Lore - Episode 10: Steam & Gas
Episode Date: July 12, 2015The well-worn carpets and imperfect walls of an old hotel can often make guests feel as if they are staying in a little slice of the past. In one grand old hotel, however, that truth has never been mo...re true. ———————————————— Lore Resources: Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources Lore News: www.theworldoflore.com/now Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Ask any group of people
where they feel the most safe.
And the answer is almost universal.
Their own house.
It's a place they know well,
where they've built a life and crafted wonderful memories.
A home sweet home is, for many people,
an immutable law.
But what happens when we leave
the safety of our homes and travel?
And once outside our comfortable safe haven,
we often find ourselves exposed to what awaits us.
Some people are more courageous than others, of course,
but travel can be a source of fear for many.
Hodo-phobia is the fear of travel.
And while the vast majority of people
necessarily suffer from a clinical fear
of leaving their homes,
many do struggle with strange places.
And no place can feel more foreign
and strange to a traveler, in my opinion at least,
than the places where thousands upon thousands
of guests have stayed.
Perhaps it's the well-worn carpets,
or the imperfect walls and ceilings
that make us feel uneasy.
Noisy plumbing, finicky lights,
and the sounds of a settling structure
can leave even the best of us feeling
a bit out of our element.
No other place in the United States
can cause that uneasy feeling
more than the often-forgotten mountain lodge
built over a century ago
in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains.
Despite its classic architecture
and lavish decor,
there is very little inside that feels safe.
And I'd like to take you there.
I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore.
They were twin wonders.
Freeland and Francis Stanley
were born in Maine in 1849.
They had five other siblings,
two of whom were also twins,
but something was different about Freeland and his brother.
They were exceptional students,
quick learners,
and gifted with an unusual mechanical aptitude.
As nine-year-olds,
they were using their father's lathe
to craft wooden tops,
which they sold to their classmates.
At the age of 10,
they were taught how to make violins
by their paternal grandfather.
It was said that those instruments
were concert quality.
Freeland was a lifelong passion
for building things.
After a short career as a teacher
and principal,
Freeland Stanley went into business with his brother,
refining and marketing
a photographic process known as dryplating.
It was a revolutionary change,
allowing even amateur photographers
to take quality images.
So revolutionary, in fact,
that the Eastman Kodak Company
purchased the technology in the late 1800s,
making the brothers very, very wealthy.
From there, the Wonder Twins
moved into the world of motorcars.
Their first automobile was built in 1897,
and by 1899,
it was the best-selling motorcar
in the country.
Because of its unique steam-powered engine,
the automobile was called the Stanley Steamer.
It was the steamer,
along with a few other smaller businesses,
that helped turn the twins
into tycoons in their own right.
In 1903,
Freeland was diagnosed with tuberculosis,
sometimes referred to as the wasting sickness.
At the age of 53,
he had dropped to just 118 pounds,
and his doctors told him
that he had six months to live at the most.
So, like many people of that era,
Stanley traveled west
to the clean mountain air
of Colorado.
And that's where he discovered
Estes Park.
Freeland and his wife Flora
fell in love with the setting.
They built a home there almost immediately,
and after somehow shaking the tuberculosis,
the couple returned
every summer thereafter.
He and his tailored suits
and pointy gray beard,
she and her high-coloured floral gowns.
But it was another building they constructed there,
a massive,
grand hotel
that has left the most lasting mark.
Built to the tune of nearly half a million dollars,
the Stanley Hotel
opened its doors in
1909,
featuring guests ever since.
The Stanley Hotel
was a modern marvel in its day.
It featured a hydraulic elevator,
electricity throughout,
running water, telephones,
and even a fleet of Stanley's own
steam-powered mountain wagons
to ferry guests straight from the train station
to the front door of the hotel.
It had nearly 300 rooms,
466 windows,
a music room with a grand piano,
a billiard room, restaurant,
a ballroom, and three floors of guest rooms.
And that's just
inside the hotel.
Outside and scattered around the property
were staff dormitories,
a concert hall, the eggs house,
carriage house, managers home,
and many others.
A private airstrip was even built on the property
at some point, although it's been abandoned
for decades.
Over the years, the Stanley Hotel
has played host to a number of famous guests.
John Philip Souza, the famous conductor,
not only stayed there frequently,
but he would tune the piano in the music room
and record the dates inside the lid.
Other guests have checked in there as well,
including Titanic survivor Molly Brown,
President Theodore Roosevelt,
Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash,
and Barbara Streisand.
And Freeland Stanley?
The tuberculosis never got him.
He died in 1940
at the age of 91,
just a year after his wife Flora passed away.
But while the couple was no longer
there to oversee the hotel's
day-to-day business,
one thing has been very clear
to those who work there today.
The Stanleys, it seems.
Never checked out.
In July of 2009,
a tourist in the lobby of the hotel
approached her friends with
complete shock.
She had been shopping for postcards in the gift shop
and had exited the store
while reading the backs of the ones she had purchased.
According to her story,
she had her head down
when a pair of pant legs came into view.
