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The Hotel Boulderado was completed in 1908. Since that time, there have been a number of suicides in the hotel’s history. The first was in 1924 when a man administered chloroform to himself and overdosed. His wife was in the bathroom, and when she came out and saw her husband, she tried to kill herself with the leftover chloroform. There wasn’t enough left to kill her and she was taken to the hospital to recover.

The rooms with the most activity are 302 and 304. One of the rooms was the site of the chloroform suicide. Guests have reported white apparitions in the rooms. They have also heard voices with no apparent cause. A housekeeper in the 1980s reported that she’d seen the television come on in one of the rooms on its own. This was a time before remote controls for televisions. She’s seen a grandfather clock’s hands, which has never shown the correct time, spin around twice to show the correct time.

Even with the strange occurrences, the housekeeper stayed on at the Hotel Boulderado and advanced to become its sales and marketing manager. She’s seen many other strange things too. Once on a beautiful night, the heavy dining room window was shoved open by unseen hands.

Paranormal investigators have been to the hotel to verify the ghost sightings. While they didn’t see anything during their stay, they heard a disembodied voice whisper the word “careful” on their equipment as the investigators were walking down a staircase.

While you may know that the Oxford Hotel is Denver’s oldest hotel, you might not know that is also allegedly haunted. Founded in 1891, the Oxford Hotel has certainly seen enough history to warrant a haunting, and there are several stories behind many of its alleged haunts.

The Post Man

The Cruise Room in the Oxford Hotel was the first bar to open in Denver after the Prohibition was repealed in 1933. Bartenders at the Oxford speak of a post man who walks into the bar, sits and orders a beer. As he sips his beer, he mutters about getting “gifts to the children” and then quietly leaves upon supposedly finishing his beer. However, when bartenders go to collect the bottle, the beer is mysteriously full again.

The legend is that back in the 1930s, a postman was on his way to the city during a blizzard. When he never arrived, the rumor was that he sold the gifts and pocketed the cash. However, later his remains were found along with the undelivered presents after the snow melted. It is believed that his spirit is the one that frequents the Cruise Room looking for one last drink before venturing out into the cold.

The Lover’s Quarrel

The lover’s quarrel is the grounds for perhaps one of the most popular Denver ghost stories. It occurred in 1898 when Florence Montague shot and killed her married lover before shooting and killing herself in Room 320. Single men who stay in the room report having their arms pulled and their blankets pulled off them in the middle of the night. The spirit of Florence Montague poses no threat to married men and women or children, but single men must beware of staying in the room where the deadly lover’s quarrel occurred.

Haunted Hotel Teatro in Denver, CO

The Haunted Hotel Teatro sits in a location that used to house the old Denver Tramway Building, which was built in 1911. After the last streetcar stopped running, there was no reason for the Tramway Building. Instead, the University of Colorado used it for the Center of Performing Arts until 1997.

Restorations began in 1997 to turn the building into a hotel. During renovations is when the spooky happenings began. It is said that often that spirits do not like changes to their environment, which has been said to increase paranormal activity. They don’t like when their resting place is changed or altered.

Haunted Hotel Teatro’s ‘Tool Man’

The most notable ghost in the hotel is one called the “Tool Man” since he walks around with a toolbox. It’s thought that the Tool Man worked in the Tramway Building, and died while on the job. He disappears if anyone calls out to him. From the moment the crew started construction of the Hotel Teatro, there began hearing disembodied voices and experienced ghostly apparitions.

Guests of the Haunted Hotel Teatro have remarked that they felt like someone was in the room well after the cleaning staff had made their rounds. Items have been moved and other small unexplained occurrences happened during visitor’s hotel stay.

Thomas Croke was born in 1856. A natural leader and businessman with a vision, he moved to Denver to make a better life for himself. Through a series of turn of the century store ventures, he became a very wealthy individual. To celebrate he had a grand home built for him and his family. Nine bedrooms, nine bathrooms, library, study, office, and even a grand ballroom! It was a home that truly had everything and its construction cost was over $18,000 which adjusted for inflation meant that the home cost over $502,000 to build. A very costly home for the times and built for opulence at just over 13,000 square feet alone.

