Feb. 16, 2026
Terrifying & True | Stanley Hotel: The Shining Origin and America’s Most Haunted Hotel
The Stanley Hotel isn’t just a famous haunted hotel in Estes Park, Colorado—it’s a place where real disaster and pop-culture horror fused into one unstoppable legend. Tonight, we trace the true story that begins with a stormy night in 1911, when acetylene gas silently pooled inside Room 217… and a single candle turned the west wing into a blast zone. A young head chambermaid, Elizabeth Wilson, is hurled through collapsing floors—and somehow survives.
From there, the Stanley’s history becomes a slow-burn nightmare: financial collapse, empty winter hallways, and decades of ghost lore—from whispers of F.O. Stanley still “checking in” on the lobby, to tales of Flora Stanley’s phantom piano echoing through silent rooms. Then comes the turning point: October 30, 1974—a nearly empty hotel, a writer in Room 217, and a nightmare that helps ignite Stephen King’s The Shining (without claiming ghosts as fact).
And once the Stanley becomes the pilgrimage site for horror fans, the modern era kicks the door in—paranormal TV, viral “evidence,” festivals, and a full-tilt business model built on one irresistible question: is it haunted… or is it just brilliantly haunted-by-storytelling?
A real explosion. A real survival. A real hotel that learned to live forever as a legend.We’re telling that story tonight.
🎧 LISTEN NOW and subscribe for spine-tingling horror stories every week!
🎉 Unlock exclusive bonus episodes and support the show on Patreon!
👉 WeeklySpooky.com/Join
📬 Contact Us / Submit Your Horror Story!
🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com
From there, the Stanley’s history becomes a slow-burn nightmare: financial collapse, empty winter hallways, and decades of ghost lore—from whispers of F.O. Stanley still “checking in” on the lobby, to tales of Flora Stanley’s phantom piano echoing through silent rooms. Then comes the turning point: October 30, 1974—a nearly empty hotel, a writer in Room 217, and a nightmare that helps ignite Stephen King’s The Shining (without claiming ghosts as fact).
And once the Stanley becomes the pilgrimage site for horror fans, the modern era kicks the door in—paranormal TV, viral “evidence,” festivals, and a full-tilt business model built on one irresistible question: is it haunted… or is it just brilliantly haunted-by-storytelling?
A real explosion. A real survival. A real hotel that learned to live forever as a legend.We’re telling that story tonight.
🎧 LISTEN NOW and subscribe for spine-tingling horror stories every week!
🎉 Unlock exclusive bonus episodes and support the show on Patreon!
👉 WeeklySpooky.com/Join
📬 Contact Us / Submit Your Horror Story!
- Twitter: @WeeklySpooky
- Facebook: facebook.com/WeeklySpooky
- Email: WeeklySpooky@gmail.com
🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com
WEBVTT
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The lights die in the Stanley Hotel, and in the dark,
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invisible gas fills Room two seventeen like a held breath.
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A chambermaid steps inside with a candle. The flame wavers,
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then the whole mountain seems to detonate. She falls through
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collapsing floors and lives. But after that night, the Stanley
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never stops collecting stories.
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What you were about to tear is burt to beel.
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Based on witness accounts, testimonies, and public record, this is
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terrifying and treat treat.
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High in the rocky mountain, above the little town of
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Estes Park stands a grand, old hotel with a reputation
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that has outgrown its own history. Visitors come for the
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view and stay for the rumors of strange music in
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empty rooms, of figures glimpsed and gone, of a corridor
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that feels a little too long when you're walking it alone.
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But beyond the ghost stories is something far more certain,
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a real night of terror in nineteen eleven, when a
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gas leak and a single candle turned Room two seventeen
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into the epicenter of an explosion that should have killed
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it didn't, and in the decades that followed that survival
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story mixed with money, troubles, winter silence, and one writer's
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nightmare help transform the Stanley Hotel into an American legend. Tonight,
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we follow the facts and the fear that grew up
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around them. So make sure you're subscribed on your favorite
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podcasting app to hear more stories of the terrifying and true. Now,
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get comfortable and let's check in. A crack of thunder
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high in the Rocky Mountains, lightning over Estes Park, Colorado.
