What's the most haunted place in Denver? Well, it just might be Cheesman Park. Yes, the lovely tree-lined Cheesman Park with the pavilion, Rocky Mountain views and the idyllic neighbor, Denver Botanic Gardens. That’s because Cheesman Park has something else besides lush lawns, trees and bike paths. It has several thousand bodies buried under it.
Denver's First Cemetery
Cheesman Park was Denver’s first cemetery, laid out by town founder William Larimer in 1858. As befitting the Gold Rush boomtown that Denver was back then, the first occupants were gambler Jack O’Neal and the man who murdered him, John Stoefel.
Ah, but it gets much worse. When more than 100,000 people descended on Denver during the Gold Rush in the city’s first two years, the graveyard, then known as “Jack O’Neal’s Ranch,” began to fill up with deaths by typhoid, shootings, hangings and other associated Gold Rush diseases.
By 1890, the city had grown and it was decided to move the graveyard from downtown and make it a park, named after early Denver pioneer Walter Cheesman. There was just one problem. What to do with the 5,000-plus bodies buried there? Citizens were given several years to remove the remains of loved ones, but most of the people buried here were vagrants, criminals and paupers, and no one claimed them. So in 1893, the city of Denver awarded a contract to undertaker E.P. McGovern to remove the other bodies, at a cost of $1.90 each. And that's when the real trouble started.
'The Ghoul' of Cheesman Park
McGovern was not only a crook but a ghoul. He figured out that if he hacked the bodies up into smaller pieces and reburied them in child-size coffins, he could make three times the money for every legitimate body he found. In his haste, and not wanting to be discovered, he left body parts and bones strewn everywhere. They were still finding human bones in the 1960s when work was done on the park.
The "Denver Republican" newspaper ran a story on March 19, 1893, with a headline that read, "The Work of Ghouls!" It captured all the gory details.
"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," the story said.
In any case, locals don't let that take away from their experiences at the gorgeous park. You'll see lots of people having picnics, relaxing on the lawn, taking prom and wedding photos, and doing yoga at the pavilion.