National Park After Dark - Spirits of the Stanley: Rocky Mountain National Park

Episode Date: April 26, 2021

Pack your overnight back and don’t forget to sign the guest book, this week we are headed to one of the most famous - and haunted - hotels in America. Bordering Rocky Mountain National Park, for over 100 years the walls of this building have been filled with laughter, music and joy, but those same walls have also trapped spirits - spirits who have no problem making their presence known. Today, we are checking into the Stanley Hotel. For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rocky Mountain National Park is ranked as the eighth most dangerous park in the United States. In the last 10 years alone, 49 people have lost their lives within this park. Murder, animal attack, falls, suicide, natural, and environmental causes have all claimed lives within the most visited of Colorado's four national parks. And while the park is beautiful, we won't be driving through its gates. Instead, we will be venturing somewhere we haven't quite been before. This week, we are taking a break from the outdoors and will count ourselves among the thousands who have sought sanctuary in one of Colorado's most infamous buildings.

For over 100 years, these walls have been filled with laughter, music, and joy, but those same walls have also trapped spirits, spirits who have no problem making their presence known. Today, we are checking in to the Stanley Hotel. Welcome to National Park After Dark. Johnny. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to National Park After Dark. I'm your host Cassie.

And I'm Danielle. I'm currently in Zion as this comes out. So I hope that I'm staying safe and avoiding all the crowds. And I can't tell you how many people have DM'd me or emailed in and said to do Angels Landing. And I'm going to tell you right now, I am absolutely not doing Angels Landing. This is your past self talking to your future self. So we'll recheck in on this in the next episode and see if you did do Angels Landing. Please tune in, but I'll tell you right now. I have not done Angels Landing and will not. It'll be my second time in Utah, first time in Zion. So I'm sure I'm having a blast. But today we're going to go somewhere that I've been multiple times. We're going to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. Oh, I love Rocky Mountain. I've been there once in the wintertime, and it was very pretty.

I have been to the Stanley as well. So I have first-hand intel and accounts for our story today. So you haven't been. I have never been to the Stanley Hotel now. Well, I'm about to bring you there. So first, before we get into the Stanley Hotel, before we check in for the day, we're going to talk a little bit about Rocky Mountain National Park because they are very close. related. Located along the Rocky Mountain Range in northern Colorado, established on January 26, 1915, Rocky Mountain National Park encompasses more than 260,000 acres, provides 300 miles of hiking trails, and the ever-popular Trail Ridge Road, which connects the park from end to end. This road is a stretch of U.S. Highway 34, and it winds over 40 miles through the park and peaks at over 12,000 feet. If you are prone to altitude sickness, this probably isn't the park for you.

Their lowest elevation in this park is around 7,800 feet, and it climbs up to over 14,000. So it feels like you're sitting on top of the world here. And I can testify to that. I have not driven the entire Trail Ridge Road. I did do a section of it with my friend Nitea. And it was so beautiful. We were there in late summer, early September, and everything was just starting to change as far as color-wise. The weather was perfect.

And the road is a little scary at times, but it is beautiful. I can imagine. So when I went to Rocky Mountain National Park, I actually went in the middle of a blizzard. It wasn't a blizzard like at the bottom of the park. And when we got, what is it, we went up to, I think it's called Bear Lake. Yes. Yeah, we went up there, and by the time we got there, it was a full-on blizzard, beautiful, because everything snow-covered, were walking.

I was not dressed appropriately because I didn't know there was going to be blizzard at the time. But, I mean, it was beautiful as like a little winter wonderland up there, but I didn't get to see like the beautiful, amazing views, high altitude kind of thing. Yeah, but Bear Lake is one of the most popular trails in the park, and I did that actually when I went with my mom. So Rocky Mountain National Park sees an average of 4.5 million visitors each year and ranks consistently within the top five most visited parks in the country. It's actually less than two hours from Denver, which is likely of huge reason for the big number of visitors. The park also provides some of the best wildlife watching in the entire world with over 60 species of mammals, 280 bird species, and a lot of species of species of animals. insects, amphibians, reptiles, etc.

