at this place now.

It's known as America's scariest motel.

People come here because they're afraid of it.

But that wasn't the idea.

It was actually kind of sweet.