San Francisco Street was Flagstaff's original commercial hub, the street where commerce happened. The Switzer building and Babbitt Brothers storefronts anchored the retail district from the late 1800s.

Before billboards and neon signs, businesses painted advertisements directly on exterior brick walls. These ghost signs, faded but still legible, are among the oldest surviving examples of commercial art in Flagstaff.

Ghost signs are not murals in the traditional sense. They are commercial advertisements from the 1880s through the 1950s, painted directly on brick by sign painters whose names are mostly lost to history.

What makes them remarkable is their persistence. Layers of paint, decades of Arizona sun, and generations of weather have reduced these signs to ghostly impressions, but you can still read the lettering if you know where to look. Your guide Jamie will tell you the rest, including the details you can only see up close.