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The year is nineteen eleven. Inside the brand new Stanley Hotel,
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a grand Georgian revival resort, the electric lights sputter and die.
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Dinner guests murmur in uneasy darkness as wind lashes the windows.
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Staff scurry to light backup lamps. The hotel's owner, Freelin O. Stanley,
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had installed a new acetylene gas lighting system just for
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nights like this. Up on the second floor, head chambermaid
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Elizabeth Wilson moves quickly a single candle in hand. The
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flames glow bobs through the corridor as she pushes open
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door after door to light the gas lamps inside. Meanwhile,
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down in the lobby, a cluster of patrons huddle together,
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listening to the storm's howl. They don't realize the entire
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hotel is now a ticking time bomb. In Room two seventeen,
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the Presidential Suite, invisible gas has been leaking from a
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pipe all day, pulling in the air. No one smelled it.
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Acetylene has no odour. Unaware of the danger, Elizabeth Wilson
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turns the knob and steps into the room, her candle
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casting dancing shadows. The flame wavers, then ignites an unseeable cloud.
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At seven point fifty PM, a blinding flash and thunderous
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boom rock the stanley. The west wing explodes in a fireball.
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Floors heave, windows shatter, Guests scream as a shockwave rattles
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the valley on the second floor. The blast rips through
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Room two seventeen, and the floor gives way beneath a
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Zabeth Wilson's feet. Back in modern day, a tour guide
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gathers guests in a dim hallway outside Room two seventeen.
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Flashlights cast long shadows on floral wallpaper. The guide's voice
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drops to a hush as he recounts the hotel's most
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infamous tale, the gas explosion of nineteen eleven. Tourists lean
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in eyes wide as she describes how a chambermaid was
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nearly blown to bits. In this very sweet she holds
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up a yellowed newspaper clipping quote. The Stanley Hotel, built
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at a cost of five hundred thousand dollars, was partly
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wrecked last night by an explosion of gas. Eight persons
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were injured, one seriously. Elizabeth Wilson was hurled from the
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second to the first floor, and both ankles were broken,
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reports a century old dispatch. The group gasps and chuckles
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nervously in this telling. Room two seventeen isn't just a lodging,
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it's a legend, the spot where the Stanley's haunted reputation
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sparked to life. In nineteen o three, inventor F. O.
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Stanley arrives in the est S Park expecting to die
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of tuberculosis, but the crisp mountain air revives him. By
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the end of that summer, he's gained weight and a
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new vision. This valley of healing deserves a grand hotel.
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By nineteen o nine, Stanley opens his opulent, forty eight
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room hotel, an oasis of modern comfort in the wilderness.
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It's fully electrified and boasts telephones and running water in
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every suite, unheard of luxuries in the High Rockies. Wealthy
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travelers from back East flock here to summer in style.
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One newspaper said, quote St. S Park has been a
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favorite place for doctors to send patients, but it has
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not always been possible to get suitable accommodations. With the
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park now turned into a vast pleasure ground, all objections
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will be dissipated. In just a few years. Stanley's Mountain
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Retreat put the once sleepy valley on the map. Winters
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at the Stanley are a world apart. In January nineteen ten,
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the main hotel sits closed and dark, buried in snow.
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Nearly all staff and guests are gone for the season,
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leaving only a skeleton crew to guard the property. One night,
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a lone caretaker makes his rounds by lantern light. The
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empty corridors groan as wind presses against the walls. Floorboards
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creak under his footsteps. Or is it someone following behind?