So this park kind of has it all. And fun fact, for anybody who is interested in reintroduction, I know I did a quick highlight during National Park Week about reintroduction of Grizzlies in North Cascades National Park. But in Rocky Mountain National Park, there is going to be a reintroduction of wolves. Really? I didn't know that. Yeah. So Proposition 114 has been in the works for a very, very long time behind the scenes, but it was finally put up for public vote recently during the last election. And it was really,

really close. I think just over 50%, like not even 51% of votes supported reintroducing wolves into the area. and it's not going to be in Rocky Mountain National Park in particular, I don't think. I just know that they are going to now reintroduce gray wolves into the southern Rocky Mountains by the year 2023. So super exciting for wolf reintroduction supporters and honestly, anybody in support of rebalancing the ecosystem. I mean, it's part of their historic range. Wolves have been in Colorado for millions of years up and until we eradicated them in the early 1900s. But not going down that rabbit hole.

They're obviously reintroduction of any predator, carnivore, etc., kind of divides people. But it passed. That's so exciting. Yeah. It's really cool. So if you want to keep up with this, you can definitely do so through the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project. They are huge leaders in pushing this reintroduction. But anyway, I forget what I was saying.

Other facts about the park really quick. Historic facts. So in the late 1800s, prior to the National Park establishment, the Grand Lake Cemetery was created, and it's currently one of only a few cemeteries located within a national park that is still active, which is cool. That is cool. I thought that was a fun fact. There's also a ghost town within the park, and it's called. Lulu City. It's a ghost town that in the late 1880s was home to a kind of a big population

of about 500 and it had 10 working mines. It was abandoned in the 1880s but now you can go visit it. It's about a six mile hike and you can get to the remains and old dilapidated buildings of that town, the ghost town of Lulu City. And lastly, little fun fact about the park. In 1917, the Denver Post reported the story of Agnes Lowe, a college student who was going to live in the park forest as a modern eve for one week. She embarked into the forest of the park barefoot and dressed as a cavewoman. And there was a big group of people there to see her off. And she waved goodbye to them. And the event ended up being a huge publicity stunt because she actually spent most of the event.

of the week at a lodge, but it gained the park national attention and interest. If you remember, so the park was established in 1915. Dress as a cavewoman was a little extra, but I'm curious to what that look like. A 1915 version of a cave woman. Yeah, I'm really, I want to know what that looks like. I picture kind of the Flintstone era in my brain, but I'm curious what 1915 woman caveman looks like. Well, Agnes was not one. She was a fraud. Rocky Mountain National Park borders the town of Grand Lake and Estes Park, making them two of the most popular travel destinations in Colorado. We all know Estes Park is a booming tourist town, but it wasn't always that way. As late as the early 1800s, Estes Valley was dominated by Native American tribes, including the Ute, Comanche,

Arapaho, and Apache. They utilized the area that is now Rocky Mountain National Park. as a hunting and camping ground. By the mid to late 1800s, European settlers made their way into the area and displaced the Native Americans, leaving the area devoid of Native peoples by 1878. Estes Park was named by William Byers, the founding editor of Rocky Mountain News, after its first non-native permanent residence, Joel and Patsy Estes. Byers was part of a group that attempted and failed to summit Long's Peak, the tallest mountain in the park, coming in at around 14,250 feet. And that happened in the late 1860s.

And during that expedition, him and the group of men that he was with stayed with the Estes family for a short period of time. And that's why he named the area after them. Shortly after that period of time, more and more families started to settle into this valley and area to farm and ranch. One of the earliest prominent figures in the town and later in Rocky, Mountain National Park was Freeland, Oscar Stanley. Born and raised in Maine, he later settled in Newton, Massachusetts, and he became wildly successful in his adult life. He and his twin brother were revered as inventors and entrepreneurs. Their first business endeavor was in the maple sugar industry, which I think is so New England. So New England. Yeah. A little sugar shack. Yes. Oh my God.

Have you been to Parker's Maple Barn? Have I been to Parker's Maple Barn? Their little sugar shack they have in the winter, just like the smell of the maple sugar processing. And oh my God. It's just like the coziest, yummiest. It is. It's just such a New England thing.

