Ghost Stories from South Park, Colorado

Article from the Fairplay Flume
10/27/2006
By Linda Bjorklund
For the Park County Archives

"As Halloween draws near, places reputed to be haunted seem to develop a darker and more mysterious look. Fairplay is reputed to have ghosts in at least two hotels and one old house.

The Fairplay Hotel, whose floors still creak when patrons walk across the dining room, gets more noisy toward the end of October. The town's annual Harvest Dance, previously held to celebrate the end of summer, was a favorite time for a local 'party girl' named Julia to attend the festival and dance around the floor. Julia committed suicide after turning down a proposal of marriage and was buried in the Fairplay Cemetery, according to a place mat at the Fairplay Hotel and a Denver Post article from Jan. 27, 2002. Occasionally, distant music and the rhythmic creaking of the hotel floorboards remind guests and employees that Julia has not lost her fondness for her harvest moon twirl in spite of her broken heart.

And the Hand Hotel, run for many years by a popular owner called "Grandma Hand," has not lost the spirit of the legendary lady. Number 12, the room that Grandma Hand kept as her own, does not respond well to changes in its furnishings. A guest reported that he was awakened several times during the night by a voice demanding, "Where's my rocker?" At least that's the account in that same 2002 Denver Post article, which was verified by the clerk at the Hand Hotel. The next day a search of the premises turned up the rocking chair in another room. After the rocker was returned to its rightful place, nocturnal queries stopped. Other guests have reported that touches from unknown hands have been felt. Yet another guest reported covers being snatched off her during the night by a dark mastiff dog, according to the Post article. The dog appeared again when a father and son attempted to build a haunted house in the basement of the hotel. Actual dog bites on the hand of the boy were confirmed by witnesses. The hotel conducts periodic "ghost walks" to inform patrons of some of the unusual inhabitants they might encounter during their stay, according to the manager of the Hand Hotel.

Finally, a lonely looking house stands empty on a hillside above the school grounds, reminding us that it, too, has its ghosts. The house was built in 1873 by James Paul, a mining man, whose wife preferred to live in Fairplay rather than in Leadville where Paul worked. He rode horseback over Mosquito Pass to work and back. The American Gothic style of architecture does nothing to dispel the aura of tragedy about the structure. Another family was living in the house in the early 1900s when a son in his early twenties, despondent over an unrequited love, took to his room in the northwest corner of the house and committed suicide by cutting his own throat with a razor. It was said that the family shut the room without cleaning it and didn't enter it again. Subsequent owners tried to remove the blood stains from the floor and finally gave up, painting the floor red to cover the stains. It became known as the 'red room,' according to the chapter called "Fairplay: Haunted House on the Hill," found in a book named "Gaslights and Gingerbread." Other information about the suicide was also revealed in the March 13, 1914, edition of The Flume.

The spirits of Fairplay don't seem to have the vengeful attitude of Freddy Krueger, but a gentle sadness that is mindful of every town's dark moments, as well as its happier ones."

Much more, with pictures:
http://www.hauntedcolorado.net/Fairplay.html

Video of a paranormal investigation at the Fairplay Hotel last month:
http://ufogeek.blogspot.com/2010/10/hau ... hotel.html

Actually, this house on the hill is not completely vacant. I don't believe someone lives there year-round, as with a lot of Fairplay area homes, but there is always a beautiful Christmas tree in one of the bay windows, and sometime in the last 3 or 4 years the outside has been painted an ugly color of green (as compared to what was painted over, which was a nice shade of blue).

So, how many of you have been chased by the headless horseman of South Park?

yes, I will spill - but I have to make a wedding veil for someone special for her wedding this weekend, and then I can write about it- by the weekend, ladies and gents.

Looking forward to that LH. This stuff is interesting.

So, not ghost stories, but "haunted" events:

http://www.examiner.com/history-in-denver/history-and-horrors-combine-to-bring-halloween-fun-to-molly-brown-house

http://www.examiner.com/history-in-denver/central-city-s-creepy-crawl-starts-this-weekend