Cheesman park, in Denver, Colorado, is a lush park in the center of a bustling city. The park is a beautiful green space, with expansive lawns, jogging trails, and a dramatic neoclassical pavilion. Just east of the park, Denver Botanic Gardens features themed areas and an amphitheater for popular summer concerts. It’s safe to assume that most visitors don’t realize that they’re walking, sitting, or jogging on the grave of one of the many who had been buried there in the 19th century.
While the park was founded in 1907, it’s history dates back even further. In 1858, General William Larimer seized the claim of the St. Charles Town Company, despite the fact that the land actually belonged to the Arapaho Indians, and established his own town. This town later became Denver. In November 1858, Larimer set aside 320 acres of land for a cemetery. He named it Mount Prospect Cemetery, and designated several large plots on the crest of the hill for the exclusive use of the city’s wealthy and most influential citizens. The outside edges of the cemetery were reserved for criminals and the poor, with the central area saved for the middle class.
The first burials in Mount Prospect Cemetery were the victims of crime and violence. One such example would be that of John Stoefel. He came to Denver to settle a dispute with his brother-in-law. When he ended up killing him, he had a short trial and was then dragged away by a mob and hung from a cottonwood tree. Both Stoefel and his brother-in-law were dumped into the same grave. Murder victims and those killed in accidents continued to be buried in the lower sections of the cemetery. Soon Mount Prospect began to lose its name, as people began to call it the “Old Boneyard,” or “Boot Hill.” The cemetery never quite lived up to the ideal that William Larimer had hoped for.
While Denver flourished and grew, the cemetery fell into disrepair. In 1873, Mount Prospect Cemetery was renamed City Cemetery. But a lack of care for the area made the place a growing eyesore. Tombstones were toppled over, cattle were allowed to graze on the land. Even prairie dogs began to call the place home.
The wealthy began burying their loved ones at the newer Riverside and Fairlawn Cemeteries, and left the City Cemetery to the poor, criminals and unclaimed victims of smallpox and typhus.
Ownership of the cemetery passed from William Larimer to a cabinet maker by the name of John Walley. He did very little to improve the cemetery, and with mansions being built nearby, the city government was being pressured to do something.
A little digging, and someone in the US Government discovered that the cemetery was on land that was part of an Indian treaty that dated back before 1860 (Remember, it belonged to the Arapaho Indians when William Larimer seized it). This discovery made the United States the legitimate owner of the property and in 1890, they sold it to the city of Denver for a mere $200.
The cemetery had been divided into 3 sections under John Walley’s ownership. The city section, the Catholic section and the Jewish section. The city went to work, to clean the area up. The Jewish churches removed their dead from the graveyard and then leased their land to the City’s Water Department. The Catholic Church purchased their section, and kept the cemetery in excellent condition until 1950.
The following summer, City Hall announced that all parties should remove their deceased from the City Cemetery for burial elsewhere within 90 days. Some were removed and buried elsewhere, but more than 5,000 of the dead were forgotten, uncared for, or simply went unclaimed. In spring of 1893 the city made preparations to remove the remaining bodies. An undertaker by the name of E.F. McGovern was awarded the contract and he specified that each body would be dug up and placed in a new box at the site. But he was unscrupulous man and dictated that each box would only be 3 ½ feet long by 1 foot wide. Upon delivery of each box to Riverside Cemetery, McGovern would be paid $1.90 each.
In March, the work began and curiosity seekers and reporters came out to watch. Operations were organized and orderly at first, but soon the workmen became careless. An old woman told the men that they should take care and whisper a prayer over every body they unearthed, else the dead would return. The men laughed and ignored her warning. They worked quickly and carelessly. Their haste allowed souvenir hunters and onlookers to rob items from the graves. In addition, some bodies were not decayed enough to fit into the small wooden boxes purchased by McGovern. The men shoveled their bodies out and broke their bodies apart, shoving them into the tiny boxes.
That’s when things started to happen. One day while he was working (or rather looting), Jim Astor felt something land atop his shoulders. When he realized nothing was really there, he threw down the stack of brass nameplates he had stolen from old coffins and ran. He did not return to work the following day. People in homes nearby began experiencing strange occurrences in their homes. Odd knocking on doors and windows throughout the night. Ghosts began appearing to people. Low moaning sounds could be heard over the field of open graves. Some say you can even hear the sounds today.
Local newspapers began running front page stories, shining a light on the atrocities being committed at the cemetery. On March 19, 1893, the Denver Republican’s headline proclaimed, “The Work of Ghouls!” The article described, in detail, McGovern’s practice of hacking up what were sometimes intact remains of the dead and stuffing them into undersized boxes. The article, in part, described the scene:
“The line of desecrated graves at the southern boundary of the cemetery sickened and horrified everybody by the appearance they presented. Around their edges were piled broken coffins, rent and tattered shrouds and fragments of clothing that had been torn from the dead bodies…All were trampled into the ground by the footsteps of the gravediggers like rejected junk.”
Discrepancies between the number of re-burials being charged to the city and the actual number of boxes being delivered to Riverside Cemetery were found and a full-blown investigation brought the project to a halt. Gaping holes were left all over the cemetery and as time went on, the rest of the bodies were forgotten. Today, those bodies remain buried under the park’s grounds and gardens.
In 1907, the work to turn the cemetery into a park was completed. It was named Cheesman Park, after Walter S. Cheesman, a prominent Denver citizen. Two years later, the Catholic Church sold its adjacent cemetery, and the bodies were all carefully moved. That portion of land is now Denver’s Botanical Gardens. The former Jewish Cemetery is now Congress Park.
As people visit the park, most of whom have no knowledge of its past, they report having feelings of oppression and sadness. Some claim to see the misty figures, shadows and apparitions. The dead wander in confusion. Will they ever find peace?
Looking for another haunted location in Colorado? Look no further than Estes Park, and the Stanley Hotel: The Most Haunted Hotel in America.
Leave a Reply