You won't get it if you're not from there. It's what you visit New England for in the winter. It's basically it. We highly recommend it. Very small town in New Hampshire. I remember we had a maple tree, or we do have a maple tree at my family's house, and we tried to tap it a few times because we do the tradition sugar on snow. Me too. Yeah. And so we're like, we're going to try and do it from our own. Instead of buying from, you know, parkers or whatever, we're going to try and make our own. And let me tell you, that was such an agonizing process.

Like, I would peek into the bucket every day and there's like three drops in there. Oh, God. Yeah, we only did that, I think, one or two years. And then we're like, oh, well. I've never tried it, but growing up, all of my neighbors had tapped their trees. And you would, just walking down the street, you would see all the lines from tree to tree. Yeah. We just had a singular tap.

One little beep. So I've got three drops. Like, we're doing this all wrong. Okay, anyways, back to Stanley. That was their first business endeavor or their first, like, business when they were young. But two of their most successful ventures included a dry emulsion process for photographic plates, which they later sold to a man named George Eastman, and he happened to be the founder of Kodak. And they also created the Stanley Steamer, which is the first steam-powered car.

Despite his huge success, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis at the age of 53 and was given just a year to live. The recommended treatment of the day, which this is circa early 1900, so this is 1903, was to travel to an area rich with dry, fresh air full of sunlight. People traveled westward to the Rocky Mountains in droves in search of the curative qualities of the area. He spent the summer there and his health improved dramatically. He was so inspired by the positive turnaround in his health, the beautiful landscape, and the likely business potential in the up-and-coming area that Stanley vowed to not just come back for vacations, he promised to return

as an investor. By 1907, he and his wife Flora built a home there and used it for entertaining guests. Love the name Flora, by the way. I think it's the prettiest name. name ever. And it just reminds me of the Adam's family, Flora, and Fauna. That's an Adam's family? Yeah. It is? The conjoined sisters. I didn't know that that was their names. Anyway, so they built their house there and they wanted to use it to entertain guests, but remember, this area was primarily home to farmers and ranchers at the time in the early 1900s, and the Stanleys were used to a particular caliber of a social scene back east. They were very well off.

East Coast, especially around Boston, was pretty hip-hop happening. And they wanted to replicate that in Estes Park. So him and his partner B.D. Sandborn got to work making that dream a reality by perching a 6,400-acre estate that would later become the site of the Stanley Hotel that we know and treasured today. But first, they had to get people there. which was kind of difficult because at the time the roads were actually like glorified wagon trails. So Stanley donated funds to improve the road systems that led to the park. And his Stanley steamer automobiles, nicknamed mountain wagons, were a popular means of travel.

They would pick up passengers from various train depots and bring them right into Estes Park. His steamers made for a quick travel option at the time. The journey from Loveland to Estes Park took just about four. five hours. And if you are from the area and know the travel time today, that seems excessive because nowadays it takes a little less than one hour. Next on the docket, he built a hydroelectric plant and created a water pipe system in the nearby mountains to provide both power and running water to the area. He wanted his property to be a premier destination, and oh boy, what a premier destination it would become. Stanley designed

the hotel himself and spent half a million dollars all in cash on its construction. Do you want to take a wild guest as to how much money that is today? You always put me on the spot like this. One million dollars cash then. Half a million. Half a million. Then now 300 million. Okay. So stop overshooting it. It's 13 and a half million today. That's what I meant. all cash. That's crazy. Imagine. Completed in June of 1909, just six years after he first stepped foot into the area, the five-story, 420 room hotel was advertised as the first hotel in the country to heat, light, and cook meals

exclusively with electricity. It stood just five miles away from the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park, and the hotel sat on a complex complete with a manor house, concert hall, tennis courts, nine-hole golf range, and a small airfield. And it also had a place for trap shooting, which I had to look up what that was. And it's just clay target shooting. You know, when they throw and they say like pole. I think they used to do it with birds instead of clay targets. But I like the clay better.

