What happened
The hotel in Estes Park was opened on 4 July 1909 by Freelan Oscar Stanley, inventor of a steam car, who had come to the Rockies to recover from tuberculosis. In June 1911 a gas explosion badly injured a maid – and Room 217, linked to that story, later became the hotel's most famous room. In 1974 Stephen King and his wife Tabitha checked in for one night just as the hotel was closing for the winter; they were almost the only guests. King said he dreamed that night of his young son fleeing down the corridors from a fire hose, and woke with the outline of “The Shining” (1977). Ever since, the hotel has been associated with the Overlook. Staff and guests tell of the piano in the music room played by Flora Stanley herself, of F.O. Stanley's figure in the billiard room, of children's laughter on the fourth floor, and of the maid's ghost in Room 217 unpacking guests' suitcases.
Witnesses
Stephen King (in interviews), hotel staff, guests and night ghost-tour participants; the hotel has been visited by the “Ghost Hunters” team.
Explanations and hypotheses
King has described his stay differently in different interviews, and “The Shining” makes no claim that the hotel is haunted – it is fiction. Press reports from 1911 give contradictory details of the explosion, and the maid's name appears in several versions. The haunting is now a carefully cultivated brand: the hotel runs ghost tours and in 2015 built a hedge maze referencing Kubrick's film. There is no independent confirmation of any phenomena.
Legend A story handed down through generations – it can be neither confirmed nor disproved.
Sources
- Jan Tuckwood, King's Room 217 (Chicago Tribune, 1997)
- Estes Park Trail-Gazette – Stanley Hotel ghost story supported by evidence of Room 217 event (2014)
- Scripps News – The Stanley Hotel's haunted reputation and how it inspired 'The Shining'
More: Wikipedia (en)