Tom Patterson was born in 1839 outside Carlow, Ireland. Another man with successful aspirations, he moved to the Colorado area in 1862. Marrying a high society woman named Katherine Grafton, Patterson had a political career in mind and successfully ran for Colorado State Senator. Building himself a career as a high-powered attorney, his success was even noted by then Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan and a future Cabinet position was discussed. Like Croke, Patterson had a beautiful ranch style home built near a lake that bordered some property that Croke owned. The two men were amicable friends whose families enjoyed one another’s company.

Croke and Patterson Strike A Deal

Upon the Croke Mansion being finished, a sadness had overcome Thomas. Historians differ on the exact cause, but the longstanding thought is that Thomas felt a great displeasure over the house’s final construction. Coupled with a bad investment into the silver market, he was unable to possibly pay for its entire construction and it was then that an actual trade was made. Thomas Croke traded his newly built home for Tom Patterson’s ranch. The two men swapped homes and shortly after the move into the Croke Patterson Mansion, the terror began.

Just after moving in, Patterson’s son committed suicide in the home. The next year in 1893, his oldest daughter died of a mysterious illness. The deaths of his two children took quite a toll on both he and his wife Katherine. Newspapers also mention a small detail of the Patterson’s having a newborn child named Mary that perished shortly after being born. Katherine was overcome with deep sadness and eventually died in the home of cholera in 1902. All this loss of loved ones finally took its toll on Tom, and he died of a sudden heart attack in 1910.

His only surviving daughter was Margaret Patterson Campbell, and both she and her husband Richard inherited the home. Over the next few years, the home was sold and repurposed into a multitude of things to include an apartment building, law office, and doctor’s office. It had many owners and a large number of people living in it over the next few decades. Almost all residents of the mansion have had unexplained paranormal encounters of frighteningly epic proportions.

Is the Croke-Patterson Mansion – Patterson Inn Haunted?

The individual apartment rooms within the mansion are quite active. Drawers open and close by unseen forces, as well as doors shutting and lights turning on. A former tenant who was pregnant reported being visited by the spirit of an older woman who said her name was “Kate” and that she was there to “help the baby”. No doubt Katherine Patterson’s ghost, many paranormal enthusiasts claim.

Even more bizarre is the downstairs fireplace area. A former business owner of the mansion had called in a priest to bless the home and when he came to asperse holy water on the hearth, a disturbingly black vortex manifested and spewed forth a gusty wind. The priest left immediately and never returned. In the late 1970s, another realtor and owner of the mansion claimed to have experienced this same wind. While standing in full view of the fireplace, a great and powerful blast of wind shot the brass fireplace rack clear out of the hearth and across the room.

Over the years, many psychics and mediums have investigated the mansion and held seances. Collectively, they all claim to come in contact with the spirit of a young girl who claimed she was killed and buried in the basement. Reportedly a small chamber area was discovered in the basement and a hole in it was filled with an odd substance composed of some bizarre sand-like material. Whether it was cremated human remains have yet to be tested.

Further seances get a similar spirit who claims she was a young girl who died and whose own mother dug up her body and buried it in that chamber basement wall. Even the carriage house on the property is thoroughly haunted by the spirit of a younger man named “Willie”. Reports read that Willie was employed as a hearse driver who robbed graves and brought them back to the mansion and engaged in Satanic rituals. Law enforcement was said to have caught him and found that he hung the bodies with rope on the wooden beams. These wooden beams are still exposed in the mansion to this date.

For the present day, the mansion has a totally new identity as the Patterson Inn, a luxurious bed and breakfast that has the distinction of being a Denver Historical National Landmark. While the inn has been remarkably transformed into a successful place to stay, guests still remark that there are strange occurrences happening to this day.