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Estes Park’s Haunted Stanley Hotel and other Ghostly Hauntings around Colorado
By PK | October 8, 2008
It seems I’m stuck like a needle in the groove of an old 45 record as I continue to muse about ghosts and hauntings after my recent experiences during hunting season. But I assure you, whether you believe and find yourself grossly awed by my current article, or just highly amused because you think its hogwash, either way the information I’m about to bring to you should keep you glued to your seat.
What better time, as we near the Halloween season, to visit haunted cemeteries or buildings, and follow a path to the unknown paranormal that occurs in our daily lives.
The Stanley Hotel, September 2008
The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, is a world class hotel originally built in 1907 and is better known today as one of America’s most haunted hotels and for its inspirational role in Stephen King’s novel, “The Shining”. It is said Stephen King wrote half of “The Shining” in Room 217. The ghosts of The Stanley Hotel aren’t evil as in the book, but are still intriguing.
The fourth floor of the Stanley Hotel, which once housed the servants and employees, is where you’ll see the most activity. The sounds of children playing in the halls can be heard although no children are present. Several couples, who had rooms on the fourth floor, reportedly left the hotel before they were scheduled to leave complaining they could not sleep at night because of the children playing there, but no children had been registered.
Stephen King claims to have seen one of the ghost children at the Stanley. He also stated that the children were the children of a winter caretaker who got ‘cabin fever’ and went insane. The hotel during its early days was closed during the winter and did not have central heating.
The Stanley Hotel, July 2008
The Stanley Hotel’s original owners, F. O. and Flora Stanley, are said to haunt the hotel as well. One of them can be heard playing the piano in the music room, and Mr. Stanley frequents the billiards room and the lobby as well.
Lord Dunraven, who owned the land prior to F. O. Stanley, sometimes occupies Room 407. Reportedly, he likes to stand in the corner of the room near the bathroom door. On one such account, witnesses reported that a light in that corner kept turning off and on. While the light was off, they told the ghost that they knew that he was there, they would only be staying two nights, and would he please turn the light back on. The light turned back on. However, later when the lights were turned off and they were trying to sleep, noises were constantly heard from the nearby elevator during a time when the elevator was not in use. At other times, a ghost has been reported looking out the window of Room 407, when the room is not booked.
The Stanley Hotel, located at 333 Wonderview Ave. in Estes Park, Colorado
Tour guides tell a story of the ghost of a small child reportedly seen in various areas of the hotel. Stephen King reported seeing the child also, calling out to his nanny on the second floor.
Employees have reported numerous apparitions and heard footsteps throughout the building. It is said, that 75 percent of the staff has reported ‘ghost sightings’. The underground tunnels of The Stanley Hotel also have numerous reports of paranormal activity.
Further research states that Room 418 has the most activity, but remains a mystery. I could find no reports of any ghostly apparitions. Perhaps that is the room I’ll request should I find myself needing a room for the night in Estes Park.
The Stanley Hotel offers weekly ‘ghost tours’ for an admission fee of $10.
Who ya gonna call? Ghost Busters!
Colorado has three Paranormal Research and Investigative Teams, that I could find, for their own version of Exploring Colorado. Though intrigued by such a lively career, I much prefer a quieter lifestyle but would love to drag a team nine miles back into the wilderness to ‘visit’ the ghostly apparition I met during hunting season, not once but twice. Read about those stories, here and here.
At www.cprinvestigations.com, you can hear EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) captured at Loveland Cemetery in Loveland, a ghostly voice trying to soothe a baby in a ghost town at Keota, a response to a question in the historic school in Pueblo, a man telling someone, “Don’t look at me”, in The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, and several more voices in cemeteries.
Frontrange Paranormal Investigations has a website full of useful information including past investigations. One particularly interesting one is Columbia Cemetery where the team from ParaFPI has an open investigation since 2002. There were no images, EVPs, videos or other information available, a disappointment there, but after clicking on the link for the Columbia Cemetery at Boulder, I learned of an upcoming “Ghost Meet” being held from noon to 5 pm, Sunday, Oct. 12 at the Columbia Cemetery. The team from ParaFPI will be demonstrating equipment and techniques used in their research.
Columbia Cemetery’s first burial dates back to 1870.
Tom Horn, an ‘Old West’ stock detective that was hanged for killing a 15 year old boy mistook for cattle rustling; Rocky Mountain Joe, a colorful early Boulder photgrapher and painter who died when he fell off the railroad between Globeville & Westminster; Mary Rippon, “Lady of the Evening” Marietta Kingsley, and many other Columbia Cemetery ‘residents’ will rise from the dead to tell their stories. To read more about this event, click here.
At the Masonic Cemetery in Central City, the ParaFPI have documented several stories of hauntings. Check out their archive investigations on their website. Very interesting stuff!
The Rocky Mountain Paranormal team has documented some very eerie stories. Click on ‘investigations’ and browse through their assorted hauntings. They helped investigate The Elk Horn Lodge in Estes Park with Tapps from the TV show. The old lodge dates back to 1871 and is still in use. The Stable behind the main Lodge is the source of reported activity such as strange knockings, full apparitions, and people reporting the feeling of being touched.
Traits of Highly Intuitive People
Want to be more intuitive? From an extensive study of intuitive people reported by Belleruth Naparstek in “Your Sixth Sense,” this is what the highly intuitive person is likely to look like.
1. A woman over 40 with an advanced degree in one of the mental health professions.
2. Says she was born with psychic ability and can point out a parent or grandparent who displayed a lot of it too.
3. Bilateral dominance (two-handedness or two sidedness).
4. An only child.
5. A night owl who sleeps very little with frequent sleep
interruptions.
6. Talent and experience in one or more of the arts.
7. Slightly dyslexic or else an exceptional student and
sometimes both. Greater than average chance of having a
photographic memory or total recall.
8. Lots of experience as a mediator–formally or informally.
9. Tendency to experience phases of temporary endocrine system dysfunction (thyroid gland, adrenals).
10. Great need to spend time alone or in nature on a regular basis.
Hmmm, how many of these traits are in yourself? I’ve counted more than half personally. Could be why ’some of us can see and some of us can’t’.
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Topics: Colorado |
One Response to “Estes Park’s Haunted Stanley Hotel and other Ghostly Hauntings around Colorado”
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October 8th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Hi PK,
You seem to have trodden on a new niche here, and why not, it from you experiences and is fascinating reading. Lots ot take in here but read in the morning not night otherwise no sleep from fear.
Regards from Bulagaria, we have our own ghosts here of course.
Martin