Hotel Boulderado
The historical elegance of the Hotel Boulderado may have attracted hauntings as well as hotel guests
Hotel Boulderado
Paranormal Claims
- People staying in Rooms 302 and 304 have reported disembodied voices and shadows
- Rooms 302 and 304 are also said to be home to electrical disturbances like TVs going on and off
- Guests in other rooms report feeling someone sitting at the edge of their bed
- A woman in white is seen wandering the top floor hallways and rocking in a rocking chair
- Windows are frequently reported to open and close on their own
Hotel Boulderado’s Luxurious History
Surrounded on all sides by smaller buildings, both new and old, the Hotel Boulderado blends in deceptively well with both eras of Boulder’s downtown aesthetic. From the outside, the chic ground floor eatery beckons in fans of modernity with its appealing outdoor seating and ads for craft beers. The upper stories, however, tell a tale of antiquity, with well-worn brick, aged architecture, and wrought iron faux balconies.
Though sporting countless modern amenities, Hotel Boulderado retains much of its historic splendor. Some of the preserved aspects include the lobby’s gold-lacquered stained-glass ceiling, the very first hotel logbook, and the original manually operated elevator. With such a masterful mix of modernity and history, it makes some sense that guests and workers from past generations have trouble leaving the hotel behind, making it one of the most haunted buildings in all of Boulder, Colorado.
Timeline of Hotel Boulderado's History
Swipe or use timeline points to see Hotel Boulderado through the years
1905
In the early 1900s, Boulder was a small but growing town. Thanks to the expansion of railroads, numerous opportunities arose, drawing more settlers to the region. There were a few small lodges and inns around train stations, but the city and its citizens both hoped for a grand hotel to make a stay in Boulder memorable. Fundraisers to build a new hotel were started in 1905, and soon after, enough funds were raised to construct a large, luxurious hotel in Boulder. Hotel Boulderado, opened for a Gala Ball on New Year’s Eve, 1908.
1909
Officially opening for reservations on January 1, 1909, rooms were instantly in high demand despite being expensively priced around $1 – $2.50. Over the next few years, the Hotel Boulderado proved more than adequate at meeting the growing city’s lodging needs. And, even better still, the hotel’s many luxuries left lasting impressions on those who stayed there, making Boulder a well-known stop off for train travelers coming from and going to all parts of the nation.
1920
In its early years, the hotel greeted numerous famous names of the day, including Ethel Barrymore, Billy Sunday, and Robert Frost. For anyone traveling through Boulder, spending a night there on tour, or giving local speeches, the first name in lodging that came up was the Hotel Boulderado. Perhaps the inn was just that opulent, or perhaps the original goal of the hotel’s naming had done its job. After all, it wouldn’t be hard for anyone to recall that they could find the Hotel Boulderado in Boulder, Colorado.
1939
But, times at the hotel were not always roaring. The Great Depression hit the inn hard, and the Dust Bowl curtailed a lot of travel in nearby states. Worsening matters, the original management company, the Boulder Hotel Company, folded in 1939. Without the original management, the inn was directionless and its future uncertain. Luckily, another firm, the Huston Hotel Company, took ownership of the hotel and sunk a small fortune into restorations, making it one of the most reserved hotels in the area by the time World War II ended.
1969
More updates took place in the decades that followed. A bar and restaurant were added into the building in 1969, and another round of refurbishments happened in the 1980s. Today, the hotel continues to operate with great success, wowing travelers and locals alike with its attention to historic detail. It also keeps numerous reminders of its long history, including the original guest book and original elevator, and even still hosts New Year’s Eve galas each year, like the one that first opened it to the public in 1908.
Is Hotel Boulderado Haunted?
As part of the National Register of Historic Places and Historic Hotels of America, the 110+ year old Hotel Boulderado is a cultural institution in Boulder, with a renowned reputation to boot. A substantial part of that individual reputation has developed through passed down stories of the hotel’s splendor, as well as stories of its supposed spirits.
Indeed, over its century of operation, many guests and workers have experienced strange activity at the hotel, activity they could only describe as being the work of ghosts.
Hotel Boulderado’s Twin Haunts
Perhaps the most well-known paranormal legend surrounding the Hotel Boulderado has to do with a pair of third floor rooms in particular.
Rooms 302 and 304 have become hotbeds for numerous ghostly reports. The legend has it that a married couple once made a suicide pact together, and fulfilled that pact in one of these rooms, or perhaps both of them.
Hotel Boulderado’s Electrical Oddities
Though this claim could not be verified, the tale of the Hotel Boulderado’s suicides has become local folklore, and claims of odd occurrences around these rooms continue to come up quite often today.
Visitors have reported strange and unexplainable electrical issues in the two rooms, including TVs turning on and off. Guests to Rooms 302 and 304 have also claimed to hear disembodied voices and see unknown, shifting shadows in these rooms.
Hotel Boulderado’s Victorian Phantoms
Aside from the two reportedly haunted rooms, ghosts are said to linger all throughout the building. The white, smokey apparition of an old woman in a flowing Victorian dress is often encountered wandering the halls of the top floor of the building. She has also been spotted rocking in an old rocking chair.
No one is exactly certain who this supposed spirit is or where she comes from, though a few have connected her presence to the suicide pact in the aforementioned rooms, claiming she is the wife in that unfortunate pairing.
Guests in a variety of rooms across the hotel have said they wake up feeling like someone is sitting on the edge of their bed some nights, only to feel the unseen force shift when requested.
In certain other rooms, guests have sometimes complained about windows in their rooms constantly being opened, even after they’ve closed them time and time again.
Hotel Boulderado’s ghosts draw a crowd
But, rather than drive guests away, the tales of ghosts and hauntings only seem to draw more people into the Hotel Boulderado. Some will book a night, or several, just in hopes of encountering paranormal activity, with the 302 and 304 rooms in particularly high demand.
And while some of the paranormal activity at the hotel is of uncertain origin, one could hardly blame any ghost for wanting to spend their afterlife there. With a well-maintained historical ambiance, delicious food, cold drinks, and elegant rooms, the Hotel Boulderado has just about everything a person, or ghost, could ever want.
