The Bordello Ghosts
Creede, Colorado, touts not only a colorful history but one layered with ghost stories. The Bordello Ghosts is one such captivating folk horror for those who see—and hear—what others do not.
Long before actors of the Creede Repertory Theatre called it the Bordello, the Rio Grande Hotel stood as a reminder of Creede’s rowdy silver-boom years.
Constructed in 1892 at 209 West 2nd Street, the builders erected it when Creede’s population surged during the silver mining era. Unlike many of the hastily constructed buildings that appeared during the boom, the Rio Grande Hotel served a practical purpose.
Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway arrived in Creede, and they constructed the hotel mainly to accommodate railroad personnel. The railroad’s original depot
This architecture also has a distinction that few of Creede’s remaining structures can boast. It survived the devastating fire of 1892. History Colorado identifies the Rio Grande Hotel as one of the few remaining examples of a mining-camp boarding house and notes that much of its original historic fabric survived despite years of deterioration.
The Bordello
Around the turn of the twentieth century, the building became a private residence. Generations of the Motz and Wheeler families lived there before the property once again became a boarding house.
Eventually, the aging building found a new life with the Creede Repertory Theatre. The theatre purchased the property and restored it for use as housing for visiting artists. Today, actors and other theatre personnel know the historic building by another name: the Bordello.
The origin of that nickname is not entirely clear in the readily available historical record. Local tradition connects the building with Creede’s colorful red-light history, but I have not found sufficient documentation to state definitively when or why the name originated.
Not the Zang Hotel
Visitors exploring Creede’s haunted history can confuse the Rio Grande Hotel with another historic building. The Creede Hotel, originally known as Zang’s Hotel.
They are two different buildings with unique histories all their own.
The Creede Hotel stands on North Main Street and has its own collection of colorful characters and ghost stories. Its history is closely associated with Philip Zang, the Denver brewer whose name the hotel originally carried.
The Rio Grande Hotel stands on West 2nd Street. It has a separate history, a separate address, and its own collection of reported paranormal encounters.
Ghost legends have a way of traveling from one old building to another via the retelling, and perhaps the embellishment of such tales for the sake of entertainment.
However, the Bordello holds its own share of unique hauntings.
The Rocking Chair
Author Kandra Payne includes several ghostly encounters associated with the Rio Grande Hotel in her book, Haunted Creede.
One occurred after a late-night technical rehearsal involving members of the Creede Repertory Theatre.
While many of the actors and actresses headed to a nearby saloon after rehearsal, one company member returned alone to the Bordello. He needed sleep and expected a quiet night.
When he entered his room, however, the rocker in the corner began rocking uncontrollably.
No one sat in the chair.
According to Payne’s account, the actor could find no visible explanation for the movement. Whatever caused the rocking, the actor had no desire to remain in the room and investigate it.
He gave up his plans for sleep and went back to the saloon, where his fellow company members had gathered.
Maybe the old building had different plans for the evening.
Can’t Breathe
Another actress who stayed in the same room reported an even more disturbing experience.
She awoke during the night with the sensation that something was sitting on her chest.
The pressure became so intense that she found it difficult to breathe.
The room held no visible clues to clarify what she felt. The experience left her with the frightening impression that an unseen presence had entered the room and settled on top of her.
Sleep paralysis can produce sensations of pressure and the presence of another being, and there may be natural explanations for such an experience.
But within a building with a reputation for hauntings, the encounter takes on another dimension.
And it wasn’t the only strange occurrence reported in that room.
The Alarm
Other occupants of the same room encountered something that proved even harder to explain.
Their clock radio alarm repeatedly blared at 3:00 in the morning.
The occupants tried the obvious solution. They unplugged the clock.
The alarm rang again at the same time the next morning.
They went further. They removed the batteries.
Still, at 3:00 a.m., the alarm sounded.
One Room
Three encounters. One room. A historic building that has housed generations of people.
Whether the rocker moved because of an unseen presence, whether the actress experienced sleep paralysis, and how a battery-less clock could sound at the same hour are questions those of us with imaginations like to speculate on.
But perhaps that is what makes old haunted places so fascinating.
The Rio Grande Hotel has survived fire, changing fortunes, families, and the passage of more than a century.
