The Stanley Hotel

A 142-room Colonial Revival hotel built in 1909 by Freelan Oscar Stanley, co-inventor of the Stanley Steamer automobile. Perched at 7,500 feet on a bluff overlooking Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. Inspired Stephen King's 1977 novel The Shining after he stayed in Room 217.

The Stanley Hotel was built by Freelan Oscar Stanley, co-inventor of the Stanley Steamer automobile, who arrived in Estes Park in 1903 after being diagnosed with tuberculosis. The mountain air restored his health so dramatically that he decided to build a grand resort for wealthy Easterners. Designed by T. Robert Wieger in the Georgian Revival style, the hotel opened on July 4, 1909, as one of the first fully electrified hotels in the country, equipped with running water, electricity, and telephones. Stanley also built an adjacent concert hall as a gift for his wife Flora, an accomplished pianist whose beloved seven-and-a-half-foot Steinway grand piano still sits on its stage.

The hotel's most famous ghost story centers on Room 217 and a chambermaid named Elizabeth Wilson. On the evening of June 25, 1911, a thunderstorm knocked out the hotel's power. Wilson entered Room 217 with a lit candle to ignite the backup acetylene gas lamps, unaware that gas had been leaking into the room. The resulting explosion destroyed roughly ten percent of the hotel's west wing and sent Wilson crashing through the floor into the MacGregor Dining Room below. She survived with two broken ankles, and F.O. Stanley personally covered all her medical bills. After recovering, Wilson was promoted to head chambermaid and worked at the hotel until her death in the 1950s. Since then, guests in Room 217 have reported waking to find their clothes neatly folded and suitcases carefully organized. The very proper Mrs. Wilson is also said to climb into bed between unmarried couples, pushing them apart with an icy force.

Flora Stanley died on July 25, 1939, after suffering a stroke at the hotel, but guests and staff say she never truly left. Late-night visitors to the concert hall report hearing classical piano music drifting from the empty room, and some have witnessed the Steinway's keys depressing on their own. These ghostly concerts have been documented for decades and reportedly increased after the concert hall was renovated in 2000. The apparition of F.O. Stanley himself has been spotted in the billiard room and the lobby, still overseeing the hotel he built.

The fourth floor, originally servants' quarters, is among the most active areas of the hotel. Guests hear children running through the hallways and laughing at all hours, though no children are present. Room 428 is haunted by a friendly cowboy ghost believed to be James "Rocky Mountain Jim" Nugent, a legendary one-eyed frontiersman who was murdered near Estes Park in 1874. The cowboy appears at the foot of the bed watching over sleeping guests, and female visitors have reported feeling a gentle kiss on their foreheads. In the Concert Hall basement, a spirit known as Lucy -- said to be a homeless woman who died of exposure on the grounds -- communicates with paranormal investigators and appears to watch over the ghostly children who also frequent her space. The hotel's main staircase is considered a paranormal vortex, and a photograph taken there captured the image of a young girl on the stairs when no child was present, an image compelling enough to receive national news coverage.

The Stanley Hotel's most famous cultural connection came on a stormy October night in 1974, when Stephen King and his wife Tabitha checked into Room 217. They were the only guests as the hotel prepared to close for winter. That night, King had a vivid nightmare about a fire hose chasing his three-year-old son through the hotel's corridors. He woke in a cold sweat and, by the time he finished a cigarette on the balcony overlooking the Rocky Mountains, he had the outline for what would become The Shining, published in 1977.

The hotel has been investigated by some of the most prominent paranormal teams in the country. TAPS, the team from the television series Ghost Hunters, investigated the Stanley twice, including a six-hour live Halloween broadcast on October 31, 2006. During their investigation, co-founder Grant Wilson witnessed a heavy wooden table in Room 1302 rise off the floor and crash back down on its own. The Ghost Adventures crew has also conducted a lockdown investigation at the property. Today, the hotel fully embraces its haunted reputation, offering nightly ghost tours, The Shining tours, a late-night seance called "13," and The Overlook Project -- a three-hour interactive paranormal investigation led by resident investigators using scientific equipment. The Stanley remains one of the most investigated and most haunted hotels in America.