Grand Imperial Hotel

One of Colorado's most haunted hotels, opened in 1883 when the railroad arrived in Silverton. The Victorian building has a basement theater and original furnishings that haven't changed much in 140 years.

The Grand Imperial Hotel was built in 1882 by W.S. Thomson, a representative of the Crown Perfumery of London who had invested in Silverton's Martha Rose Smelter. Thomson commissioned one of the largest buildings in town to provide luxury accommodations for visitors arriving on the newly completed Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. The three-story hotel featured arched windows, a saloon, a dining hall, and guest suites that made it the social center of this remote mining community perched at 9,318 feet in the San Juan Mountains. Silverton was one of the wildest mining camps in Colorado, with a notorious red-light district on Blair Street connected to the respectable parts of town by a network of underground tunnels.

The hotel's most documented ghost is Luigi Regalia, a forty-two-year-old man who shot himself in Room 314 on the night of November 1, 1890. He died early the following morning despite the efforts of a doctor staying in a nearby room. Luigi's spirit is a notorious prankster -- guests have been locked out of their rooms by door chains fastened from the inside when no one was there, and shower controls have turned on by themselves. Housekeeping staff refuse to enter Room 314 without a partner, reporting the sensation of being touched by unseen hands, and beds that were just made appear to have been sat or lain on moments later. The doctor who tried to save Luigi is thought to remain as well, a quieter presence lingering near the room where he failed to save his patient.

The ghost of an old sheriff guards the underground tunnels beneath Blair Street, where women from the red-light district were once shuttled to and from their clients. A dark figure was photographed in the key room, which investigators think may be the sheriff still patrolling his post. A female spirit known as Miss Mary announces herself through a British-accented voice, singing, and the scent of honeysuckle or vanilla perfume. An old miner still visits the bar to order a drink before vanishing without consuming it. In the basement theater, a former bartender haunts the space and demands respect, with witnesses hearing old-timey music and glasses clinking from the empty room.

Activity at the hotel escalated dramatically during a 2015 renovation of the third floor, when construction workers had nails and chunks of drywall thrown at them by invisible hands, forcing them to retreat downstairs and wait for the disturbances to stop. On National Ghost Hunting Day in September 2018, the Four Corners Paranormal Investigations team captured what they described as a misty figure floating through the theater. Paranormal investigator Elizabeth Green assessed the hotel's spirits as restless rather than malevolent. Room 219 has also generated reports of pacing sounds, and a room was once found dead-bolted from the inside with no one inside it.