Historic, maybe haunted, St. James Hotel in Cimarron closing this month
Sep. 4—Cimarron's historic, and perhaps haunted, St. James Hotel, founded in 1872, is shutting its doors this month.
"It is with regret to inform the public of our upcoming closure," the hotel posted on its Facebook page earlier this week. "Our last day of operation will be Monday, September 16th."
No reason for the closing was posted, and the Journal's phone call to the hotel's spokesperson on Wednesday was not immediately returned.
However, the hotel posted on Facebook on July 5 that "Due to a shortage in staff, we will be shortening our business hours in the restaurant."
Today, Cimarron, located in Colfax County 42 miles southwest of Raton, is a village of fewer than 800 people.
When Henri "Henry" Lambert, who had been personal chef to President Abraham Lincoln, built the hotel, Cimarron was an important stop on the Santa Fe Trail, which during the 1870s was still a bustling commercial route.
People reputed to have stayed at or visited the hotel over the years include frontier lawman Wyatt Earp, Wild West showman William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, cattle rancher and gunfighter Clay Allison, outlaws Jesse James and Black Jack Ketchum, Western artist and writer Frederic Remington and popular writer of Western fiction Zane Grey.
Gunfights and deaths caused by them were said to be common at the St. James, which originally was named Lambert's Inn. About 20 holes in the ceiling of the hotel's main dining room have been attributed to bullets.
At least two of the hotel's rooms were supposed to be haunted, but only one of those was open to the guests. The other was claimed to be occupied by a ghost so malevolent that occupancy was considered hazardous.
In the 1880s, the railroad superseded the Santa Fe Trail and gold deposits in the Cimarron area played out. The St. James fell into disrepair and moved through the hands of various owners between 1926 and 1985.
But it underwent a major restoration in 1985, and in 2009 it was purchased by the Express UU Bar Ranch, near Cimarron. The ranch is a property of Express Ranches headquartered in Yukon, Oklahoma.
Express UU Bar, which still owns the hotel, did extensive renovations in 2009. Today the historic hotel features 12 restored rooms with 19th-century furnishings, and an adjacent two-story annex has 10 rooms. In between the hotel and annex is Lambert's Restaurant and TJ's Bar and Patio.
The St. James is on the National Register of Historic Places. And after Sept. 16, it will be closed.