And should the ghostly stories be true, perhaps those who once occupied the Rio Grande Hotel may not have left when the living did.
Kandra Payne’s Haunted Creede (The History Press) provides the paranormal accounts featured in this article.
Flash Fiction
Ding. Ding. Ding.
Stormy removed the red-glass lantern from her window. She sat and rocked in Room 3, one foot pushing against the worn floorboards. Waiting.
Outside, Creede huddled beneath a hard blue sky. Snow clung to the mountains, and smoke curled from chimneys along the narrow streets. The town smelled of coal smoke, horse manure, and the sharp metallic tang that drifted down from the mines.
Stormy glanced at the little clock on the table. Three minutes past two. He should be here by now. It’s getting dark. Rugged peaks and towering mountains shadowed the narrow-canyon town where Stormy waited for her lover.
She touched the lace at her throat and rocked again. He worked underground in the Commodore Mine. He promised he would come after work and spend the night with her.
Shockwaves
A blast shattered the afternoon. Windows rattled. The floor jumped beneath her feet. Somewhere below, glass crashed against wood.
Stormy lurched from the rocker. The clock toppled off the table.
Ding.
It struck the floor.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
She stared at it.
The hands had stopped at 3:00 o’clock.
Another tremor rolled through the building.
Stormy ran to the window.
People spilled into the street. Men shouted. Horses reared against their harnesses. A woman stood in the doorway of the mercantile with both hands pressed to her mouth.
The mine. Stormy’s fingers tightened around the window frame. No. It couldn’t be. There weren’t supposed to be any detonations in the mine that day.
“He’s all right,” she whispered. “He has to be.” She returned to the rocker. Sat. And rocked. He would come to her.
Shadows
Afternoon slipped into evening. Stormy waited in Room 3. She failed to notice when the streets emptied as word traveled from house to house.
She didn’t eat.
She didn’t leave the rocker. Every time footsteps sounded on the stairs, she lifted her head. Every time a door opened, she held her breath.
Not him.
She rocked.
The room darkened around her.
Oil lamps flickered along the hallway. Wind pressed against the windows. Somewhere downstairs, someone whispered her name.
She kept rocking. “He’ll come.”
At midnight, Stormy finally rose. Her legs trembled beneath her. She crossed the room and lowered herself onto the bed. One hand rested over her heart.
She drew a shallow breath.
Another.
The third never came.
Natural Causes
By morning, the doctor had examined her. “Natural causes,” he said. “Her heart simply gave out.”
But nobody in Creede believed it. They knew Stormy. They knew what that man meant to her.
Stormy died of a broken heart, the town knew.
That night, Room 3 stood empty. Until three in the morning.
Ding.
The old clock sounded from the floor.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
The sound echoed through the room.
Stormy opened her eyes.
For a moment, she couldn’t remember where she lay.
Moonlight spilled across the bed.
She heard someone breathing.
A man stood beside her.
Her lover.
He looked exactly as he had the last time she saw him, except for the gray dust covering his clothes.
Stormy reached for him.
He held out his hand.
She took it.
He smiled. “I told you I’d come.”
Tears filled her eyes. He helped her from the bed and led her toward the rocker. Stormy slipped into his arms. He sat. The rocker moved beneath them.
Back.
Forward.
Back.
Forward.
He kissed the tears from her cheeks.
Outside, the town slept.
Inside Room 3, the lovers rocked in each other’s arms.
The clock continued to ding.
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
At dawn, someone passing beneath the window heard the rocker creaking.
No one occupied the room.
At least, no one living.
Back. Forward. Ding.
They say the lovers sit there. Still.
Stormy in his arms. His cheek against her hair.
An accidental detonation in the Commodore Mine had taken the life of Stormy’s lover that day.
The rocker moves through the darkness.
And at three in the morning, the clock dings.
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
The old clock has no batteries.
No one winds it.
And if you stand outside the Rio Grande Hotel and listen carefully, you might hear the rocker moving upstairs.
Back.
Forward.
Back.
Forward.
Waiting for him to return.
Stories waiting to be remembered
- Creed, Colorado: The Bordello Ghosts - September 17, 2026
- Ghosts of Creede Hotel - August 12, 2026
- Bachelor Loop: Ghosts of Creede. - July 15, 2026