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He pauses, heart thudding in his ears, only silence. Up
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on the fourth floor, the caretaker checks each guest room,
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his breath clouding in the frigid air. A curtain billows
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in a draft startling him, He hastily latches the window
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against the howling gale. In these off season months, the
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luxurious hotel becomes an eerie shell. Imagination fills the void,
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turning dancing shadows and settling timbers into ghosts that don't exist,
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at least not yet. Hours after the nineteen eleven explosion,
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chaos rains. Broken glass and splintered wood litter the corridors
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of the West Wing. Guests who are enjoying a genteel
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evening now huddle in shock on the front lawn in
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their dinner attire. Inside, f O. Stanley and his staff
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scramble through debris by lantern light, accounting for the injured. Miraculously,
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almost unbelievably, no one is killed. They find twenty six
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year old Elizabeth Wilson crumpled on the first floor, alive
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but hurt badly, both ankles broken. Several waiters are bloodied
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and dazed from the blast. Stanley's elegant mountain escape looks
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like a war zone. A huge chunk of the hotel's
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second floor has collapsed into the dining hall below, and
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acrid smoke hangs in the air. With dawn still hours away,
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the stunned owner can only supervise makeshift first aid and
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pray help arrives from town before anyone's condition worsens. The
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next morning, news of the Stanley Hotel disaster spreads through
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Estes Park. Curious locals hike up the hill to gawk
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at the wreckage, trading rumors about what exactly had happened
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in town. A telegraph operator reads an early bullet allowed
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to a small crowd quote the explosion of a Settlene
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gas in the Stanley Hotel last night at eight o'clock
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endangered the lives of twenty guests and injured Miss Elizabeth
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Lambert fatally. One report claims a murmur ripples through the listeners.
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Did the girl in Room two seventeen die? Then a
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message rides in from the hotel with an update The
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maid is alive, though her legs are broken. The crowd
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exhales in relief as townsfolk drift away, some cast uneasy
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glances up valley toward the Stanley's white facade, now marred
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by a blackened hole. One local mutters she's lucky that
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place could have been a tomb. In the weeks that
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follow fo Stanley refuses to let the disaster ruin his dream.
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Engineers shore up the wrecked wing and begin repairs immediately.
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Newspapers report ten thousand dollars in damage, a hefty sum,
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but far from a fatal blow. Stanley personally pays the
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hospital bills for Elizabeth, Wilson and the other injured employees,
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promising they'll have jobs waiting once they recover. Sure enough,
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Elizabeth returns the next summer on crutches, eager to work.
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New guests checking into the rebuilt Room two seventeen have
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no idea that just a year earlier, the floorboards blew
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out under a maid's feet. By the end of nineteen eleven,
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the hotel is fully restored and back in business. Stanley
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breathes a sigh of relief his luxury mountain retreat has
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survived its first nightmare. Years later, the tale of the
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Room two seventeen explosion becomes part of the Stanley's folklore.
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On quiet off season evenings, employees gather in the staff
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quarters and swap stories about that fateful summer night. Older
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bellhops and housekeepers who remember nineteen eleven embellished the details,
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with each retelling how the blast nearly blew the roof
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off or how a ghostly chambermaid still limps through the halls.
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New hires listen wide eyed as Elizabeth Wilson is elevated
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to a near mythic status as the woman who survived
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Room two seventeen. There's a thrill in the telling. The
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Stanley Hotel may have been reborn, shiny and new, but
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the staff keeps the memory of its brush with disaster
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alive in their whispered late night yarns. The seeds of
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a haunted reputation quietly take root. In nineteen seventeen through
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nineteen twenty six, new pressures began to mount f o Stanley,
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now in his late seventies, faces harsh economic realities. The
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Stanley Hotel, for all its glamour, struggles to turn a
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profit in this remote locale. Stanley's business partner dies in
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nineteen fourteen, and maintaining the resort becomes an overwhelming burden. Finally,
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in nineteen twenty six, Stanley lets go. He sells the
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hotel to a group of Milwaukee investors and takes a
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last wistful look at his creation. The man who built
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Estes Park's showpiece departs Colorado for good. The Stanley enters
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a new era under new owners, but financial strain, brutal winters,
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and the slow grind of time continue to stalk its halls.
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The building's survival story is far from over.
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Night.
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Nineteen forty, an employee making late rounds passes the darkened
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billiard room and freezes inside stands a gentleman in an
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old fashioned suit, bathed in faint moonlight. The employee's heart leaps.
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He recognizes the trim mustache and confident posture of Fo Stanley,
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the hotel's founder. But Stanley isn't supposed to be here.
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He left years ago. In fact, he died just weeks
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earlier back east. Summoning courage, the employee steps into the
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room to address the figure and finds it empty. Only
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dust motes swirl in the silence. Many swear that Fo's
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ghost returned to his beloved hotel after death. Unable to
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leave its halls behind, staff over the years report fleeting
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glimpses of a dapper specter in the lobby or billiard room,
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as if the old proprietor still checks on the place
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after midnight. Meanwhile, in the nineteen thirties, new owner Roe
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Emery is determined to keep the Stanley Hotel afloat. A
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transportation tycoon, Emory uses his fortune to modernize the aging resort.
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In nineteen thirty five, he refurbishes every guest room with
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private baths and installs a new otis elevator. He even
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repaints the hotel from its original ochre yellow to a
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crisp white, giving the old building a facelift. For a moment,
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the Stanley seems poised for a second Golden Age, but
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the hotel continues to bleed money despite Emery's improvements. Running
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a luxury resort in the remote Rockies during the Great
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Depression proves brutally difficult. Emory quietly shifts funds from his
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other businesses to cover the Stanley's losses. Through the late
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nineteen thirties, the grand hotel stays open, but only by
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borrowing against its owner's deep pockets. Late one evening in
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the nineteen fifties, music drifts from the stanleys deserted ballroom.
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A sleepy security guard follows the soft melody down the corridor.
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He nudges open the ballroom door and finds the grand
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piano sitting unoccupied in the moonlight. Yet the keys are moving,
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playing a gentle waltz by themselves. As the guard steps forward,
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the music stops abruptly. The bathroom falls silent, empty of
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any living soul. Story spread that Flora Stanley, Fo's wife,
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who died in nineteen thirty nine, still plays her beloved
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Steinway piano in spirit. Staff and guests alike whisper about
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midnight sonatas with no pianist in sight. It's a beautiful,
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chilling thought. Perhaps Flora never left the music room she loved,
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even in death. By nineteen seventy, the Stanley Hotel is
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on the brink of closure. Years of financial struggle have
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taken their toll. That spring, the local paper reports the
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once grand hotel will not open for the summer. It
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needs up to one hundred thousand dollars just to operate.
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Its owners are embroiled in lawsuits and debt. The majestic
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halls that once hosted Teddy Roosevelt and Molly Brown now
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sit dark and gathering dust. Locals begin to speculate the
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Stanley might be finished for good, as tes Park's crown
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jewel has become a forlorn relic. Some say the old
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hotel should be torn down before it falls apart on
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its own. In the lobby, chairs are stacked on tables,
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and sheets drape over furniture, as if the building is
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already morning its own fate. Fast forward to the summer
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of nineteen seventy two. The Stanley has sat mostly empty
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for two years. Late one night, two local teenagers sneak
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in through a loose window, daring each other to explore
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the shuttered halls. Armed with a flashlight, they tiptoe through
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the darkness upstairs, a sudden giggle echoes like a child's laugh.
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The teens freeze an another laugh answers from down the corridor,
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followed by the pattern of unseen footsteps panicking the trespasser's
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sprint for the exit. Convinced something unearthly is playing on
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the fourth floor. Outside, the two catch their breath under
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the stars and swear they'll never go back in. In
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a small mountain town, an abandoned hotel breeds rumors as
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naturally as mold. By the nineteen seventies, the Stanley's eerie
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reputation is set in stone, even if its doors might
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never reopen. Enter nineteen seventy four, and a new savior,
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entrepreneur Frank Normali, purchases the dilapidated Stanley Hotel in a
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last ditch effort to save it. When he first arrives,
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he's stunned by what he finds. The once opulent resort
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looks almost post apocalyptic quote. Overgrown weeds peaked through the snow.
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A bulldozer sat frozen on the front lawn. Curls of
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peeling paint shrouded the hotel's columns in dirty fringes. Many
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of the doors and windows were boarded shut, while most
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of the upper casements were broken. Normally wrote in his
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memoir regarding his first sight of the hotel, Indeed, the
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