Tour Historic + Groundbreaking Colorado Hotel with Famous Guests

Colorado has quite a few well-known, historic hotels that are famous for various reasons. Places like The Stanley Hotel and Hotel Colorado are known for being haunted, The Broadmoor is known for being ritzy, but one particular hotel in southwestern Colorado is famous for different reasons.

Keep scrolling to learn about, and take a virtual tour of Colorado's historic Strater Hotel.

What is Colorado's Strater Hotel?

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Colorado's Strater Hotel was built back in 1887 in downtown Durango at 699 Main Avenue where it still sits in all its glory today.

The hotel has seen a lot of action in all its years, all while being kept in the Barker family who have owned the massive establishment since the beginning.

Famous Guests at Colorado's Strater Hotel

One thing that makes the Strater Hotel remarkable is the number of famous guests that the hotel has hosted.

The list of famous guests includes United States Presidents John F. Kennedy and Gerald R. Ford, Will Rogers, author Louis L'amour, famous astronauts, and even the members of The Grateful Dead.

However, there's something even more remarkable about the hotel that gives it the reputation of being groundbreaking.

Colorado's Strater Hotel was in The Green Book

During the Jim Crow era that spanned from the late 1800s all the way up to the 1960s in America, a man by the name of Victor Hugo Green wrote a book as a guide for African Americans called The Negro Motorist Green Book. This book was designed to help African Americans traveling across the country find safe places to stay as well as dine on their travels.

The Strater Hotel has the distinction of being one of only two hotels in southwestern Colorado included in the book, with the other being the Sun Set Motel, also in Durango.

Take a virtual tour of the Strater Hotel, a groundbreaking and notable part of Colorado's history: