Colorado Haunted Hotels - Hotel St. Nicholas

Between now and the spring, we're sharing the history and haunted legends associated with each of the hotels and B&Bs included in our forthcoming book,  

Hotel St. Nicholas

 WILD WEST GHOSTS:
an amateur ghost hunting guide
to Haunted Hotels
in southwest Colorado.

This week, we feature the Hotel St. Nicholas  in Cripple Creek, Colo. (If you missed -- or want to revisit -- the paranormal investigation we conducted at this hotel, you can click here, as well as watch YouTube clips from our actual investigation.)

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Shades of Alfred Hitchcock – but with a lot more class. Because this building is a renovation of a former Sisters of Mercy hospital and sits elevated on a hill above the town, the setting resembles the classic haunted hotel. The three-story brick building, shrouded by tall Ponderosa pines, appears imposing and impressive with outside balconies and a cupola still topped with an iconic Christian cross.

Historical Context

The Hotel St. Nicholas’s colorful history began in 1898 when the Dublin-based Catholic Sisters of Mercy built it to accommodate the Cripple Creek area during the Colorado gold rush.

The hotel lobby

According to history compiled by the hotel, “The Sisters originally operated from an existing wood-framed building, one block from the current St. Nicholas, and served 307 patients during their first year. A massive fire in April 1896, destroyed most of Cripple Creek, and led to an incident of drama and irony. As the fire progressed through [town], many wooden-framed buildings were dynamited in an effort to slow the fire. 

"While the sisters were evacuating patients to safer locations, a member of an anti-Catholic society entered the hospital’s kitchen and attempted to destroy the building by placing dynamite in the stove chimney. To the man’s misfortune, the dynamite exploded prematurely, causing little damage to the hospital, but blowing off his leg. He was evacuated with the other patients, and the compassionate care he received from the Sisters led him to express remorse for his deed. His shoe, which had landed in the tea kettle, was kept by the Sisters as a memento.”

The nuns, convinced they needed a safer structure, hired a Denver architect to design and build a three-story brick hospital for a cost of $12,000. The first two floors served patients, reserving the third floor for the nuns and the attic for the hospital orderly. Completely modern for its day, the hospital contained electric lights, steam heat, hot and cold running water, and surgery facilities. The first patient was a young miner who had fallen down a mine shaft.

The Sisters left Cripple Creek in 1924, and local doctors bought the facility. After closing in 1972, the building served as a boarding house but eventually stood vacant by the time it was purchased and refurbished as a hotel in the mid-1990s.

Legends, Stories, and Guest Experiences

The community abounds with ghost stories, and the Hotel St. Nicholas has its fair share. Paranormal activity occurs on all three floors.

Third-floor hallway

A number of years ago, owner Susan Adelbush sat working in the office behind the cashier’s booth and heard someone behind her. She turned to see a tall, thin man who wore a turn-of-the-century derby hat and long coat. Within seconds, he disappeared.

An employee later saw that same man, wearing the same clothes, as he strolled past her out of the nuns’ room and simply vanished before her eyes. Only sometime afterwards did Susan and the employee compare notes to discover they had witnessed the same apparition.

Not to be ignored, the derby-hatted gentleman appeared again to part-time local Tom Tunnicliff in the first-floor hotel lounge. He and several friends stood at the bar. The front doorbell sounded and the on-duty staffer left to check but soon returned – no one had entered the otherwise empty hotel. Tom felt someone touch his shoulder, and he turned to see the dark outlined silhouette of a man in a long coat and derby. The apparition passed through Tom’s arm, giving him a tingle, and proceeded to walk through the bar as well as through the antique boiler against the outside wall.

Surgery-turned-guestroom

Guests have reported a crying little girl at the foot of their bed in Room 11 (the former surgery room). Others said they’ve heard children playing with a bouncing ball and laughing on the third-floor hallway in the middle of the night. This happens even on evenings when no children stay at the hotel, according to Susan.

In an article in the Pikes Peak Courier, the hotel also remains home to ghostly former patients of the hospital’s mental ward. The article cites another reported recurring presence – a ghost called “Stinky,” sighted on the back staircase and making his presence known with a “sewage-like smell.”

Hauntings occur throughout Cripple Creek. Many casinos claim to have regular ghosts that play slots. One establishment reports a recurring apparition who sits at a particular machine. The ghost plays for a while and then disappears. One wonders who collects the earnings, if any.

Several people visiting Tom’s own house, just below the Hotel St. Nicholas, have witnessed an apparition arrive on his porch, come through a locked door, and walk through the home.

“People in Cripple Creek often dress up in period clothes,” Tom said. “But sometimes they disappear. You don’t know if you’ve seen a real person or a ghost.”

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Next week, we share history and ghostly stories for Cripple Creek's other haunted establishment in our book, Linda Goodman's Miracle Inn (formerly Last Dollar Inn), which may contain a portal to another dimension in its basement.

Colorado Haunted Hotels -- The Forest Queen

Between now and the spring, we're sharing the history and haunted legends associated with each of the hotels and B&Bs included in our forthcoming book,  

Crested Butte's Forest Queen Hotel

WILD WEST GHOSTS:
an amateur ghost hunting guide
to Haunted Hotels
in southwestern Colorado.

This week, we feature the Forest Queen in Crested Butte, Colo. (If you missed -- or want to revisit -- the paranormal investigation we conducted at this hotel, you can click here. We've also added a ghostly voice (EVP) we captured at the hotel.)

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Historical Context

The vicinity of Crested Butte on the East River Valley served as the summer home to the nomadic Ute Indians for hundreds of years. By the Nineteenth Century, they shared the land with trappers, explorers, and early attempts at settlement.

Eager miners followed earlier pioneers when prospectors discovered silver in the late 1860s. Within ten years, coal and silver mines opened in the surrounding area, resulting in multiple smaller mining towns. Widespread timber harvesting supplied lumber and fuel for newcomers while emerging cattle operations helped contribute to the economy by the 1870s. Crested Butte became the principal supply center for the area and an official town in 1880. The Denver Rio Grande Railroad arrived the year after.

Mining proved dangerous work. On Jan. 24, 1884, a coal mine shaft ignited and exploded, launching coal cars out of the tunnel, scattering debris more than a hundred feel, and destroying nearby buildings. A rescue attempt recovered fifty-nine bodies, many teenaged boys.

The Forest Queen Hotel began operating in the early days as part of Crested Butte’s red-light district, a series of brothels lined up between First Street and Second Street on Elk Avenue. The original building consisted of a saloon filling the first floor and a brothel on the second. 

After the mining declined in 1893, Crested Butte still survived, in part, because of the high-grade coal mines, some of which continued operations into the early 1950s. Higher transportation costs and lower consumption of coal eventually forced most of the mines to close, along with the railroad.

In 1961 scouts came to Crested Butte to investigate the area for a possible ski mountain. After a decade of slow times, locals welcomed the new opportunity. 

In keeping with the times, the Forest Queen by then had long transformed into a more respectable business, with a series of taverns and restaurants occupying the first floor while the second floor provided accommodations to overnight guests as well as to longer-term boarders. 

Today, Crested Butte not only hosts a thriving ski industry but also boasts a recreational playground for biking, hiking, and other outdoor pastimes. Shops, restaurants, and a slate of cultural events and festivities draw thousands of visitors year round to this community of 1,500 full-time residents.

Ghostly Legends and Guest Experiences

Both guests and staff have long reported paranormal goings-on at both the hotel and grill for many years.

Housekeeping staff say they find rearranged or tousled bed sheets and linens in the rooms on a regular basis. One chef from the kitchen below stayed upstairs overnight in a room with two beds. Awaking the next morning, he found all his clothes laid out on the other bed – not a service the hotel provides.

Another chef told us accounts of items that regularly turn up missing in the kitchen, only to return a day or two later. And these are industrial utensils, nothing an individual would borrow for home use.

Perhaps the most famous haunting in the hotel involves an 1800s prostitute named “Elizabeth.” Many locals refer to her as the Red Lady Ghost. Her tragic tale circulates in two versions, both ending with hurling herself from a second-story window and headfirst to her death in Coal Creek. The first version goes that one of Elizabeth’s regulars, a patron she adored, promised to deliver her from a sordid life. But one day she looked out her window and saw him kissing his wife – and thus the suicide. 

The other version tells the story this way: While Elizabeth stayed at the hotel, she fell in love with an itinerant gambler who talked her into bankrolling her life's savings. She did so to win his affection. But after the gambler doubled his winnings, he abandoned her with no money and no prospects – again ending with the leap from her window

Guests and staffers alike report the Red Lady Ghost makes her presence known by banging pots and pans and slamming doors. Her alleged crib is now present-day Room Four.

Both the men’s and women’s bathrooms in the grill also have a history of paranormal activity. One patron had a cellphone knocked from his hand before he turned on the light switch. When he bent to retrieve the cell, something prevented him from straightening back up for several seconds. Once he had, he turned on the light to an empty room.

On a different occasion, a woman experienced a series of repeated lights-out episodes in the women’s bathroom down that same hallway.

The reports of paranormal activity don’t stop in this building. In the next block, the Eldo Brew Pub has a reputation for hauntings as well, with staff reporting apparitions and anomalous sounds of all sorts.

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Next week, we'll share the haunted history of Cripple Creek's Hotel St. Nicholas, which operated (no pun intended -- okay, maybe a little one) as a gold rush miner's hospital for years before becoming a hotel.

#GhostHunt No. 14 - the Vintage Inn in Gunnison, CO

Our paranormal investigation account this week takes place at the Vintage Inn B&B in Gunnison, CO.

1880s-era Vintage Inn B&B

But first a S/O to owner/proprietor Beth Marcue, who welcomed us and made her entire B&B available to our investigation. Thanks, Beth!

The Vintage Inn was originally built in 1883 by Capt. Louden Mullin, a Civil War veteran responsible for many entrepreneurial ventures in West Gunnison. (At the time, the community divided into East and West as competing factions for the arrival of the new narrow-gauge railroad and consequent location of the depot.) Through the next century, the building served as a series of private residences as well as a daycare and video store before becoming a B&B in 2010.

Unlike the other ghost hunts we've conducted, this B&B has no documented history of paranormal activity. But to be fair, it’s only been open to the public for five years. We went in on a hunch anyway because of the age and appearance.

Our intuitions proved dead on.

Initially, we took EMF readings in the guestroom, ranging from 450-480mG around the bed and 580-590mG throughout the rest of the room. (EMF stands for Electromagnetic Field, and ghosts are said to manipulate this energy as a way to manifest or communicate.) The kitchen hovered in the mid-420s, the hearth room in the 410s, and the front living room in the 450s.

We decided not to further investigate the guestroom because owner Beth believed it was a newer addition to the building. So instead we focused on the original structure, most of which is available to guests during their stay.

In this instance, Beth wanted to assist as a ghost-hunt team member since she, too, was curious to see what we might find. We were glad to invite her along, and she offered a number of personalized questions that made the investigation more interesting.

VI hearth room

We began in the heart of the B&B, the hearth room, where we set up our equipment in front of the stove. Almost immediately, our EchoVox spirit box produced several EVPs using Beth’s name – fine by us. (EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomenon, sometimes occurring on audio recordings but can also be generated through a spirit box. Our EchoVox generates only random sounds -- no words -- and it's up to a spirit to assemble and create intelligible responses.) It was, after all, her house and her invisible roommates!

When we asked if any unseen presences could tell us who they were, we received clear replies of “no” twice. Then we asked if they had a story to tell, and we got “alright.”  But the single-syllable words that followed didn’t reveal much coherence.

So we asked how many spirits were present during the session and heard a response of “five” from two different voices. (Our EchoVox produced multiple voices while we conducted our investigation that day.) Later analysis confirmed what we’d heard in real time, but also additional references to Beth as well as the word “apple” after we asked if they had stories to tell.

Back in real time in the hearth room, we turned on the flashlight and asked for the spirits present to wink or dim the light as another way to communicate. No response. We also conducted an audio-only EVP session, which later yielded nothing.

VI living room

Beth suggested we move to the front living room because, to her, that room always held a different feel. We

again set up our EchoVox, camcorder, and flashlight to see what more we could capture. Beth asked if there was anything she could do to make the spirits in the house more comfortable. That only resulted in more references to Beth. So Mark asked if they were happy in this house. Loud and clear in real time, we heard in a man’s voice say, “Happy.” Mark asked for confirmation that the spirit had said “happy” and received an immediate “yes.” In later analysis, we also captured “good” following that exchange. Audio-only, nothing.

But the spirits made their strongest showing in the living room through the flashlight, fluttering at first and then dimming twice almost to the point of winking out. We captured these two episodes on video. 

EVP and Flashlight Response

We thanked them for their interaction and, on later analysis, discovered a voice saying, “You’re welcome.”

While there, Beth asked us to conduct readings in her private bedroom, where she kept a dresser that had arrived in Gunnison via her family’s covered wagon. We turned on the EchoVox and set the flashlight on the dresser. Mark asked for communication through the light, and we heard a voice through the spirit box twice say, “Flashlight.”  However, the light never winked or dimmed this time

In later analysis, we discovered several additions. Mark asked if the spirits present had any questions for Beth. A man’s voice repeated, “Question,” followed by a woman’s voice ten seconds later also saying, “Question.” The recording held Beth’s further request to blink the flashlight, but the response was “hard.” We also captured a woman’s voice announce, “Say it,” about thirty seconds later. We couldn’t determine if this spirit addressed the team or some other unseen presence.

We captured one final remark on later analysis: Mark had asked if anyone in the room had a connection to Beth’s family, and a woman’s voice replied, “I did.” 

 EVP of "I did" responding to Beth

We were glad we followed our intuition to investigate the Vintage Inn. Beth must be a good innkeeper as well as a good ghostkeeper. All her spirits appeared happy and polite.

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Several friends and followers have asked us if we'd share more about the history and legends surrounding the hotels we investigated. It's all in the forthcoming book, of course, but we're happy to share these fascinating back stories as we anticipate the release of the book this spring. 

So in coming weeks we'll share some of the history and the paranormal legends associated with the hotels we investigated. Each has its own special flavor and, certainly, its individual and unique "haunts."

BTW, Happy New Year to all our para peeps, followers, and friends!