Cheesman Park in Denver, Colorado, at first glance, may seem like an oasis of peace and quiet. Magnificent lawns and majestic trees look like a quiet marina among the busy streets of the city. Nevertheless, according to many, this is the place where the real horror dwells.
The history began when the park began to be built on the site of the rudely destroyed and desecrated old city cemetery. This happened during a rather dark period in Denver's history. And it would be okay if the authorities quietly built several buildings on the site of the old burial sites. This often happens in urban areas.
But no, this episode was accompanied by a scandal that undermined the city government from within, insulted the public and filled newspapers with incredible stories.
In 1858, a man named William Larimer mortgaged 320 acres of land to be used as a cemetery in the new, growing city of Denver, Colorado. He named the cemetery Mount Prospect. The best plots on the hill were reserved for the wealthy and powerful in the city. Beggars and criminals were to be buried on the outskirts of the cemetery, and ordinary people in the middle.
However, the plans related to the construction of a dean and respectable cemetery were scattered to dust from the very beginning. The first funeral on it turned out to be associated with a bloody crime. Hungarian immigrant John Steufel came to Denver to settle a dispute with his brother-in-law and ended up killing him.
After a short investigation, he was extradited to the crowd and eventually hanged from a poplar. The bodies of John Steufel and his brother-in-law were brought to Mount Prospect Cemetery and without further ado, were simply dumped in one grave.
Later, victims of accidents and those killed also continued to be buried in the outskirts of the cemetery without proper funeral services and ceremonies, and then many people began to call it the Bone Dump or Heel (for the configuration of the site). The cemetery was rapidly losing its image of respected and respectable, as its founder, William Larimer, dreamed of.
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In the late 19th century, Denver began to flourish. It made huge fortunes in mining, silver mining and real estate. Embarrassed by the obscene reputation of the local cemetery (and such a common name as Kabluk), the city fathers in 1873 decided to rename it to "City". However, the new name did not change the fact that the cemetery itself gradually became a thorn in the eye of respected people.
The lack of proper care of the territory led to the fact that nature began to return to its original state, many tombstones fell, wild dogs hid between the burial hills, and cattle were allowed to roam among the graves.
Seeing all this, wealthy families began to bury their relatives in two other new cemeteries, and "City" was left to the beggars, criminals, unclaimed bodies, victims of smallpox and typhus. Ownership of the cemetery passed from William Larimer to cabinetmaker John Valley, who made little effort to rectify the situation.
As a result, residents of mansions and rich houses built near the cemetery began to put pressure on the city government, demanding something to be done about all this disgrace. And the city authorities found justice for the owner of the cemetery. Suddenly it was discovered that the cemetery (it turns out!) Is on land that was part of the land, by agreement, belonged to the Indians in the days before 1860.
So legal casuistry helped in the expropriation of the cemetery in 1890 from its owner in favor of the United States, which sold 320 acres of land for a symbolic sum of $ 200 to the city of Denver.
The inheritance to the city is ambiguous. The cemetery was divided into three sections by John Walley. During this time, the urban part seriously dilapidated and fell into disrepair, but the Catholic and Jewish sections continued to be well supported. Soon after the city took over the land, the Jewish churches removed their deceased from the cemetery and leased the land to the city's water department.
The Catholic Church bought its own site and kept it in excellent condition until 1950. In 1951, the city authorities demanded to clear the plot of land previously allocated for the city cemetery. They were given 90 days for reburial.
Some graves were indeed opened and the remains were reburied by family members, but more than 5,000 graves were forgotten and remained unclaimed. In the spring, preparations began for the reburial of these bodies. The mayor of Denver, Platt Rogers, feared an infection that might arise when the graves were opened and was out of town.
To carry out the entire operation was chosen, as it turned out later, an unscrupulous businessman, a certain I. F. It was agreed that each body would be removed from the ground, placed in a new coffin and moved to a new, Coastal Cemetery. True, the coffin should be only 3.5 feet long and 1 foot wide.
