History Buried Beneath Cheesman Park

History Buried Beneath Cheesman Park

Cheesman Park is located at Franklin & 8th Streets and is open to the public from dawn to 11:00pm.

Cheesman Park, located in Denver Colorado, is a very beautiful place to visit. Long expanses of green, rolling hills, large trees and beautiful flowers make it a very popular park. But the history buried beneath this park will leave you feeling less then peaceful. The neighborhoods and homes around the park also are not as peaceful as the setting would suggest. In an interview in 1980, writer Russell Hunter stated that he based many parts of the movie, “The Changeling” on experiences he had in 1968. He lived in a large house at 1739 East 13th Ave, the northern edge of Cheesman Park.  A condemned building now stands on the site. As a nod to his experience, Hunter named the haunted house in the movie “Chessman House.”

I will start by telling you the reports of paranormal activity in and around the park. As this area has a very long history I will not be able to tell you all, (as I don’t know all obviously) but I will give you a good idea of the types of supernatural activity said to be happening there.

Before I begin I would like to say that I have not investigated the area and I have no first hand experience. This is an historical look at a reportedly haunted area. If you have investigated the area I would love to hear your outcome!

The first documented report of paranormal activity happened in 1893. A workman named Jim Astor reportedly felt a hand upon his shoulder. He was so startled by this that he immediately left the area and did not return to work. As the yea rs went on many more people reported similar experiences.

Around the same time in 1893 is when people living in homes bordering the park started reporting phantom knocks on their front doors and windows. They said that upon going outside to investigate they found nobody around to make the knocking noise, but moaning, weeping, and sighing could be heard coming from the park itself.

Other reports over the years include children playing who vanish before the eyes of startled visitors. A woman who sings lowly to herself, walking through the park and vanishing into nothingness. People in out-of-date dress wandering among the trees acting as if they are confused or looking for something. Phantom mists and shadow people have been reported throughout the park and neighboring homes (the neighborhoods immediately around the area are said have massive numbers of reports of paranormal activity). Visitors who lay on the grass in the park have sometimes reported that the couldn’t get up, as if someone where physically holding them down. The most commonly reported experience is the overwhelming sense of sadness and despair being felt by visitors.

One recent report was that a jogger was stricken with a sudden feeling of anger and sadness. He went home and was terrorized by a spirit that he said followed him home from the park. As quickly as it began, it stopped by the next day. He hasn’t experienced anything since.

Other recent reports infer that the many spirits in the park do not like the visitors that wander there. There are many reports of whispers saying such things as, “Leave this place,” “Leave me alone!” “What are you doing here?” and “Leave me in peace.”

Now for the history of the park.

In 1858, General William Larimer established his own town on land that was owned by the Arapaho Indians. He named this town Denver. Late that same year Larimer set aside 320 acres for a cemetery. He called it Mt. Prospect Cemetery. He established class sections in this cemetery, setting aside the best plots for Denver’s wealthy. The outer edges would be reserved for criminals and the poor while the rest of the cemetery was for Denver’s middle class.

There is confusion about who was actually the first person buried in the newly created cemetery. It was either Abraham Kay, who died from a sudden lung infection, buried March 20, 1859, or John Stoefel. Stoefel was an Hungarian immigrant who came to Denver in hopes of settling a dispute with his brother-in-law.  The dispute ultimately ended with Stoefel murdering his brother-in-law. After a short trial Stoefel was hanged. He and his brother-in-law where reportedly both buried in the same grave.

Over time more and more criminals and poor where buried in the cemetery. The wealthy began burying their loved ones elsewhere because of the unseemly aura the cemetery had begun to take on. Instead of Mt. Prospect Cemetery, the locals referred to it as “The Old Boneyard,” or “Boot Hill.”

In 1873, after the cemetery had become an old rundown eyesore, Larimer changed the name of the cemetery to City Cemetery. The name change did nothing to attract the influential citizens that Larimer had wanted. Larimer then sold the land to John Walley who did nothing to improve the conditions. Cattle were allowed to graze on the graves and headstone were often toppled over and left in overgrown weeds and grass.

When large homes began being built next to the cemetery the city felt pressure to improve the look and feel of the area. The city “discovered” that the land was part of a treaty signed by the Arapaho Indians in 1860. This made the land property of the US Government who then sold it to the city of Denver for $200.

Over time City Cemetery was sectioned off for various groups. These groups included the Jewish, Roman Catholics, Chinese, the Odd Fellow Society, Masons, the Grand Army of the Republic, and a few others. In 1881 an hospital was established for the victims suffering from small pox. The hospital was located just south of the Jewish section of the cemetery. Behind the hospital was the Potters field section where the dead from the hospital were often buried in mass graves.

In the late 1880′s the cemetery was seldom used and had become even more of an eyesore. The homes being built near the cemetery were going up fast, and it had become a very wealthy and influential neighborhood. Developers began to lobby for a park to be built in place of the cemetery. Senator Teller then persuaded Congress to allow the city to grant the wish of those developers. On Jan. 25, 1890 Congress authorized the city to vacate the cemetery and promptly named the soon-to-be park, Congress Park.

Families of the interred were given 90 days to remove their loved ones and have them buried elsewhere and those who could afford it did so. The large Roman Catholic section was sold to the Arch Diocese and named Mt. Cavalry Cemetery; the only portion that continued to exist as a cemetery. The Chinese section was given to the large population of Chinese in the area and many bodies were removed and sent back to China for final burial. As most of the dead that remained were poor, vagrant, and criminals, no family members where around, or willing to remove the bodies. The city had to do something.

They contracted E.P. McGovern to remove the rest of the remains. The work began on March 14, 1893. The work began orderly and with respect. McGovern was to provide a new coffin for each body and transport it to the Riverside Cemetery for final burial. However McGovern, hoping to up his profit, decided that the new caskets were too expensive and instead went with child sized caskets, just 1 by 3 feet. He dismembered the bodies and stuffed as many as possible into the tiny caskets. According to onlookers, body parts and bones were literally thrown about on the ground. Looters began stealing from the open graves and exposed bodies.

On March 19, 1893 the headline of the “Denver Republican” read, “The Work of Ghouls!” The story described the goings on at the cemetery and an excerpt read, “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 footsteps of gravediggers like rejected junk.”

The city promptly terminated the contract with McGovern and built a temporary fence around the cemetery. Graves stood open, holes left unfilled, bodies still exposed, and many graves had not been moved yet. The city never hired anyone else to finish the gruesome job.

In 1894 construction began on the new park. The open holes from graves became planting holes for tree’s and shrubs. The park was completed in 1907. In 1909 Mrs. Cheesman donated a marble pavilion in memory of her husband Walter Cheesman. Part of the park was named Cheesman because of this. The pavilion still stands.

All that was left of the cemetery 1950 Image thanks to Denver Public Library

In 1950 Mt. Cavalry Cemetery was sold to the city and the bodies moved to a new cemetery called Mt. Olivet. The land from Mt. Cavalry is now home to the Denver Botanic Gardens (also said to be haunted). It was estimated that around 8,300 bodies were moved, but it appears that the Church missed some. In 2008, while doing construction for a new parking garage for the Botanic Gardens, workers unearthed human remains. The coroner was called in and discovered that there were multiple sets of bones. How many bodies still remain undiscovered from the Catholic section is unknown.

It has been estimated that somewhere between 2000-5000 bodies still remain buried under the park.

Mommy D