by Kathleen Spring

Created on: January 31, 2010   Last Updated: July 08, 2010

Yes, there are ghosts at the Stanley Hotel, but they are rarely seen and mind their own business. In all my years as a guide at the hotel, neither I nor any of my fellow guides have ever seen a ghost. Not even during the Halloween tours. It is usually from stories handed down by staff that we learn about the ghosts who have made the Stanley Hotel their ethereal home.

When Stephen King wrote the book “The Shining,” many people began to come to Estes Park, Colorado to check out the Stanley Hotel and see for themselves. They try to stay in the room that King stayed in, to see if some of the ghosts from his horror novel would appear. The truth is that even King did not see ghosts. He and his wife were on vacation during the slow early winter months of 1974, and tourists had vacated the hotel. He is said to have based his book more on his feelings of isolation, rather than any ghost sightings.

In its early days, the Stanley Hotel was one of the grand hotels of America. F. O. Stanley and his brother F. E. Stanley had made a small fortune with their dry vs. wet process photograph development out East. F. O. had come down with tuberculosis, so he and his wife followed the crowds to the dry mountain air for a cure. It worked, and he lived a few more decades, showing his thanks to the town by turning it into a modern busy vacation destination.

Not only did F. O. open his hotel in 1909, but he helped the town start a bank, build roads, and developed electricity for the area. The brothers invented the Stanley Steamer, which was a powerful car that could bring vacationers over the rocky mountain roads to Estes Park, which many claim was the start of automobile tourism. Previously the rich would arrive on trains and go straight to their hotel.

With all of his happy memories of regaining his health and contributing to the economic prosperity of Estes Park, it seems perfectly fitting that his ghost will occasionally be seen sitting on the grand porch of the Stanley Hotel. Some people think they have seen him playing billiards in the now empty men's game room.

His wife Flora was a proper east coast woman, and she was willing to stay in this wilderness if Stanley would accommodate her with a Georgian Revival-style home. Both the hotel and their home followed the formal style in the midst of the many rustic wood lodgings. She also wanted a piano in the sitting room of the hotel, where she could play for herself or guests.

Yes, there are still times when the piano

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