Stories, legends and lore are heard throughout the halls of The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. Here are some that we heard at last visit:

• Entrepreneur Freelan Oscar Stanley had made his fortune back East by 1903, when it seemed tuberculosis would take his life. In seeking a cure, he ventured to Estes Park. He would live here for another 37 years, delighting in the ornate place he built in 1909, to be The Stanley Hotel, for his friends visiting from the other side of the country.

• That same year saw the construction of the still-bustling concert hall, built for Stanley’s piano-playing wife, Flora. The venue was followed by The Lodge, as it’s known today. It was built to be an exact replica of the hotel at a third of the scale. It was built for single men, who were not to mingle with single ladies at the hotel, per custom. Men previously slept in tents.

• The Stanley was indeed intended for a man’s friends, not profit. Which helps explain financial struggles over the decades following Stanley’s death in 1940. The hotel was seasonal, without heat until the 1980s. Prior to that, by the hotel’s own history, “it might have eventually succumbed to the wrecking ball, if not for a fortuitous visit by author Stephen King.”

• Tour guides tell the story of King and his wife on the way to Grand Lake in 1974, when snow stopped them in Estes Park. They stayed at The Stanley just before it closed for winter. Here, King supposedly had a nightmare about his son being chased by a fire hose in the hallway. It is said the writer woke to smoke a cigarette and conceived of “The Shining.” The book was a hit, along with the 1980 movie, and the hotel that inspired it all gained life-changing fame.

• King famously stayed in Room 217. Another story is told here, of a gas leak in the 1920s that led to an explosion. A chambermaid, Elizabeth Wilson, nearly died. Upon recovering, she returned to the job that she’d work until her death. Her presence remains, according to guests of Room 217.