Built 1899 in the Cripple Creek gold district, this four-story brick hotel's oldest-operating elevator in Colorado runs on its own — connected, locals say, to a miner named Eddie
321 Victor Ave, Victor, CO 80860
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Standard hotel room rates; see website
Access
Limited Access
Historic four-story building; elevator available but is the site of reported paranormal activity
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1899 · National Register of Historic Places · Cripple Creek Gold Rush Architecture · Oldest Operating Elevator in Colorado · Woods Brothers Development
Victor's founding coincided with the Cripple Creek gold rush. The Woods brothers — Frank and Harry — were the town's primary developers, platting the townsite and constructing its earliest commercial buildings. Their first hotel burned in the catastrophic 1899 fire that swept through Victor, destroying wooden buildings across several blocks.
The replacement structure, completed 1899–1900, was built in brick and stone deliberately to resist future fires. The four-story building incorporated a bank on the ground floor — a significant trust signal in a mining town where payroll was a constant security concern — and hotel rooms on the floors above. The elevator installed in the building became, over the following century, the oldest still-operating elevator in Colorado.
The hotel's fourth floor served a secondary function during winter months that was common in Rocky Mountain mining towns: when the ground froze too hard for digging graves, bodies were stored on upper floors until the spring thaw allowed burial. This practice was a pragmatic response to mountain winters rather than a macabre choice, but it left the fourth floor with a documented history distinct from the hotel floors below.
The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Victor itself experienced a second mining era in the late 20th century when the Cresson Mine reopened using modern extraction methods; the town has since contracted significantly from its gold-rush peak population of roughly 18,000 to a few hundred permanent residents. The hotel remains one of the best-preserved historic structures in the Cripple Creek district.
Sources
The Victor Hotel's paranormal reputation centers on two figures and one physical anomaly.
Eddie is the named figure. He is described in local accounts as a miner who fell to his death through the open birdcage elevator shaft during a stay in Room 301, sometime in the hotel's early operating history. The specific date is not documented in available records. Eddie is reported in Room 301, in the hallways near the elevator, and in the elevator car itself. Guests describe encounters consistent with a presence that tracks the elevator's movement.
The elevator is the physical anomaly. It is the oldest operating elevator in Colorado — the original birdcage-style mechanism, still functional. Multiple guests and staff have reported the car moving without any occupant initiating the call, traveling to specific floors and stopping. The third floor — Eddie's floor — is the most frequently cited destination. Activity reportedly concentrates around 3 a.m., a pattern noted consistently enough that the hotel's own promotional materials acknowledge it.
The fourth floor carries a different charge. Its documented history as a winter morgue — bodies stored through the frozen months, waiting for spring burial — has generated reports of partial apparitions: figures without complete limbs, described by some witnesses as resembling both medical personnel and patients. The headless or limbless nature of these reports is unusual and specific enough to appear in multiple independent accounts. No historical incident explains these figures beyond the accumulated weight of the floor's documented function.
The Woods brothers and the bank's original occupants are not represented in the paranormal lore — the stories attach specifically to the hotel floors and to the elevator, not to the commercial ground-floor history.
Notable Entities
Stay in one of 20 rooms in the 1899 brick building, originally constructed by the Woods brothers as a bank and hotel. Room 301 is specifically associated with paranormal reports. The fourth floor, which served as a makeshift morgue during frozen winters, is accessible to guests.
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