Let's go with the clay. Let's go with the clay target shooting. Some of the most noted guests of the hotel have included the unsinkable Molly Brown, from, if you're a Titanic fan, you know who she is. Dr. William Mayo, who is one of the founders of the world-renowned Mayo Clinic, J.C. Penny, Harry Houdini, Bob Dylan, Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels, and the Emperor and Empress of Japan. Until 1983, the hotel was only open during the summer months, and it was days before it shut down for the 1974 season when one of the most infamous guests checked in. Mr. Stephen King and his wife Tabitha found themselves the only overnight guests, a stay which would inspire the the Overlook Hotel in one of his best-selling novels The Shining. Stephen King has been quoted as saying, While living in Boulder, we heard about this terrific old mountain resort hotel and decided to give it a try.

But when we first arrived, they were just getting ready to close it down for the season, and we found ourselves the only guests in the place. With all those long, empty corridors, except for our table, all the chairs were up on the tables. So the music is echoing down the hall, and I mean, it was like God had put me there to hear that, and to see those things. I dreamed of my three-year-old son running through the corridors, 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. So that dream inspired him to write The Shining. What a cool thing to hear about how that whole started because obviously the Shining is a classic now. And to hear exactly where that idea came from. And it's so spooky. I mean, imagine being the only person in the giant hotel. You're the only guests. I mean, even thinking about this book while you're in that hotel with no one else there,

He must have been freaking himself out. Yeah, I don't know his process and all of that, but I'm sure even he was a little spooked. Contrary to popular belief, the hotel and the feature film adaptation of The Shining released in 1980, so that classic film that everyone knows was not the Stanley. I did actually know that. I researched that before. Mm-hmm. So the exterior shots of the Overlook Hotel in the movie is actually a different hotel.

The Timberline Lodge, which is located on the slopes of Mount Hood in Oregon, and the interior shots were filmed almost entirely in Elstree Studios in England. But the inspiration for that set came from a different hotel, the Ahwani Hotel in Yosemite National Park. So there's National Park connections going on here. Yeah. The Stanley still had its time on the big screen, though, appearing as the primary shooting location for the 1997, The Shining, TV Mini-Strechtion.

series, and it also served as the fictional Hotel Danbury in Dumb and Dumber. I didn't know that. Now I feel like I have to go back and watch Dumb and Dumber. Yeah, I mean, as soon as you see it, you're going to be like, oh, duh. Like, it's so clear. Why didn't I notice that? Yeah. So today, the hotel is on the list of the National Register of Historic Places and is a member

of the Historic Hotels of America. The grounds are even more expansive, including a second boutique hotel, a spa, apartment style residences for extended stays, meeting and event spaces, indoor and outdoor wedding venues, and expansive condominiums. But the Stanley, the primary original historic hotel, remains the most sought after. For years, guests and hotel employees have reported encounters and experiences with guests who have never quite checked out. So now, it's time to turn down the lights and explore the spooky stories of the Stanley Hotel. Richard Estep is a tour guide at the Stanley. But he is also an accomplished paranormal author, investigator, and the co-founder of the Boulder

County Paranormal Research Society. With over 20 years in paranormal research and investigation, he has spent countless hours here in the U.S. and abroad in England in haunted hospitals, prisons, and homes. Four of his cases were actually dramatized for the Destination America TV series Haunted Case Files. And out of all the places he has visited in his 20, 20-plus-year career, he says that the Stanley is one of the more active locations he has ever been. He says, quote, usually haunted locations have a history with lots of blood and death, but the Stanley doesn't have that, which often takes people back. They want to know how many deaths have occurred here, and it's about as many as other hotels, not really that many.

Places get ghosts for different reasons, such as tragedy or bloodshed, but also people tend haunt places where they were very happy during their lifetimes. I sense were seeing people coming back because they deeply loved this hotel. I was actually going to ask you where all these hauntings and paranormal, because I've always heard of the Stanley Hotel having paranormal activity, but I never knew why. And I was actually just going to ask you what happened there that made it like that. Yeah. So we're going to go into several different categories of hauntings and paranormal activity. and you'll see kind of why. But I agree with this statement.

I agree with it mainly because I've spent time there myself and when I did take the paranormal tour there and talk to the tour guides and heard a lot of firsthand information, this hotel was kind of like a labor of love. And a lot of people over their lifetimes, including Stanley and Flora, really loved this space

and came here for joyous occasions. But yeah, they hosted a lot of parties, had a lot of close friends and family there. And there was a lot of celebration and joy there versus a lot of hotels that make it onto haunted lists because of murder, suicide, kind of like the Cecil. It's not a Csoul situation, which makes it, I think, a little more intriguing because it's not like people are trapped here because they have unfinished business and they met a tragic end. It was more of like they loved it so much that they wanted to spend eternity here is how I like to look at it. And not your typical ghost story. Yeah. So the Stanley embraces their

haunted hotel and highlights rooms with consistent paranormal activity reports on their website under spirited rooms. So you can kind of know what you're getting yourself into before you check in. Yeah. So the historic Stanley Hotel is famous for its reports of past Spirits. Specific rooms on the active fourth floor receive the most frequent guest comments for unexplained phenomenon. Experience this for yourself with one of the famous spirited fourth floor king rooms is what the website states. So for around 400 bucks a night, you can spend a night lying awake in terror if you really want. But for those of you who don't want to do it yourself and just want to hear about it, let's take a peek inside.

So let's start with the most famous one, room 217, aka Stephen King Sweet. Long before Stephen King spent the night in this room, Mrs. Wilson, the head housekeeper, was making her rounds through the hotel. On this night in 1911, she was lighting gas lamps fueled by acetylene as there was a large snowstorm coming down on the hotel. The hydroelectric plant was down and the electricity in the hotel was not working. So remember, they were very proud of themselves for being one of the first hotels to have electric and have electricity. But the plant was down. It was a huge snowstorm. So she was walking around lighting all the lamps in the hallways and in the rooms. When she made her way to room 217 and opened the door, her open light ignited a gas leak that was within the room and caused a huge explosion.

The explosion was so large, it blew out the front of the hotel. And Mrs. Wilson was blown through the floor and into the McGregor room directly below where she was standing. And the McGregor room is now used as an indoor wedding reception and meeting room. She survived with only a couple broken bones. An explosion. Huge explosion. She's blasted through the floor. Wow.

And I'm pretty sure if I remember correctly, she just broke her ankles. That is some serious luck right there. Yeah. So she returned to work after her recovery, and she worked there for several more years until shortly before she died around the age of 90. And although she did not die in the hotel, she seems to have returned. Reports by guests state that she has been seen as a ghostly apparition of a chambermaid as she glides through the walls and closed doors. Couples in bed in this room have felt an unseen force pushing them apart, feeling unexplainable cold chills, and single men have even woke up the next day to find their bags packed and left outside

of the door. So she's... She is sassy. While filming the movie Dumb and Dumber, Jim Carrey requested to stay in this room. He requested, I want to be in room 217. Hook me up. And according to tour guides at the Stanley, all it took was a few hours for him. to call it quits. He chose to leave the hotel, demanded to get another room elsewhere immediately, and he was said to be so scared he didn't want to be left alone. And to this day, he has yet to

explain what happened and what he experienced in that room. So obviously she was not super fond of him. So I thought that was really interesting. And I also think it was really cool for him to have never disclosed what happened to him. Yeah. But also I kind of want to know. Originally in attic area where female employees' children and nanny stayed, the fourth floor is now a coveted floor for its high occurrence of paranormal activity. Strange lights, cold spots, the hotel has no AC by the way. So, unexplainable cold spots, can't blame it on the AC. Oh. And strange feelings of being watched have all been reported throughout this floor. Guests have also repeatedly reported hearing children running through the empty halls and they hear

echoes of their laughter, but it is not all child's play. Let's go to Room 401. The Stanley Hotel was not the first hotel to stand on this land. In 1872, an Irishman named Lord Dunraven visited the area on a hunting trip. He returned the following years and eventually purchased 8,000 acres of land in present-day Estes Park. In July of 1877, he opened the Estes Park Hotel to guests, and it was a huge hit. However, he soon began to lose interest in the area. Like, okay. You got somewhere better to be or what's going on? Just reminds me of the sub-parks reviews.

Yes. Ugliest place I've ever been. Too many trees. It's horrid. He originally wanted the area, which is most of the present-day park, to be designated as a hunting preserve, which was eventually squashed with the influx of tourism interest in the area. And plus he was a pretty busy guy. Like Danley, he was wildly wealthy and successful. He was a successful politician, wrote six books, was a war correspondent for the Daily Telegraph.

He had a lot going on. So when his initial plan and dream of having this largely private hunting preserve, when that was next, he was kind of over it. Over it. So he sold the property to F.O. Stanley in 1907. So that's the person that Stanley bought the property from. And the original Estes Park Hotel was burned to the ground in 1911. And Dunraven was described as having an appreciation for drinking in pretty girls during his life. And although he died elsewhere, it is thought that he lingers around room 401.

Women tend to feel particularly uncomfortable in this room while men don't feel welcome. Near the closet, women will feel their hair being played with. with an arm around their shoulder or their waist or a hand moving up the back of their leg, while men have reported having their valuable stolen or unexplainably moved around the room. Not a ghost. I want to, he sounds like he's a creep even after he died. Yeah, it's like not a good look. Uh-uh.

I would love to experience something paranormal waiting for it to happen to me, but I would rather not be... I'm not trying to get felt up by a ghost. Exactly. Room 407. So moving right along down the hall. Reports of being tucked in throughout the night have occurred in this room. So lights turning on it off, indentations of in the bed as if someone was sitting right there, and a face has been reported looking down from the window if you are looking up from the outside,

even if no one's in the room. So there's some creepy things going on there as well. I think that one's my favorite so far. Like if someone, if a ghost tucked me in in the middle of the night, like that's so good. Are you kidding me? Of all the ones you've described, that's the one that I pick. I just think I would flip out if I felt something. You know, the feeling if you're just laying in bed and someone comes and sits on the edge of it,

just the little like nudge you feel. And then looking over and there's just like this ghostly indentation in the bed. No, absolutely not. I'm not saying I'm not going to be freaked out. I'm just saying of everything that you have explained for rooms you can choose 217, Jim Carrey says don't go there. So I believe him. The other one, what was it, 411?

Which, oh, being felt up. Being felt up. No, thank you. Yeah, that's 401. Yeah. 4.01. And 407, you get tucked in. I choose getting tucked in by a good thing.

Okay. Well, maybe you'll change your mind because we still have some more to go through. Room 413. Several guests have reported a man sitting in the corner of the room in an old-fashioned suit. Room 418, guests have reported spirits of children doing mischievous things, turning the lights on and off, moving objects around, and ripping off bed covers, and even tickling guess. I would hate being tickled. Hate that. And I will just say, this one's at the bottom of my list.

I would almost rather be felt up, which is weird to say. But because I had an experience once, not paranormal, but it was my senior year of college. And my roommate at the time, Vicky, if you're listening to this, you know what you've done. She, she sleptwalk sometimes. Like when she was really stressed out, she would sleepwalk. And we shared a bedroom in our apartment. And I woke up one night to her standing at the end of my bed. And I'm like, Vicki, what's up?

Realize she's asleep. I'm now scared because she's like a zombie sitting at the foot of my bed. Yeah. and she takes my sheet or my comforter and rips off my comforter in one swoop. And she's like, where are my friends? Where are my friends? So now I'm exposed. I'm like, uh, Vicki, hello, wake up.

I'm very afraid of what you're about to do. I'm like, Vicki, you're sleeping, you're sleeping. And then I'm like, do you wake someone up who is sleepwalk? I don't know. And I had lived with her for four years at this point and she's done it on and off. So I was kind of used to it and I knew she would shake herself out of it. She ended up just like walking away or whatever and waking up somewhere else. But it was terrifying.

Like getting your sheets ripped off of you is so scary. And especially that happening with someone you can't even see. No. Yeah. No, thank you. Moving on, room 428. This room is thought to be haunted by a cowboy who is seen pacing the floor or sitting in the corner. Women have woken to the feeling of someone kissing them on the forehead.

