Finding Ghosts at the Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, Colorado

If you go to the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park looking for the “Overlook Hotel” from the Stephen King novel and the movie “The Shining”, you won’t find it. Although the Stanley was the inspiration, The Overlook Hotel is the ghost hotel that doesn’t exist. Even the movie was filmed in England, but with a brief, cameo appearance of the exterior of the “Timberline Lodge” in Mount Hood, Oregon. Nonetheless, The Stanley has a few ghosts of its own and was the site for the “made-for-TV” movie filmed in the mid 90’s.

In 1903, Freelan Oscar Stanley and his wife Flora came to Colorado from Massachusetts seeking relief from tuberculosis in the clean, dry air of the Rocky Mountains. They built an eastern style home among the rustic accommodations of Estes Park. Through a series of events, they decided to build a hotel and broke ground 100 years ago in 1907. The hotel opened for business June 22, 1909, but the real story of the hotel began in late September of 1974.

On the last day of the season in 1974, Stephen King and his wife Tabitha checked into room 217 of the Stanley as the hotel’s only guests. In the quiet solitude of the mountains and tucked away in a huge, old hotel, King’s imagination was triggered. The imagination that just finished “Carrie” and “Salem’s Lot” found inspiration at the Stanley, and “The Shine” took form. The title comes from a line in John Lennon’s “Instant Karma” that says, “And we all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun” Maybe it was his way of affirming a belief in the afterlife. Still, none of the ghosts from the book or either movie ever visited the Stanley. They were residents only in King’s mind brought to life by his imagination. The Stanley doesn’t need more ghosts. It has plenty of its own.

In addition to sightings in each of the many meeting rooms, special rooms and dining rooms, at least 12 of the guest rooms have accommodated spirit visitors. We can only guess how many other noises, voices and images were not reported and were cast aside as just something odd, unusual or went completely unnoticed. F.O. Stanley and his wife are said to be frequent guests themselves. They loved the old place so much it seems they don’t want to leave. People have reported F.O. shooting pool in the Billiard Room even though there are no tables in there anymore. Music is heard on occasion coming from the Music Room when no one is present. This was Flora Stanley’s favorite room and people suspect