Haunted Hotels of Southern Colorado

General William Palmer planned Durango in 1880, and it was to be a rail shipping center, sending supplies, food, and equipment to Silverton. The mines would ship their silver and gold ore to the smelters at Denver and Pueblo, and this cheaper transportation would help develop the mining industry.

The town site of Durango was laid out by the railroad’s survey crew, and it was named after the city in Mexico. Like Colorado Springs, businesses, hotels, and retail stores would be on Main and Second Streets. Third Avenue would be the residential boulevard with rows of green trees where homes, churches, and schools were far from the noise and dust of the business district. Land was set aside for parks, churches, a school, city hall, and even a future county administration building.

City lots full of sunflowers, sagebrush, and scattered pines were sold for $200, but the price quickly increased to $300, while the best lots were selling for $1,000. Wood frame buildings went up rapidly as the plans for a business district built of fire-deterring rocks or bricks were abandoned. Lumber was scarce, even with six sawmills, and the local brickyard could not keep up with the demand. Within one year, Durango had a population of 2,400, with 134 businesses, 5 lumberyards, 20 saloons, and 10 real estate firms.

The railroad arrived in Durango on August 5, 1881, and work began on a forty-five-mile extension up Animas Canyon to Silverton. The tracks were completed in eleven months, and the Denver & Rio Grande steamed triumphantly into Silverton on July 10, 1882.

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One of the first engines of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. Courtesy of History Colorado.

By the end of 1881, Durango had five newspapers, one of which, the Record, was guided by Caroline Romney. She’d hustled down from Leadville in 1880 with her printing press, anxious to publish Durango’s first daily newspaper. Described as slightly plump and very pretty, Mrs. Romney was immediately immersed in local politics and intrigues. She was an ardent booster of Durango, praising it as the “new city in the wilderness” and the “new wonder of the Southwest.” She advocated for women’s rights, campaigned actively for women’s suffrage, and insisted that all businesses should be closed on Sunday. Romney became embroiled in squabbles with Denver journalists, who criticized Durango’s “lurid lawlessness” and scornfully referred to it as “the sagebrush metropolis.” In the 1881 election, the Record urged Durango’s citizens to vote against retaining Denver as the state’s capital. The new boom town was touted as the “Denver of Southern Colorado,” and there were predictions that five thousand people would call it home by 1883.

As the town grew, crime increased, but Durango did not have a jail for captured criminals. There were stagecoach robberies, holdups, and horse thieves, and cattle rustlers raided herds and evaded capture by jumping across the New Mexico border. Territorial disputes between outlaw gangs spilled over into Durango, and the notorious Stockton-Eskridge gang was constantly fighting with the rival Simmons gang from Farmington, New Mexico. One morning, about twenty-five armed Simmons horsemen took up positions on the mesa east of Durango. Their rifle bullets suddenly began spraying the town, digging into the dirt streets and wooden sidewalks as the Stockton-Eskridge men returned the gunfire from the Railroad Street saloons. Durango’s citizens fled for cover, cowering in their homes and shops, but surprisingly, no one was seriously hurt.

On Easter Sunday in April 1881, Henry Moorman walked into a saloon and announced that he was going to kill someone. When he did shoot an innocent cowboy, vigilante justice prevailed, and the murderer was hauled outside town and swung into the hereafter by the “Committee of Safety.” William Folsom, a young dentist who’d just arrived in town, described the sight: “He was hung on a pine tree across from my office.…This was a hard country then.”

This hanging and the gunfight between the outlaw gangs spurred the lethargic city council into action, and members got busy establishing a stronger city government. A vigilance committee was appointed, a town marshal selected, a police force set up, and police judges chosen. Durango established the framework of city government and implemented a source of revenue to pay for it. A solid jail was built, and the city council decided that prisoners would receive a Spartan diet of coffee, bread, meat, and water.

The only legal hanging in Durango took place on June 23, 1882. George Woods had killed an unarmed man in the Pacific Club Saloon, and he was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged just one month after the murder. His execution was attended by more than three hundred spectators, many of whom brought their children and had a family picnic. The hanging took place across the street from where the Strater Hotel now stands. When Durango became too uncomfortable for outlaws and gangs, they headed north to Silverton to cause trouble there. After 1883, the city marshal reported that drunkenness, disturbing the peace, and gambling were Durango’s only real crime issues. He said he spent more time rounding up stray dogs and burros, small boys, and drunks than he did chasing down criminals.

