The Haunted Goldminer Hotel, Nederland: A Quiet 1898 Mining Hotel With a Watchful Lady Upstairs

The Goldminer Hotel sits at the corner of 6th Street and Klondyke Avenue in Eldora, the old mining camp tucked into the mountains a few miles west of Nederland in Boulder County. It is one of the smallest stops on our list of haunted hotels in Colorado: five bedrooms, a lobby, a log social room and a breakfast table.

It is not a hotel that sells its ghosts. Local radio station K99 reported that the hosts usually do not tell guests about the haunting and let them find out for themselves, and the innkeepers’ own FAQ says only that some guests have felt a presence and that every report suggests a friendly one. The stories that have come out are quiet: a woman felt watching a guest in her room, and a plumber who changed his mind about ghosts in the basement.

The ghosts of Goldminer Hotel

The woman who watches upstairs

The best-known story comes from a guest who, as she got ready for bed, felt a female presence in the room watching her. Rather than leave, she lit candles and used them to lead the presence out of her room. She then slept soundly, according to the account K99 published.

The upstairs bedrooms are where these stories gather. Nobody has put a name to her, and the hotel’s own history does not identify a woman who died there, so treat her as a story rather than a known person.

The plumber who changed his mind

The second story is about a working visit. A plumber who said he did not believe in ghosts shut off the water in the basement and went upstairs, only to find it running again. He went back down and shut it off. It happened three times.

After the third time, the story goes, he shouted at the walls that he believed now and just wanted to finish the job and leave. It is a story told with a smile, and it is the one most people remember.

Why the stories stay quiet

The Goldminer’s own website talks mostly about mining, Eldora’s history and its dark night sky. Its FAQ does answer the ghost question, briefly: some guests have felt a presence, there is the plumber’s story, and the innkeepers say all the reports point to friendly ghosts. That restraint is part of the appeal. If you come here hoping for nightly activity, you may be disappointed; if you come for an old building with a gentle reputation, you will probably love it.

With only five rooms, a stay here often means having much of the building to yourselves after dark, which is exactly when guests say they notice things.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• The upstairs bedrooms: Where the female presence has been felt. Any of the five rooms; none is singled out.
• The basement: Where the plumber’s water kept turning itself back on.
• The social room: The 1934 log addition used for town meetings, potlucks, weddings and funerals for nearly a century.

History of Goldminer Hotel

In December 1897 brothers I. J. and Jas. M. Randall and their partner Alice A. Smith paid $50 for a lot at 6th Street and Klondyke Avenue in the newly platted Town of Eldora, then in the middle of a gold boom. According to the hotel’s own history, Norwegian carpenter Olaf J. Olsen milled the logs on site through the winter and dovetailed them together, and the building was finished in about two months.

The front was covered with white clapboard to give the street a more refined face, while the sides were left as squared logs with half-dovetail notching. The hotel opened in February 1898 with 13 small upstairs sleeping rooms and a dining room below, under manager Mrs. Mena Given. In March 1898 the meeting that incorporated the Town of Eldora was held here, and the first item of business was a saloon license for the hotel.

The boom did not last. By 1900 the real estate bubble had burst, and in 1904 the hotel sold for very little. Eldora found a second life as a summer retreat for families from Texas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas, and the hotel filled with vacationers instead of miners. In 1934 the community added a one-story log social room at the back, still used for meetings, potlucks, weddings and funerals.

The Gold Miner Hotel, as the National Register spells it, was listed on July 3, 1997, and History Colorado describes its two-story 1898 section as a well-preserved example of vernacular log building from Eldora’s early commercial years. It is the centerpiece of the Eldora Historic District. The old 13 rooms have become five bedrooms, a king, a double and two bunk rooms, run today by innkeepers Carol Rinderknecht and Scott Bruntjen, while the outside looks much as it did when it was built.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Check the hotel’s own availability calendar before planning a trip: it opens seasonally, roughly from Thanksgiving to the end of ski season in April and from late June to late September.
• Planning a group trip or a small paranormal get-together? Group overnight stays mean renting all five rooms, which gives you the whole building.
• Leave the dog at home: pets are not allowed, and Nederland has kennels.
• Step outside after dark: the hotel is proud of its very dark night sky.
• Eldora sits high in the mountains, so pack warm layers and check the roads in winter.
• Ask about the local history books kept at the hotel, including Silvia Pettem’s Inn and Around Nederland.

More haunted hotels nearby

• The Stanley Hotel, Estes Park: Colorado’s most famous haunted hotel, up the Peak to Peak Highway
• The Brown Palace Hotel, Denver: Denver’s grand haunted hotel, about an hour away
• The Oxford Hotel, Denver: Room 320 in Denver’s oldest hotel
• Haunted places in Colorado: more ghost stories across the state
• Haunted hotels in Colorado

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

• K99: Stay the night at this historic and haunted Nederland hotel (2021)
• Wikipedia: Gold Miner Hotel
• History Colorado: National and State Register, Gold Miner Hotel
• Goldminer Hotel: The Hotel and its Inhabitants
• Goldminer Hotel: Frequently Asked Questions

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