State file · CO
Haunted places in Colorado
What are the most haunted places in Colorado? The best-known are The Stanley Hotel, Cheesman Park and Brown Palace Hotel.
Colorado’s ghost lore was built on gold, silver and sickness. The 1858–59 Pike’s Peak gold rush created Denver almost overnight, silver made Leadville, Georgetown and Aspen boom and bust, and from the 1870s thousands of people with tuberculosis – “lungers” – came to the dry mountain air hoping to be cured. Grand hotels, sanatoriums, mining camps and hastily laid-out cemeteries followed, and with them the stories.
- 3 hauntings
- 12 recorded sightings
- 1 news story
Haunted places in Colorado
The Stanley Hotel
The 1909 Rocky Mountain resort that inspired Stephen King’s The Shining, where guests report a phantom pianist, a tidy maid and children’s laughter. Widely reported
Cheesman Park
A leafy Denver park laid out over the old city cemetery, where thousands of graves were never moved after a botched removal in 1893. Regional legend
Brown Palace Hotel
Denver’s triangular 1892 grand hotel – scene of a sensational 1911 double killing – whose historians lead haunted tours each October. Local legendThe ghost lore of Colorado
The state’s most famous haunted building owes its fame to fiction. A single night in 1974 at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park gave Stephen King the idea for The Shining, and the hotel’s ghost reputation has grown ever since. Denver’s stories are rooted in harder history: the old city cemetery under Cheesman Park, where thousands of graves were never moved after a scandalous removal in 1893, and the grand hotels where the city’s elite lived, celebrated and sometimes died.
Ghost hunters head for Denver’s Capitol Hill and downtown, the mountain resort and mining towns of Estes Park, Cripple Creek, Leadville, Georgetown and Glenwood Springs, and the castles and spa buildings of Manitou Springs. Most of these are hotels, museums and public parks that welcome visitors, with tours concentrated around Halloween.
Ghost-hunting hotspots
- Estes Park
The gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park and home of the Stanley Hotel, with year-round ghost tours.
- Denver’s Capitol Hill
Victorian mansions, the Molly Brown House and Cheesman Park make it the heart of Denver ghost-walk country.
- Cripple Creek
A gold-camp-turned-casino town whose old hotels, jail museum and cemetery feature in local ghost tours.
- Leadville
A high-altitude silver-boom town of Victorian hotels, saloons and opera houses with a long list of legends.
- Manitou Springs
A mineral-springs resort town known for Miramont Castle and its own autumn ghost tours.
- Glenwood Springs
The hot-springs town where the Hotel Colorado and Doc Holliday’s grave anchor its ghost lore.
Timeline
- 21 May 1892On the cover of Scientific American Brown Palace Hotel
The magazine featured the hotel’s iron and steel skeleton as a pioneering fireproof structure. The Brown Palace opened later that year.
- 19 March 1893“The Work of Ghouls” Cheesman Park
The Denver Republican exposed the contractor’s handling of the unclaimed remains. The contract was cancelled and the removal was never completed.
- 8 May 1905Roosevelt visits Brown Palace Hotel
Theodore Roosevelt became the first sitting president to visit the hotel, at a lavish banquet that began its long association with the White House.
- 1907The park is finished Cheesman Park
Landscaping was completed over the former cemetery, with thousands of graves still in place. The park was later named for Denver pioneer Walter Cheesman.
- 4 July 1909The Stanley opens The Stanley Hotel
F. O. Stanley’s grand hotel opened as a summer resort and health retreat at the gateway to what would become Rocky Mountain National Park.
- 24 May 1911Shooting in the Marble Bar Brown Palace Hotel
Frank Henwood killed Tony von Phul and bystander George Copeland in the hotel bar, the culmination of a society love triangle that gripped Denver.
- 25 June 1911Gas explosion injures a chambermaid The Stanley Hotel
A day after gas pipes were filled for auxiliary lighting, an explosion damaged part of the hotel and injured a maid and several waiters. The maid survived; later lore attaches her to Room 217.
- 1974Stephen King’s night at the Stanley The Stanley Hotel
King and his wife stayed as the hotel was closing for winter. The empty corridors and dining room inspired The Shining, published in 1977.
- 1997The Shining filmed on site The Stanley Hotel
King’s television miniseries of The Shining, directed by Mick Garris, used the Stanley as the Overlook Hotel, fusing the real building with the fictional one.
- 2010Skeletons uncovered Cheesman Park
According to the Denver Post, several intact skeletons were found during work in the park – a reminder that the old cemetery is still there.
- 15 October 2010Ghost Adventures investigates The Stanley Hotel
The Travel Channel series broadcast an investigation of the hotel, one of many paranormal shows to film there.
- October 2011Haunted tours advertised Brown Palace Hotel
The hotel’s blog promoted historian-led haunted tours twice a week through October, one of several seasons in which it has offered them.
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