Many of Durango’s saloons and gambling halls were congregated in one block off Main Avenue, and they operated around the clock. The sporting houses were conveniently located around the corner from the saloons. This red-light district existed in spite of the city fathers’ prohibition of bawdy houses and gambling. Virtue soon gave way to practicality—gambling and women were sources of revenue for the city government. The madams who ran the bawdy houses paid a monthly “fine” of $235, and their working girls paid them “rent.” Durango had twice as many saloons as churches, and saloon owners paid an annual $400 fee to operate. Legitimate businesses paid much lower license fees, and saloon owners protested loudly at city council meetings. These confrontations continued for years, but no changes were made.

Durango was a lively place for families in the 1880s. Wealthy men who had made money in the silver mines settled in town and brought their families from the East. Mining engineers, managers from the smelter, and local businessmen, as well as U.S. Army officers from Fort Lewis, came to Durango. This well-to-do group built their large homes on Third Avenue and kept a busy social calendar of balls, dances, and picnics. There was dancing and skating, while plays and concerts were performed by local drama clubs. Picnics on the river and the popular strawberry festival drew hundreds of families; the Chicago Comedy Club performed to sold-out crowds every year when the troupe came to town. When Robinson’s Circus arrived in 1883, even the Utes showed up for the big parade; the tall men with their wives and giggling youngsters lined up along Main Street with everyone else. Mrs. John Jackson Haggert recalled that “when the elephants came along, the Indians who usually make no demonstration, simply doubled up with laughter and rolled on the ground and howled, and then crowded around the amazing beasts.”

The citizens of Silverton were not happy when their smelter was moved to Durango where coal was readily available, and the railroad was nearby. Operations were set up on the west bank of the Animas River, and the smelter was enlarged, becoming the nucleus of a regional smelting center. The smelter would become Durango’s chief industry for the next fifty years, employing more men than any other company. Durango’s citizens cheerfully tolerated its noise and smelly smoke because it brought more jobs and business to their town. By the 1890s, it would be Colorado’s ninth-ranked smelter, and several large coal mines operating close to town added to the smoke. The coal mines fueled the railroads and smelters, and generated power for electricity, while creating a black cloud of smoke over Durango.

On July 1, 1889, a fire devastated several blocks of the business and residential districts, destroying many commercial buildings, homes, three churches, the courthouse, city hall, and the new jail. Panicked residents fled from town and watched the fire from a nearby mesa until the volunteer firemen got the flames under control. The following day, there was a meeting of the town’s citizens, and they decided to begin raising money to rebuild.

After the rubble was cleared away, the wooden, false-fronted buildings of the frontier days were gone. The business district was rebuilt to look like the commercial capital of the Southwest. Within just a year, Durango rose phoenix-like from the ashes with city blocks of new, brick commercial buildings that rivaled those of Denver and Pueblo. By 1890, the town had horse-drawn trolleys, which ran the length of Main Avenue, often stopping at the Strater and other large hotels along their route, picking up and dropping off passengers. By 1900, Durango was the first city in Colorado to have electricity-powered street cars.

By the turn of the century, Durango had become a vacation destination after the creation of the San Juan National Forest in 1905 and Mesa Verde National Park in 1906. It was the largest town on the Western Slope and growing steadily until the Depression closed the smelter. It was reopened during World War II to process vanadium, a key component in developing a rust-resistant stronger grade of steel. Vanadium mining boomed, and it wasn’t until the war ended that it became known that uranium was also being mined. This blasted Durango into the Atomic Age. By 1948, the vanadium mill at Durango was a major uranium producer, running around the clock. The workforce soared, and once again the smelter was the area’s major employer. The uranium was used in the Manhattan Project, and the plant operated until 1963. In 1984, Congress ordered the EPA and the Department of Energy to remove the smelter’s huge brick smokestack and clean up the piles of radioactive tailings produced by the vanadium processing.

Durango has prospered as the commercial and tourism center of La Plata County, and it is the gateway to Mesa Verde, the Four Corners region, and the San Juan Mountains. The Durango and Silverton Railroad has been in continuous operation since 1881, and it is a National Historic Landmark and a designated National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. This train has transported over $300 million in precious metals, and now it carries over 200,000 passengers a year.

Henry Strater thought Durango needed a really fine, first-class hotel, and he was just the man to build it. This twenty-year-old pharmacist from Cleveland was certain that a high-caliber establishment would add some class to Main Avenue. Despite his grand ideas, Stater had a few strikes against him: first, he had no money; second, he had no established credit; third, he was too young to enter into a legal contract; and fourth, he had no experience building or operating a hotel.