Upon the arrival of the coffins at the new cemetery, McGovern was to receive payment of $ 1.90 per coffin. In March, the workers he had hired got down to business. Curious reporters also came to the cemetery to see how everything would go.
At first the work was carried out neatly and decently, but very soon the workers began to treat everything less conscientiously. At this time, according to the urban legend, an old woman appeared at the cemetery, who began to explain that a prayer should be read over each dug body, otherwise the dead would return.
Needless to say, the workers only laughed at her. They were in a hurry, and this made it possible for the amateurs to profit from the gratis to rip off the locks and decorations from the coffins torn from the ground.
Bodies that did not disintegrate into small enough fragments were roughly pulled out of the old coffins and, in order to place in small coffin boxes, they were broken and shoved into new ones somehow. Later, absolutely everyone who participated in this atrocity said that they felt fear and the presence of the unknown.
A worker named Jim Astor claimed to have felt the ghostly land on his shoulders. He was so scared that he threw down into the ransacked grave a couple of nameplates torn from old coffins that he wanted to keep as souvenirs, and did not return to the site the next day.
People living in nearby homes almost immediately began reporting ghostly manifestations in and around their homes. Someone knocked on doors and windows during the night. In the dark, low moaning sounds were heard from the area of open graves (they can sometimes be heard today). By the time Mayor Rogers returned to town, local newspapers were full of front-page stories of cemetery atrocities and city government corruption.
The stories revealed inconsistencies between the actual number of burials and the actual number of coffin boxes delivered to the Coastal Cemetery. The newspapers wrote:
“The line of desecrated graves in the southern parts of the cemetery is disgusting and horrifying to everyone with the look they represent. Broken coffins, tattered shrouds and fragments of clothing torn from corpses are piled around the edges of the dug graves … All this is trampled in the ground by the feet of the gravediggers as unnecessary junk."
The situation quickly escalated into a scandal, in which, moreover, the city sanitary station intervened, suspending work at the cemetery. An investigation began, as a result of which the mayor of Denver Rogers was forced to resign, while some of the remains were still in the cemetery, and some graves were opened.
In order not to disturb the townspeople, the cemetery was surrounded by a fence. There were still holes in the ground, a new contract for reburial was never drawn up, and ultimately the remaining bodies were completely forgotten, and they are still under the foundations of the park and gardens. According to conservative estimates, about two thousand bodies remained in the ground …
By 1902, the construction of the city park began, planting bushes right on the graves that had been piled high. In 1907, the work to turn the cemetery into a park was completed, and so came Cheeseman Park, named after one of the founders of Denver. Two years later, the famous marble pavilion was built and opened in his honor, which is present in every photo of Cheeseman Park.
In 1950, the Catholic Church sold its adjoining cemetery, carefully reburying all the deceased. This piece of land soon became the Denver Botanical Gardens. The Jewish section of the cemetery has been converted into Congress Park.
Despite the measures taken to improve the territory, the ghosts, disturbed more than a century ago, are actively present in the park, as evidenced by numerous stories of visitors. People who come to the park to rest and relax (and do not know its history) talk about the painful feelings, longing, and mortal fear that they feel there.
In 2010, during irrigation work on the territory of Cheeseman Park, four skeletons were found left from old burials. The remains were collected and reburied in another cemetery
Others report that at dusk in the alleys of the park, they see foggy silhouettes, strange shadows and hear frightening groans and whispers. At night on the alleys you can see children playing in the park, who then disappear without a trace. They also talk about a strange woman who walks through the alleys of the park, humming something in a low voice. She suddenly appears and suddenly disappears.
There are many reports of people reclining on the grass to rest, having difficulty getting up, as if invisible forces were holding them back. On moonlit nights, the outlines of old graves are visible on the ground. Cheeseman Park is a place where people try not to stay at dusk.