Some like to think of it as the spirit of James Nuget, known as Rocky Mountain Jim, who was an important man in the early years of Estes Park. He was one of the first guides in the area. He actually lost an eye after a grizzly attack. So I think it's interesting that people think this is him because the reports of the apparition, like no one has said he is a one-eyed man. Like I would think he would have one eye. Yeah. That makes sense. So who knows, but somebody in cowboy attire, similar to what he used to wear, is reported to Haunt Room 428. And again, you can book any of these rooms, although demands high on the fourth floor. Availability for these rooms is generally limited. So if you want to go and spend some time there, get on that. But guest rooms aren't the only places in the hotel that goes like to. pier. So the music room. This beautiful room was a favorite of Stanley's wife, Flora. The room is gorgeous with an elevated stage area, high ceilings, original crown molding, French doors, and two

verandas overlooking the mountains. She was an accomplished pianist in life, and there have been numerous reports of her spirit sitting at the piano, which is actually still on display, playing music. I can attest this room is beautiful. I mean, I have a thing for historic hotels. I've been to quite a few. And like this one, I didn't stay there, but I love doing, if any historic hotel has a tour, you know that I'm signing up for it. I think a lot of people think hotels are gross. And I generally agree. Like, I don't want to go hang out at a Hilton. But I love historic places. And I think hotels just have an energy to them that you can feel. Because so many people have been there and so many people have spent. spent significant time there and left impressions there. And the Stanley just is so historic, but they also have kept a lot of their historic architecture, like everything that they can have original is. Like they haven't redone.

Yeah, they don't update it throughout the years. They try and keep it the original. So next is the concert hall. The Stanleys were huge into entertaining, and they held numerous parties and musical events in this building. At over 2,500 square feet with mountain views and a room for up to 300 people, this building has seen some fun. Sounds of parties complete with laughter, clinking of glasses, and footsteps have all been

heard echoing throughout the room, only to stop suddenly. Three spirits are said to frequent this building. Eddie, a middle-aged man who's known to replace light bulbs, Lucy, a girl who sought refuge in the basement of the hall in life, was thought to be a runaway. or homeless. It's rumored that she was kicked out for squatting and froze to death outside. She is now known to entertain ghost hunters responding to questions through flashing lights. Paul, the night watchman, who is known as a jack-of-all-trades in life, he is known to whisper, get out, and physically nudge hotel guests at night. And this is likely because the hotel had

an 11 p.m. curfew in the past. And that was one of his job duties was to enforce it. He passed away after a heart attack while on the job, and some guests have said they felt chest pains while in certain areas of the building. There's so many stories here. I didn't know all this. I knew, I didn't know the details of all these. It's cool to hear it. Yeah. And I've only highlighted a few of the most known and the most reported on. Obviously, there are hundreds of reports of different things that have happened throughout the hotel, you know, through the hundreds of thousands of guests who have been there, but these are the most consistent. Next, we're going to go to the ice house and pet cemetery. Before indoor refrigeration, this building housed large blocks of ice. The ice house is also known

to house the ghost of a shy young boy named Billy and the spirit of an older gentleman with a beard and white hair. A path from the ice house leads to the hotel's pet cemetery. Maybe inspiration for Stephen King as well. Who knows? Cassie, a golden retriever, and Comanche, a white cat, are both buried here, and their apparitions have been seen wandering throughout the property. The grand staircase is next. Many guests have snapped photos of this iconic staircase, including me. I have about 15 different pictures of the same. view. It's beautiful. I mean, like, it's so pretty. Yeah, I will. And it's hard not to because the staircase is lined with all these antique mirrors and photographs and the colors of the carpet and the

wallpaper draw you in. And it's so funny, because if I saw this exact setup in somebody's house, I'd be like, what's going on here? Like, this is disgusting. But here, it just, it works so beautifully. A ton of people take photos here. And a lot of guests have returned home, especially back when you're using film cameras, they would snap all their photos, go home, develop them, or look through their photos later. And they would see apparitions on the staircase or at the top of the staircase that were obviously not there when they took the photo. And if you look up online, goes to the Stanley, you'll see a lot of them on the staircase. I see you're looking them up right now.

I'm looking it up right now. Oh, yeah, the staircase pops up immediately. Oh, my gosh. Some of them are like legit. Yeah. So next we're heading underground, believe it or not. The Stanley Hotel has a little cave system. And it's accessible by Tor.

