Elkhorn Lodge and Guest Ranch
Tracing to an 1874 cabin and developed by the James family into a hunting-and-fishing lodge, the Elkhorn is one of the oldest continuously operating guest ranches in the Rocky Mountain region and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. Generations of guests passed through its main lodge, cabins, schoolhouse, and 19th-century chapel. Long called one of Estes Park's most haunted sites, the property has drawn decades of reports from guests and paranormal investigators: cold spots, phantom footsteps, and the apparition of a little girl who appears and then vanishes. Much of the activity is attributed to the lodge's earliest era as a working ranch in the 1870s, and a recurring spirit is named Eleanor, said to be the wife of one of the James sons. The lodge's long stretches of vacancy and aging buildings deepened its eerie reputation, and it has hosted organized ghost hunts and appears across Colorado haunted-place registries.
📍 600 W Elkhorn Ave, Estes Park, CO 80517, Estes Park, CO · Get directions