HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Leadville's 1886 Victorian hotel where Mary Coffey was shot by her husband in 1899 — her apparition, from the waist up in white, has been reported in the building ever since.
700 Harrison Ave, Leadville, CO 80461
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Hotel room rates; restaurant open to non-guests. See website for pricing.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Historic Victorian hotel, multi-story with elevator
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1886 · 1886 Leadville silver boom construction · Site of 1899 fatal shooting of Mary Coffey · Harrison Avenue Victorian commercial corridor · Lake County, Colorado historic hotel
The Delaware Hotel opened in 1886 at 700 Harrison Avenue in Leadville, Colorado, during the peak of the city's silver mining prosperity. Leadville had grown from a camp to a city of more than 15,000 people through the late 1870s and 1880s, and Harrison Avenue became the commercial and social spine of that growth. The Delaware was positioned among a row of brick-front hotels and commercial buildings that defined the Victorian streetscape.
On March 14, 1899, Mary Coffey was shot by her husband Jerry Coffey as she fled down a staircase inside the building. The bullet struck her in the spine, paralyzing her before she died from the wound in the days following the shooting. The event was documented in Leadville's newspaper record of the period.
The hotel continued operating through the 20th century's mining decline. Author Roger Pretti documented the Delaware Hotel's history and paranormal accounts in his self-published book 'Lost Between Heaven and Leadville,' which drew on local newspaper records and first-person accounts. The Leadville Herald has covered the hotel's haunted reputation in multiple articles, situating the Delaware among Leadville's most historically grounded paranormal sites.
Leadville, at 10,152 feet the highest incorporated city in the United States, retained much of its Victorian commercial architecture as economic stagnation ironically preserved the built environment. The Delaware Hotel's 1886 structure remains largely intact.
Sources
Mary Coffey's ghost is the Delaware Hotel's primary documented apparition. Witnesses describe seeing her from the waist up, dressed in white, and the reports are consistent with the location on the staircase where she was shot in 1899. The partial appearance — waist-up only — is a recurring detail in multiple accounts across different sources.
Horace Tabor, the mining magnate who built the Tabor Opera House three blocks south on Harrison Avenue and dominated Leadville's social life in the 1880s, is associated with apparition reports at the Delaware as well. Doc Holliday, who spent time in Leadville in the early 1880s before his death from tuberculosis in Glenwood Springs in 1887, is also mentioned in connection with the property in local accounts — though given Holliday's documented presence throughout the region, this association is common across multiple Leadville venues.
Roger Pretti's book 'Lost Between Heaven and Leadville' draws on newspaper records and first-person accounts to document the hotel's paranormal history. The Leadville Herald has covered the Delaware's haunted reputation in news coverage, and hauntedcolorado.net provides additional detail on the Mary Coffey shooting with historical corroboration.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
The Delaware Hotel's Victorian-era rooms place guests in a building with a documented violent history and a published paranormal record going back to the 1899 shooting of Mary Coffey. The hotel and its restaurant are open to the public; overnight guests have full access to the floors where paranormal activity is reported.
The Delaware Hotel restaurant is open to the public, providing access to the historic building without an overnight stay. The property's documented history and published paranormal accounts are available for visitors.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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