Never one to give up, Henry stretched the truth about his age and borrowed money from the bank. Then he convinced his wealthy relatives to loan him enough cash to buy a corner lot on Main Avenue for the hotel. He began construction in the summer of 1887.

The four-story, red brick hotel took up an entire block when it was completed late in 1887. Built in the popular Victorian Eclectic style, it looked just like a fancy wedding cake, with contrasting hand-carved, white sandstone–bracketed cornices, pediments, and window sills. There was a decorative cupola on the corner of the roof that overlooked Main Avenue, and elegant clothing and fine merchandise were displayed in the first floor’s large glass windows.

The hotel opened in 1888, and guests were impressed by the spacious lobby, crystal chandeliers, and fine antiques. Gentlemen could have their locks trimmed or their whiskers groomed in the barbershop while a harpist played soft melodies. There were two bathing rooms with tubs where miners and cowboys joined the wealthy guests, scrubbing and soaking for only twenty-five cents.

The Strater was one of the first hotels to use an “annunciator,” a bell system that connected each room to the main desk. A certain number of rings from a room signaled a need for ice water, bath water, or firewood. Despite its elegance, young Strater had forgotten closets for guest rooms and had given no thought to the importance of modern plumbing. In the absence of water closets, wealthy guests had to use a chamber pot or traipse to the three-story outhouse attached to the back of the hotel.

The hotel became a winter retreat for some locals who closed up their homes and moved in for the snow season. They toasted their toes at the wood-burning stoves in each room and enjoyed the comfortable furniture. A few of the finest rooms even had pianos.

The Strater became the favorite place for social events, and the society columns of the newspapers faithfully reported every dinner, dance, masked ball, and debut. Durango’s first opera house was inside the Strater, and in addition to opera, a variety of performers appeared, including Tom Thumb, the dwarf, and his troupe. Durango ladies and their children were invited to the hotel for special occasions where the youngsters were entertained while their mothers were engrossed in card games of whist and euchre. Often, string trios played chamber music and entertained guests during the Sunday dinner hour.

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The Strater Hotel, with its cornices and gingerbread trim, is a prominent Durango landmark. Courtesy of Wendy Williams.

Strater leased his hotel to H. Rice, but the two men soon had a bitter dispute. They were unable to resolve their problems, so Strater built a competing hotel right next door. When completed, the new, three-story hotel, called the Colombian, had forced-air heating and was advertised as “the only first-class hotel in Durango.” The Silver Panic of 1893 brought hard times, and business fell off, although both hotels managed to keep their doors open by lowering their rates. They competed for business until 1895, when the depressed economy put both into foreclosure. In 1902, the bank sold the two hotels to Hattie Mashburn and Charles Stilwell, who merged them, keeping the Strater name.

The quarters for the maids and waitresses were on the fourth floor at the rear of the building; while the floor’s front rooms were rented to traveling salesmen and permanent bachelor boarders. Some of the girls offered more to traveling salesmen than “clean towels,” and Miss Hattie had her hands full trying to keep order. Because of the shenanigans and monkey business that went on, the salesmen gave this floor its special name, “Monkey Hall.” Even though it was off-limits, curious gents and local dandies, armed with pocket flasks of white lightning, often found their way up the back stairs to the rooms of the friendly girls.

One evening, someone in Monkey Hall fired a shot, and it was followed by a loud scream. The manager and a porter, named Enos, bounded up the stairs to confront a crowd of merrymakers. The gun had been fired accidentally, frightening one of the girls. Terrified, she’d thrown her arms around her older “sugar daddy” and refused to let go. Now this gentleman was one of the hotel’s best customers, referred to as “Mr. Smith.” A traveling salesman and devout churchgoer, with a wife and children at home, Mr. Smith liked to have fun when he was on the road. Now caught in the act, he was terribly embarrassed and struggled to free himself from the girl’s stranglehold. His panicked playmate was a pretty blond showgirl nicknamed “Kitty in Boots” because she always wore little fur-trimmed boots. As curious guests crowded onto the fourth floor, Mr. Smith shouted desperately to the porter, “Enos, Take her away! Take her away! I have a reputation! Think of my reputation!” The onlookers were convulsed with laughter, and from that day on, he was known around Durango as “Reputation Smith.”

