Strater Hotel

A Victorian-era hotel built in 1887 directly on the railroad in downtown Durango. The four-story sandstone building features the largest collection of American Victorian antiques in the world and sits near the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad depot.

The Strater Hotel was built in 1887 by Henry Strater, a Cleveland pharmacist who came to Durango during the San Juan Mountains silver boom with a vision of transforming the rough mining camp into a permanent, respectable town. The four-story red-brick Victorian hotel, adorned with ornate cornices and arched windows, became the centerpiece of Main Avenue and one of the finest buildings in southwestern Colorado. The hotel has operated continuously for well over a century, with the Barker family owning it since 1926. Its most famous long-term guest was Western novelist Louis L'Amour, who spent the month of August at the Strater for more than ten years beginning in the mid-1960s. He wrote most of the popular Sackett series in Room 222, directly above the Diamond Belle Saloon, saying the sounds from below inspired his writing. The room was designated a Literary Landmark in 2012 and still contains L'Amour's desk.

The hotel's founder appears to be among its permanent residents. A member of the Barker family reported walking through the hotel theater one night when she noticed a man in period costume standing on the stage. She turned to get a better look, and he vanished. She is convinced it was Henry Strater himself, still watching over the establishment he built. Employees working on the upper floors have reported encounters with a threatening presence strong enough that some refuse to work alone there. A transparent woman dressed in white has been seen gliding through the hallways, and the ghost of a little girl has been spotted running through the corridors.

The area around the hotel is haunted by spirits tied to the railroad that built Durango. Employees working near the railyard behind the Strater have heard what sounds like a man dragging his torso along the gravel, moaning, "My legs, where are they? My legs. I need my legs." Others have seen a man in a white shirt -- presumably a railroad worker -- standing on the tracks behind the hotel, waiting for a phantom train that never arrives. In the Diamond Belle Saloon, the ghost of a bar girl from the hotel's frontier days makes herself known through the scent of perfume and unexplained sounds.

The Strater has embraced its haunted reputation by placing Ghost Diaries in each guest room, inviting visitors to document their experiences. One visiting journalist reported that a portrait of a woman in her second-floor room seemed to follow her with its eyes with such intensity that she fled to a colleague's room for the night. A guest photographed a glowing blue orb hovering against a wooden headboard. The hotel has been listed among America's ten most haunted hotels and is featured in the book Haunted Hotels of Southern Colorado.