Strater Hotel and Durango's Historic Hotels, Compared

Durango has five lodgings with real age on them, and all five sit within a 13-minute walk of the train depot. Three are hotels: the Strater (1887), the Rochester (1892) and the General Palmer (1898, by the hotel's own count). Two are small inns: the Gable House Inn (1892) and the Leland House Suites (1927). Most visitors should book the Strater. It has 88 rooms, a saloon downstairs and three free parking lots. The Rochester has the best guest rating (4.9 on Google), and the General Palmer is the closest to the tracks.

Every fact below comes from a hotel's own website or a public record, checked in October 2026. No room rate is posted on any of the five sites, because each prices by date inside a booking engine. The rate cells say "Not listed" instead of guessing.

Which hotels in Durango are really historic?

Five, if you count any lodging in a building finished before 1930 with a year we can source. Here is what each one's paperwork says.

Rooms are as stated on each property's site. The Rochester once had 33 rooms, but a 2022 renovation turned it into 15.

How did we rank them?

We used four checks that you can repeat yourself:

• Documented age and survival. Is the year backed by a public record, and is the original building still the hotel?
• Walk to the depot. Measured on a pedestrian route from each street address to the Durango & Silverton depot at 479 Main Ave.
• Google rating and review count. As synced to our listings in October 2026.
• What the property posts. Parking, pets, breakfast and on-site food or drink, taken from its own policy pages.

We did not grade service, noise or cleanliness. Nobody can check those from a desk. Here is the result.

1. Strater Hotel. The oldest, the biggest and a charter member of Historic Hotels of America.
2. The Rochester Hotel. Individually listed on the National Register, with the top rating among the three hotels.
3. General Palmer Hotel. The best location for train riders, with free parking and a light breakfast.
4. Gable House Inn. A Queen Anne house with full breakfast and a 5.0 rating, though from only 119 reviews.
5. Leland House Suites. The youngest building, but every room has a kitchen or kitchenette.

How do the five compare on parking, pets and rating?

Sources: Strater pet policy (dated December 2023), the Rochester's policies page, the General Palmer's booking policy and the Leland House policies page.

What is the Strater Hotel's story?

Henry Strater, a Cleveland pharmacist, opened the hotel in 1887 after spending $70,000 and laying 376,000 native red bricks, according to the hotel's history page. He kept his pharmacy in the corner and leased the rest to a manager named H. L. Rice. Then he found out he had left the pharmacy out of the lease. Rice charged him a steep rent, so Strater built a rival, the Columbian Hotel, just to the south in 1893. The silver panic of 1895 ruined both men.

The hotel is a charter member of Historic Hotels of America. It now holds what it calls the largest collection of American Victorian walnut furniture in the world, and no two of its 88 rooms match. Western novelist Louis L'Amour asked for Room 222, right above the Diamond Belle Saloon. He said the honky-tonk music helped him write. It is now the Louis L'Amour room.

Two practical notes. The restaurants are open to the public, but the Diamond Belle and the Office Spiritorium do not take reservations, and food service stops at 9 pm. And the Henry Strater Theatre, home of the Durango Melodrama, closed in 2020, per Uncover Colorado. The hotel's site still lists a theatre page, so ask the front desk before you plan around a show.

What is the Rochester Hotel's story?

The Rochester began as a boarding house for working people. Builders poured its foundations in 1890, and two local businessmen finished the building in 1892 as the "Peeples Hotel." Mary F. Finn took it over in 1905 and renamed it the Rochester. The 1995 National Register nomination describes a working-class hotel that took in miners, salesmen and tourists, and later long-term tenants, while the fancier Main Avenue hotels drew better-off guests. You can read that text on the Historical Marker Database entry.

The hotel gutted the old 33-room layout in 2022 and rebuilt it as 15 king and double-queen rooms, per its about page. Its Peeples Bar opened in April 2023 and is open to the public. Each guest gets one free beer or glass of wine. Pets are limited to two dog rooms, so call ahead.

What is the General Palmer Hotel's story?

Palmer is a big name in Colorado. The Union cavalryman won the Medal of Honor, then laid narrow-gauge track into the mountains and helped found Colorado Springs and Durango along the way. The hotel that carries his name was built in 1898, per its own history page. Its home page calls the place family-owned and "award winning" since 1976.

One date does not line up. A History Colorado summary of the Main Avenue district, quoted by NoeHill, lists a "1902 General Palmer House." We could not tell whether that is the same building under a different construction date. We use the hotel's 1898 and flag the gap.

Know before you book: the Palace Wing is stairs only, interior rooms have no outside window, and rooms have no microwave or refrigerator. Check-in is at 4 pm. The patio decks on the second and third floors overlook the depot tracks.

What about the two historic inns?

Step into the Gable House Inn and the Queen Anne details come fast: a turret, four gables, a staircase built to make an entrance. The Schutt family put it up in 1892. Eight guest rooms fill its three floors, and breakfast is a full, cooked one. The Ochsner room is named for the local doctor who once bought the house to use as his private hospital. The inn's website also says "many spirits of the past" live there. That is the inn's claim, and nobody can check it.

The Leland House Suites started in 1927 as the Pittman Apartments, and you can still tell. Each of the 12 rooms has a kitchen or kitchenette, a leftover of that apartment plan. Next door, Lola's Place is a Victorian-style house from 1890. It now works as the hotel's coffee shop, restaurant and bar.

Which historic hotel fits you?

How far is each one from the train and Main Avenue?

How far is it on foot? We routed each street address on pedestrian paths in October 2026 and timed two trips: to the depot at 479 Main Ave, and to the 900 block of Main, roughly the middle of the restaurant strip.

The General Palmer says the depot is next door, so the real walk may be shorter than the map's. All five are close enough that you can leave the car parked. For a street-by-street look at the neighborhood, see our Main Avenue guide.

When should you book a historic hotel?

Book early for the train season. The full Silverton run goes May 2 to November 1, 2026, and the winter Cascade Canyon train runs November 20, 2026 to April 30, 2027, per our train guide. The Polar Express adds a holiday rush through January 2, 2027, covered in Christmas in Durango. These hotels have 8 to 88 rooms each, so book early for summer weekends.

Read the cancellation terms before you pay. The Rochester charges your card a week before arrival and refunds 50 percent or gives a full credit if you cancel before the day of arrival. The General Palmer bills one night if you cancel inside 48 hours.

For lodging beyond the historic core, compare the best hotels in Durango, the neighborhood breakdown in where to stay in Durango, or cabins and vacation rentals. If you are bringing a dog, our pet-friendly hotels guide goes deeper on fees. The wider hotel and bed-and-breakfast listings round out the stay hub.

Last updated: October 23, 2026.