During Prohibition, the Strater became the headquarters of a bootlegger and his wife, who smuggled spirits across the border from Mexico. They hid the liquor in two large cars, which they painted white with red crosses to disguised them as ambulances. They left the vehicles outside town, sneaked the booze into the hotel, and invited local playboys to their room to sample their wares. One night when they caught one of the hotel porters helping himself to a few bottles of bathtub gin, they took some shots at him but missed. As the terrified thief dashed from the hotel, another guest threw a string of firecrackers after him. The racket drew quite a crowd to the Strater, and no one even missed the porter, who hopped the first train out of town.

In 1926, banker Earl Barker Sr. and a group of Durango businessmen bought the hotel and began renovating and updating the thirty-nine-year-old building. They installed modern bathrooms, air conditioning, and telephones but retained the hotel’s Victorian charm. Eventually, Barker Sr. bought out his partners and operated the hotel successfully until 1954 when his son, Earl Jr., and his wife, Jentra, took over. While on a trip to Georgia, they found an authentic Victorian bed in an antique store. It gave them the idea of furnishing several of the larger hotel rooms with vintage pieces. They rented a truck and filled it with antiques purchased on the drive back to Colorado. This was the beginning of the Strater’s collection of American Victorian walnut antiques. Earl and Jentra’s son, Rod, has added pieces, and today the Strater has the world’s largest collection of walnut antiques. Glass showcases filled with antique collectibles, like the gold-plated commemorative Winchester rifle and a real Stradivarius violin, are displayed throughout the hotel.

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The Strater Hotel has the world’s largest collection of dark walnut antiques displayed throughout the hotel. Courtesy of Courtesy of Wendy Williams.

The lobby regained its elegance when it was furnished with these expensive antiques; plush velvet draperies, and chandeliers that came from the old La Plata County Court House. The front desk was from a London pub, while the back portion is an antique walnut buffet with an ornate carving of Bacchus, the god of wine. Hand-printed reproductions of the original wallpaper and fine woodwork decorate the entire hotel.

Over the years, the hotel has entertained many celebrities and important people: Presidents Gerald Ford and John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and movie stars: Robert Redford, Chevy Chase, Michael Keaton, and Audie Murphy. Lowell Thomas, the renowned reporter, author, radio commentator, and world traveler, took a suite of rooms and broadcast his NBC program from the Strater. Will Rogers was a big favorite in Durango and stayed at the Strater just three weeks before he and his pilot, Wiley Post, were killed in a plane crash in Alaska in 1935.

Today, each of the ninety-three guest rooms is furnished as it was in the 1890s, and they are part of a special Room Dedication Project. Eventually, every room will be named after individuals, families, and institutions that have been important in the development of Durango and the surrounding area. In 2012, room 222 was dedicated to author Louis L’Amour and his wife, Kathy, who always spent several weeks in the summer here. They rented this room, which is directly over the Diamond Bell Saloon, because Louis said the honkytonk tunes helped him set the mood for his Westerns. The wooden drop-leaf table where he wrote the Sackett series is still there. In August 2012, twenty-four years after L’Amour died in 1988, the Strater Hotel and the Friends of the Durango Library placed a plaque on the wall by room 222, designating it a National Literary Landmark. Rod Barker, owner of the Strater, said, “This was always the Louis L’Amour Room,” and the author’s widow recalled, “This became our summer home. What a sweet day for me.” There are only 122 other designated literary sites in this country, and Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Robert Frost, and Edgar Allan Poe have been similarly honored.

When hotel owner Rod Barker was asked about the hotel’s ghosts, he laughed and said, “We’re 112 years old! I guess we’re entitled to a few ghost stories.” An incident that was reported in the October 24, 1999 Durango Herald took place one night when Barker was working at the front desk. A young couple who’d checked in earlier rushed down the stairs with their suitcases and said that they were leaving. The woman was obviously frightened and swore that she’d seen an apparition dressed like a saloon girl drifting around their room. The husband agreed to stay if they were given a different room, but his wife was adamant, “We’re leaving!” They did.

Another couple who stayed at the hotel on their honeymoon snapped some pictures of each other in their room. One of these photos showed the husband sitting on the bed with a mysterious shadowy figure standing behind him that no one could explain. Many photographs taken in different guest rooms show unexplained orbs floating about. Rod Barker said, “My sister claims she has seen two ghosts: one is a little girl who likes to run around and the other one is a man in the theater.” He continued, “She was walking through the theater one night when she noticed a man in period costume standing up on the stage. She turned around for a second look, and he was gone. She’s convinced it was Henry Strater.”

