Two haunted houses and three ghost tours raise money for Cortez causes
Senior Services, the Heritage Museum and downtown businesses are the beneficiaries of this year's Halloween calendar. Here is where the money goes, and when the doors open.
Halloween in Cortez this year is a fundraiser with a fog machine. Two haunted houses and three different ghost tours are running over the next two weeks, and most of the ticket money is headed to a local cause.
The haunted houses
All Weather Storage is hosting a haunted house on October 22 through 25 and October 29 through 31, 6 to 10 p.m. each night. A portion of the proceeds goes to Montezuma County Senior Services, which serves Cortez, Dolores and Mancos, and The Valley, a Cortez rehabilitation and senior care center, has said it will match the donated proceeds.
Off the Bench Cortez runs its annual downtown haunted house on Fridays and Saturdays, October 23 and 24 and October 30 and 31, 7 to 10:30 p.m. The first weekend was October 16 and 17. The Cortez Retail Enhancement Association, which compiled this year’s list of Halloween events, describes it as a family event.
The ghost tours
Cortez Ghost Tours by Squirrel Congress walk from the Old Spanish Trail mural through downtown on Thursday and Friday, October 22 and 23, at 6 p.m., led by a “ghostly guide” with an undertaker in pursuit and a “mad doctor” handing out popsicles from Doctor Popsicles. Proceeds benefit the Montezuma Heritage Museum. Tickets are $30 and the tours are on the Current’s calendar.
Cortez Tours’ Costume Ghost Tour runs Thursday, Friday and Saturday, October 29, 30 and 31, 7 to 8:30 p.m. Anyone who comes in costume gets a $5 gift card to a downtown business. The 90-minute walk covers local legends and the outlaws who passed through, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid among them. The same company’s regular Wild West Ghost Tour ran October 16 and donates part of each ticket to the Heritage Museum; tickets for the costume edition are at corteztours.com.
Also on the calendar
The Current’s events page carries the rest of the season: the Cortez Public Library’s Halloween jigsaw race on October 30, and on October 31 the Mancos Halloween carnival, El Rio Cantina’s trunk-or-treat in Mancos, Halloween with the Moetones, and a not-so-scary dance party for younger children. The Adventist Christian School’s fall festival was Sunday afternoon.
Businesses and organizations with a Halloween event not listed here can submit it to the calendar.
Sources: Cortez Retail Enhancement Association Halloween events post; The Valley and Off the Bench Cortez Facebook posts, Oct. 16–18, 2026 · Cortez Tours · Squirrel Congress