Haunted Hotels of Southern Colorado by Nancy Williams

Author:Nancy Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2019-12-01T16:00:00+00:00

The Beaumont, the “Flagship of the San Juans,” was painted pink and closed for thirty years by its owner. Courtesy of Wendy Williams.

The lobby-atrium’s gold velour wallpaper gleamed, and a large skylight bathed the entire area in wonderful light. There were two banks on the first floor, the Western Union Telegraph office, and a gentlemen’s barbershop. An impressive golden oak staircase led to the upper floors, which had forty-three guest rooms with baths. They were furnished with the finest from Marshall Fields of Chicago. There were interior balconies on the second and third floors, circling the central atrium, which opened to the skylight and gave guests a bird’s-eye view of the lobby below.

The grand opening was held July 7, 1887, and the Palmer House in Chicago sent its most experienced employees to help with the gala affair. The distinguished guests included King Leopold of Belgium, Teddy Roosevelt, and Herbert Hoover, then a young mining engineer. Sarah Bernhardt and Lillie Langtry entertained wealthy investors and mining millionaires in the ballroom. Ouray’s newspaper, the Solid Muldoon, raved, “The ballroom was crowded with dancers until daylight.…[T]he hungry did justice to the bounteous spread.”

Both the Beaumont and the Western Hotel sent carriages daily to meet travelers arriving at the train depot. To attract more guests, each driver would loudly shout out his hotel’s wonderful accommodations and special features. As they acquired additional guests, each was seated in the buggy with a flourish, their luggage loaded up, and the driver drove off triumphantly. The elegant Wright Opera House was built across the street from the Beaumont in 1888, and guests could stroll across the street for the evening performance.

By 1896, Thomas Walsh owned many of the old silver mines around Ouray and was mining their waste dumps for gold. The Camp Bird gold mine was flourishing, and on December 10, 1896, Walsh hosted a ball at the Beaumont for over one hundred guests that was described in the Ouray Herald. Bouquets of beautiful cut flowers came from Denver on the train, and the ballroom had “massive banks of pink and white chrysanthemums and carnations. Various colored globes were supplied to the lights, throwing a soft, mellow glow over the many fair dancers who tripped the light fantastic until the early hours.” The journalist continued, “The gentlemen were attired in the faultless conventional evening dress, while the ladies were perfection in attire composed of rich fabrics and adorned in profusion with brilliant diamonds and other precious stones; all presenting a scene of rare beauty.”

In 1911, Chipeta, the popular widow of Ouray, the respected chief of the Utes, and her family visited the town and stayed at the Beaumont. A special committee directed the festivities, and many photographs were taken of her visit. A concert was given in Chipeta’s honor in the evening by the town’s band, and the city fathers took her for a ride in one of the first automobiles in Ouray. This car was also the first to make the journey over Otto Mears’s rugged road from Red Mountain to Ouray.

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