The Stanley Hotel

A hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, opened in 1909, where guests say they sense a former housekeeper in room 217. Mental Floss ties a 1974 night Stephen King spent there to The Shining.

NBC News reported in 2013 that guests have described odd experiences at the hotel almost since it opened in 1909. Two years after the opening, Elizabeth Wilson, the chief housekeeper, was hurt in an explosion in room 217 while lighting its acetylene lanterns. She survived. Guests have said ever since that they feel her presence in that room.

Stephen King writes on his website that he stayed there one night with his wife Tabitha in late September 1974. No other guests were staying, since the hotel was about to shut for the winter. That night he dreamed that his three-year-old son was fleeing down the corridors from a fire hose that pursued him. Mental Floss says the chase became central to The Shining, and that the book's room 217 matches the number of the room King shared with his wife. Wikipedia notes that the visit is known only through King's interviews, and that he has told it in differing ways.

The hotel's own history page says its fortunes had faded by the time King arrived, and credits his stay and The Shining with putting it back on the map. In 2013 the hotel became the site of a new horror film festival, the Stanley Film Festival, NBC News reported.