She did the polite thing
and stepped to the side to allow the man to pass,
but when she did,
she claims the legs moved to block her new path.
Taken aback,
she raised her head to scold the man
for his rudeness,
but stopped when a wave of cold air rushed over her.
The man, according to her,
was dressed in clothing
that seemed out of place
and his pointy beard had an old-fashioned
look to it.
She then watched as the man walked away
toward the lobby fireplace,
where he vanished, out of sight.
After rushing over
to her friends to tell them what had happened,
she was approached by another woman
who happened to overhear their conversation.
This woman led the tourist toward
the antique Stanley steamer automobile
that sits in the hotel lobby
and pointed toward the photo
of Freeland Stanley on the wall behind it.
The tourist was astonished.
The man she had just seen
with her own eyes
had been dead for over 60 years.
Mr. Stanley has also been seen
in the billiard room,
a favorite location of his during his time
at the hotel. According to one report,
a group of tourists were once
through that room when a vision of Stanley
appeared behind one of them.
Mr. Stanley also seems to have
a soft spot for his beloved rocking chair
on the front porch. Visible from
the front desk through the large lobby windows,
it has been witnessed by many
to be rocking on its own volition.
But if Mr. Stanley
really has remained behind in the hotel
after a death, then he is
apparently not alone.
In February of
1984, the
night Bellman was working the front desk
when he heard footsteps coming from
the direction of the hotel bar, known as
the Cascades. The Bellman leaned over
the counter to peer around the corner
and in the reflection of the lobby windows
he was able to see the figure of a woman.
She wore a pale gown
that he described as off the shoulder
in a southern bell style.
The Bellman quickly exited
the front desk area through a backdoor way,
but when he arrived in the side hall
near the windows, no one was there.
During an overnight shift in 1976
the clerk at the front desk reported hearing
piano music. She left
the desk and entered the music room
where the sound was coming from,
but found it empty. According
to her, however, the piano keys
were still moving
on their own.
In 1994, a guest
heard similar music from the direction
of the music room and stepped inside.
He claimed to see a young woman
sitting at the piano,
then he approached so he could watch
and listen while she played.
As he walked across the room, though,
the girl transformed into an elderly woman
before completely disappearing.
The standleys have frequently
been sighted on the main staircase
in formal attire and even
in the elevator. The encounters are
never violent or malevolent,
but they frighten guests and staff nonetheless.
Bartenders there in the
Cascades claim they have even seen
the deceased owner strolling through the bar.
Some have even given chase,
only to lose sight of his ghost
as it vanished into the walls.
Whether or not you believe in ghosts,
the frequency of the reports
is enough to make you wonder.
From glowing orbs caught on film
to the faint sound of piano music
drifting into the lobby,
there seems to be no lack of fuel
for the legends that fill those halls.
But it's not just
the standleys who haunt the hotel.
Sightings have been reported
throughout the structures for stories
with a vast majority of them
occurring in the most unwelcome
of places.
The guest rooms.
In the early 1900s, many
visitors to the Stanley Hotel
would stay for more than a weekend.
In many cases, guests would stay
through the summer, and that meant
arriving equipped for months
of living abroad.
Those of us who have spent the past few years
watching the British television show
Downton Abbey might be familiar with the process.
The gentlemen and ladies would arrive
by carriage, in this case steam powered
of course, along with
caravan of servants and luggage.
And while the wealthy guests had access
to the many finely appointed rooms
of the hotel, the servants
and children were relegated
to the fourth floor.
This was an era when children were expected
to be seen, but not heard.
And so they played in the rooms and halls
far above the heads of the other guests.
They slept there, they played there,
and even ate there in a small
windowless corner of the upstairs
kitchen.
These days the fourth floor is just one more level
of guest rooms. According to many
accounts however, that doesn't mean
the children are gone.
Many of these stories center
around room 418.
There have been reports
of the sound of balls bouncing in the dark.
Of high childlike voices
laughing and talking in the hall
outside the room.
Of metal jacks on wooden flooring
and the pounding of little feet.
Guests have been startled
out of their sleep by voices and sounds.
Some of which have even been captured
on video.
Even the staff have had experiences.
The cleaning staff always enter the room
with a bit of fear due to the many
odd things they have witnessed inside
room 418. The television
has been known to turn on and off on its own.
And on at least one occasion
a housekeeper has turned to see that the
bed she has just made up now
has the deep impression of a body in
the bedspread.
The room with the most activity though
is on the second floor and there are
legends as to why.
It is said that in 1911
a thunderstorm caused a power outage
in the hotel, sending the building into
complete darkness.
It was dinner time and thankfully
most of the guests were downstairs in the McGregor
ballroom. But the staff still needed
to provide a temporary fix for
the lack of light.
Because the Stanley Hotel was built at a time
of transition between gas and electric
lamps, the fixtures throughout the
hotel were equipped to do both.
With the building in darkness,
staff were sent from
room to room with candles
to light each a settling gas lamp.
But when one of the chamber
maids, a woman named Elizabeth
Wilson, entered room 217,
something
happened.
