Quick answer: Three of Estes Park’s oldest continuously operating businesses are The Stanley Hotel (opened 1909), The Original Taffy Shop (opened 1935), and the Historic Park Theatre (built 1913, operating as a movie theater since 1913 with only a brief 1940s–60s ownership gap). All three remain open, family- or independently-run, and are genuinely part of what makes Estes Park feel distinct from a generic mountain tourist town.
Most towns lose their oldest businesses to changing tastes, big-box competition, or simple bad luck. Estes Park has managed to hang onto a handful of businesses that have been serving visitors for a century or close to it — and all three below are still open for business today, not just historical footnotes.
The Stanley Hotel: Opened 1909, Still Welcoming Guests
The Stanley Hotel is the most famous historic business in Estes Park by a wide margin, and for good reason. It was built by Freelan Oscar Stanley — inventor of the Stanley Steamer steam-powered automobile — and opened its doors in 1909, making it one of the oldest operating hotels in Colorado. The hotel has remained in continuous operation as a hotel for well over a century, hosting guests, weddings, and events on the same site since it opened, all while overlooking the town it helped put on the map.
Its cultural footprint has only grown over time: Stephen King stayed in room 217 in 1974, and the experience inspired The Shining — a connection the hotel now leans into with history and ghost tours, alongside its Cascades Restaurant and Whiskey Bar. Beyond the horror-fiction fame, the Stanley remains a full-service, functioning hotel, which is worth remembering given how many buildings this old end up as museums rather than working businesses.
The Original Taffy Shop: Opened 1935, Same Building, Same Recipe
The Original Taffy Shop opened on February 2, 1935, when Lowell Slack moved his salt water taffy business from Fort Collins to a storefront on West Elkhorn Avenue — the same building the shop still occupies today, nine decades later. The Slack family ran the shop for 79 years, until Lavona Slack, the last family member involved, sold it to the Igel family in 2014. The original taffy recipe, which has always been kept in a bank safe deposit box, transferred with the sale, and the shop still uses a Model K taffy-wrapping machine that’s been in continuous service since 1947.
It’s the only shop in Estes Park where visitors can watch salt water taffy actually being made on-site, and it’s widely cited — including by the shop itself — as one of the oldest continuously operating businesses in Estes Park. In 2024, it was voted the No. 1 candy store in the country in USA Today’s 10 Best Readers’ Choice competition, a modern accolade for a business that’s been doing essentially the same thing, the same way, since before World War II.
Historic Park Theatre: Built 1913, Still Showing Movies
The Historic Park Theatre began construction in 1913, and it holds a genuinely rare distinction: it’s the oldest single-house motion picture theatre in the United States that was originally built as a movie theatre and is still operating as one today. Ralph Gwynn added the now-iconic 80-foot tower in 1929 (locally nicknamed the “Tower of Love”), and the theater has changed hands only a handful of times since — most notably to the Stanger family in 1967, whose descendants, including current co-owner Jenna MacGregor, still run it today.
The theater has survived wind damage, lightning, flooding, and even a townwide ban on neon signage after the 1982 Lawn Lake flood (it later won a special variance to restore its neon tower lights). It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 and continues to show films, host live events, and run occasional ghost tours — a rare case of a century-old single-screen theater still doing exactly the job it was built for.
Why These Three Have Survived
All three share a pattern worth noting: each has changed ownership at least once, but always to someone deeply invested in preserving what made the business special in the first place, rather than converting it into something else entirely. That’s a meaningfully different story than Estes Park’s other historic landmarks — the Elkhorn Lodge, for instance, dates to 1874 and was long considered the oldest continuously operated hotel in Colorado, but it’s currently undergoing redevelopment and isn’t operating as a normal working hotel at the moment, which is part of why it isn’t included here.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the oldest continuously operating business in Estes Park?
The Original Taffy Shop, open since 1935 in the same Elkhorn Avenue building, and the Historic Park Theatre, which began construction in 1913 and has operated as a movie theater for over a century, are both frequently cited as among the oldest continuously operating businesses in town. The Stanley Hotel, opened in 1909, is the oldest of the three by founding date.
Can visitors still stay at The Stanley Hotel?
Yes — it operates today as a full-service hotel with guided history and ghost tours, a restaurant, and event spaces, in addition to overnight lodging.
Is the taffy at The Original Taffy Shop still made the same way?
Yes — the shop uses the same recipe developed by founder Lowell Slack in 1935, and still uses a taffy-wrapping machine that’s been in continuous service since 1947.
Does the Historic Park Theatre still show current movies?
Yes — alongside classic film screenings, ghost tours, and special events, it continues to operate as a working single-screen movie theater.
Part of the Estes Park HQ town guide series. See also: Downtown Estes Park: A Local’s Guide to Shopping, Dining, and Fun and Estes Park’s Three Oldest Restaurants Still Serving Today.