There are three apparitions that have been seen around the hotel many times. A man dressed like a railroad engineer walks through the lobby at different times of the day and night. A little girl dashes around the halls and suddenly disappears, and there have been many reports of a child running about in the banquet room. People walking through the alley next to the hotel have seen the ghostly figure of a man in a white shirt standing on the railroad tracks. He vanishes suddenly.

There’s been a lot of paranormal activity on the fourth floor, where several shadowy figures have been seen in the hall. Stealthy footsteps are heard in the halls, and the lights flicker on and off. The electrical wiring has been updated, so an antiquated system isn’t the cause. The doors of rooms suddenly bang shut or swing open when no one is around, and there’s no draft to blame. Other times a door just slowly opens to an empty, quiet hall. Some housekeepers refuse to work alone on this upstairs floor. Several said that they sense a threatening spirit, while other employees have seen the transparent figure of a woman dressed in white. Strange images have been glimpsed in the antique mirrors, and occasionally a wispy figure glides through a room. One maid was working alone in a guest room when she was touched on the shoulder, but when she turned around, no one was there. Other housekeeping employees said they, too, have been startled by a touch when they were alone. Most of these incidents have occurred on the upper floor.

The foundation of the Rochester Hotel was laid in 1890 on a piece of land that was owned by Alexander Hunt, a former territorial governor. He sold the property to E.T. Peeples, who in turn sold the unfinished building to a group of Durango businessmen. They opened it as the Peeples Hotel. The rectangular brick hotel had thirty-three guest rooms on the second floor, and there was a popular restaurant on the first floor. During the 1893 depression, the hotel was sold to Jerry Sullivan, who managed to stay in business, running it as a boardinghouse for railroad men and miners.

When the economy improved, tourists and businessmen began arriving again on the train, and they stayed at the Peeples. Sullivan sold the hotel in 1905 to Mary Francis Finn, who renamed it the Rochester Hotel. She enlarged the lobby by extending it out to the sidewalk; then she installed modern inside bathrooms for hotel guests. Mary Finn sold the hotel, and it changed hands several more times, but as the years passed, it was neglected and needed repairs.

In 1992, the Rochester Hotel was purchased by Diane and Frederick Wildfang and her son, Kirk Komick. They did an extensive renovation, retaining much of the original woodwork and hardware. Now hotel guests enjoy afternoon tea in the remodeled lobby. The staircase leading to the second floor has its original 1890s banisters, and the antiques from the hotel’s early days are still in use.

There are fifteen guest rooms with private baths, high ceilings and the original transoms above the doors. Each room is named for a movie filmed in the Durango area. Movie posters advertising Across the Wide Missouri, the Jimmy Stewart classic Naked Spur and the comedy City Slickers, plus many other favorites, are framed in bright marquee lights and line the hallways. The Leland House across the street, a 1927 brick building, was also remodeled by the Wildfangs and Komick and offers twelve guest apartments.

During the 1993 renovations, several contractors quit, saying that working in the old building made them very uncomfortable. “It just didn’t feel right—I was always looking over my shoulder,” said one. Frederick Wildfang, a local historian and co-owner, said that guests and employees have been reporting strange happenings in two of the rooms for many years. “We have indications that the hotel is haunted,” he said in the October 29, 2009 issue of the Durango Telegraph. He continued, “It has been on national TV and the hotel is now on the register of the ‘100 Most Haunted Hotels in America.’” Wildfang investigated the hotel’s history and talked to the local police and fire department before buying it. He remarked, “The hotel has been open since the 1890s, and there were a lot of incidents during Prohibition.… Second Avenue wasn’t a street you would walk down at night. This was a rough end of town.”

The apparition of a woman wearing a Victorian wedding dress or a long, fancy nightgown has been glimpsed in room 204. Others have seen her drifting around in peek-a-boo lingerie. This is the John Wayne Room, and Wildfang says, “We get calls every Halloween to rent out this room. People come from all over the country.” This room always interests paranormal investigators and ghost hunters.

When longtime jazz-blues musician and actor Bill Henderson checked into room 204, he soon asked for a different room. He insisted that the Duke himself had spoken to him from the TV set. Henderson, whose movie credits go back to 1972 and include roles in City Slickers and Lethal Weapon 4, was quite unnerved by the experience. Although 204 has the most activity, guests in other rooms at the Rochester have noticed their toiletries and personal items have been rearranged or misplaced. Most things reappear. Doors that were left unlocked by employees are mysteriously locked—from inside the room.