It should be said that this room was the presidential
suite. It was enormous
and elegantly decorated in the style
most beloved by Flora Stanley herself.
Bright, floral
wallpaper with reds and pinks and greens
covered the walls.
It was the color of grass with accents of
red and blue. It was the
jewel of the hotel.
According to the legend,
the light fixture in that room had
a hidden leak and the room had filled with gas.
When Mrs. Wilson
opened the door with her lit candle in
hand, the gas ignited, setting
off an explosion that destroyed nearly
10% of the hotel along the western
wing.
Part of the floor gave way and several steel
girders fell on tables in the ballroom
below, thankfully
missing the guests.
Mrs. Wilson, though, was not so lucky.
She fell through the floor, breaking
both of her ankles in the fall.
It's a good story,
but there are many versions of it.
Five separate Colorado
newspapers carried the story, but details
varied wildly.
One paper listed the chamber maid as Eva
Colburn and said that she was
thrown through a wall onto the porch
with no injuries.
Another, she was Elizabeth Lambert, who
died in the fall.
Still, another report claimed that the
chamber maid was a woman named Lizzie
Leitzenberger.
All of the stories did agree that the
explosion happened at 8pm,
but none of them mentioned the thunderstorm.
There are other glitches
in the story as well.
No employee records exist from this
period in the hotel's history.
Among the many photographs of hotel staff
over the past century, there are no pictures
of the woman named Elizabeth Wilson,
or Lambert, or Leitzenberger.
All of it has the smell of window dressing,
designed to lend some credibility
to the odd experiences
that guests have had
in Room 217.
Just what experiences
am I referring to?
Well, according to firsthand accounts,
the ghost of Mrs. Wilson has been known
to unpack the suitcases of guests
to toss their clothing on the floor
and rearrange the bed linens.
Another common report is that some guests
and staff have seen a mysterious black
hole in the floor,
said to be the location of her fall
after the explosion.
The faucet in the bathtub has been known
to turn on and off on its own,
and the maids have even seen doors in the room
open and close.
In 1974, a man and his wife arrived
at the hotel at the end of the season.
According to his story,
they were the only guests in the entire hotel.
After dinner that first night,
the couple retired to bed, where the husband
had a horrible nightmare.
I dreamed of my three-year-old son
running through the corridors,
he later said.
The boy was looking back over his shoulder,
eyes wide, screaming.
He was being chased by a fire hose.
I woke up with a tremendous
jerk, sweating all over
within an inch of falling out of bed.
I got up,
lit a cigarette, sat in a chair
looking out the window at the Rockies,
and by the time the cigarette was done,
I had the bones of the book firmly
set in my mind.
The man was Stephen King,
and the book, of course, would later become
The Shining.
Some folklore is
historical.
We tell the tales because they happened,
at least to some degree.
There's a grain of truth at the core
of many myths and legends.
A real-life event or fear
that caused people to remember,
to retell,
and to eventually immortalize.
Other legends, however,
lack that core truth.
They work backwards instead,
creating a unique
story to explain,
the unexplainable.
Oftentimes, these stories lean on the past
and mine it for hints
of validity.
But in the end, we're still left with stories
that have no roots.
And the reason people do that
isn't really a mystery.
The story, you see,
helps keep us grounded.
It helps provide us with bearings
as we navigate life,
like a landmark we can all point toward.
Then, when something odd or unexplainable
happens,
I think it's only human nature to look for
those landmarks.
When we can't find them,
oftentimes we simply invent our own.
Perhaps the original events
that led to the unusual activity
at the Stanley Hotel
have simply been lost in the past.
It would be reasonable to assume
that at least some of the stories
have a foundation in reality,
rather than just the narrative of a hotel
with a supernatural reputation to keep.
That's not my decision to make.
I'll leave that up to you.
But sometimes
we're reminded that stories can evolve.
That the unknown
can suddenly become a bit more
knowable.
In 2014, while doing maintenance
in a service tunnel beneath the hotel,
workers found debris.
Specifically, they found pieces
of drywall, covered in pink
and green wallpaper.
Carpet fragments were also discovered there,
still pale green with red
and blue details.
It turns out the explosion
really did happen.
And if we can find the truth at the center
of one of the stories, even
a century later,
how much more truth is out there
to be found.
I'll leave you with one last story
from Room 217.
According to a previous guest
who was preparing to go to bed,
he opened one of the windows to let in
some of the cool Colorado air.
Later, after having been asleep
for some time, he felt his wife
climb out of bed and quietly walk across
the room toward the window.
The man said that he opened his eyes,
and after glancing at the glowing face
of the alarm clock, he looked to find
her standing at the window,
face pressed against the screen.
You have to see this,
she whispered to him.
There's a family of elk outside.
The guest
didn't move.
He just smiled and watched his wife for
a long time, noticing how her hair
moved in the breeze.
It's hard to blame him, after all.
She'd been dead for over five years.
Just half the time, leaving you
more time to enjoy your home
with the ones you love most.
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