The hotel does have a system of underground caves that originally moved hotel staff and workers throughout the building. And it does have a high concentration of Lyme. stone in courts that some claim help capture energy and serves as kind of like a hot spot for activity. So no one has died down there. There's no tragic murder or anything down there, but because of the energy field and the already huge amount of paranormal activity within the building, a lot of people believe that this is kind of a hub for activity and people have seen and hurt things down there as well. Okay. Last but not least, we can't forget about F.O. Stanley himself. He has been seen throughout the hotel in the lobby, in the billiards room,

at the bar, wandering throughout the halls. After all, this is his hotel. I will say there's always going to be a skeptic in the room. People are probably rolling their eyes at this episode if you're not a paranormal fan. But just so you know, hoaxes are a fireable offense at the Stanley Hotel. So if someone's pulling a prank, it's not the staff. Stanley not only built his famous hotel, he also helped the town of Estes Park by establishing the first bank, funded schools, gifted tracks of land, and even helped establish Rocky Mountain National Park. As president of the Protective and Improvement Association, he organized the establishment of the Fall River Fish Hatchery and the introduction of a herd of Wapiti Elk from Yellowstone National Park in 1913, and the offspring of those

animals are now abundant in Estes Park. He was also friends with the naturalist's Enos Mills, who ran Long's Peak in. With Stanley's encouragement and financial support, Mills traveled the country campaigning for the protection of the Rockies. In 1915, Woodrow Wilson signed the order establishing Rocky Mountain National Park the 10th in U.S. history. Both Stanley and Mills were present at the dedication ceremony. Stanley died in October of 1940 at the age of 91.

If you'd like to learn more about his life, there are actually two museums in his honor, one in Estes Park and one in Kingston, Maine. And to wrap this all up, Rocky Mountain National Park is one of the most beautiful parks I've ever been to. I hope this episode inspired you to not miss out on a visit to the Stanley. You're already so close. Hop on over there, walk through the lobby, have a drink at the bar, book a room if you're brave. I don't know if I'd be brave enough. snag a spot on one of the historic tours. They run throughout the day.

They have tons of them throughout the day. And the paranormal one is in the evening. And they offer tons of fine dining. They have several restaurants. They have bars. You can grab a drink there. So I sat at the bar with my mom when we were there after, actually right before the tour, because we wanted a little buzz before we went and got scared.

And we had the, there's like a whole cocktail menu dedicated to. Stephen King and spooky stuff and we had the red rum punch. Very cool. I have to ask for this whole episode when you were there, did you have any paranormal experience? I did not. But I have so many pictures because going throughout obviously all these areas because you don't just stay in the Stanley. They bring you to the concert hall and things like that. And there are several places that the tour guide will say, snap a picture here,

a lot of guests have had luck with like this certain area or whatever. And I have a few pictures in this mirror that supposedly like if you take a picture there, someone will show up behind you. I'm just me and my mom standing there. Like I took like 15, 20 of that life. Like waiting for something to pop up. Yeah. So no, unfortunately, nothing for me.

But for those of you who find yourself in Estes Park and in Rocky Mountain National Park, happy hiking and happy ghost hunting. The end. What a cool episode. It's been, I feel like it's been time for a paranormal, like whole episode dedicated to the paranormal. Yeah, the most recent haunted hotel I stayed at was the Omni Parker in Boston. And I went specifically to the corner, like the Packy, the corner store and got a little

disposable camera. And Ian and I ran throughout the halls at night and just took random pictures. hoping to catch something. And we didn't. Spoiler alert. But it's still fun. And I encourage everyone with an interest with the paranormal to investigate on your own. Just be safe and smart about it. That's it for this episode. I know it wasn't very National Park centered as far as outdoors these stuff. So if you've ever been, I would be really interested to hear your experience. if you've had any sort of paranormal experience there or any other historic hotel, just email us at NPAD podcast at gmail.com.

Yeah, or go to our Instagram National Park After a Dark and just DM us directly because we would love to hear your experiences. So that's about it. Until next week, enjoy the view. But watch your back. See you later. And bye. I have always pronounced it as Estes.

And now I'm really concerned. Is it Estes? I have no idea. I think it's Estes. One of us has been wrong for many years. For our whole lives. I always said Estes Park. And I keep here you say Estes and I believe you, but then I'm also confused.

Okay, I don't believe me now. Estes Park. God, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you may not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressives save over $900 on average. Pop over to Progressive.com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by.

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