Say Cheese

Let’s take a stroll through a park here in Colorado called Cheesman Park. It’s the middle of Spring and there are different spots in the grass that are lighter than the rest of it. These spots are in the shape of a rectangle. The shape of possibly a grave?

~*Pavilion at Cheesman Park*~

 

When someone is walking, running or having a picnic, they may just be possibly having a picnic on someone’s grave.

 ~*Some of the headstones and graves left after the first guy was hired*~

Prospect Hill Cemetery opened in 1858 and the first burial was a year after that. Then, in 1873 the name changed from Prospect Hill Cemetery to Denver City Cemetery. By the late 1880s the cemetery looked like crap, no one took care of it and it was in great despair, so a Colorado Senator persuaded the U.S. Congress to allow the graveyard to be turned into a park. Congress authorized Denver to turn the cemetery into Congress Park.

90 days were given to the family to remove their loved ones to a different location. Those who had the money removed their family members right away, but this cemetery was mostly filled with criminals, vagrants and the working class poor, to which their bodies were not removed.  These bodies remained unclaimed and were to be moved at the expense of Denver. An undertaker was hired to put all the rest of the bodies into fresh boxes and move them into another cemetery. Needless to say this didn’t happen completely. The guy was just hacking up the bodies and putting them into children sized coffins, when it was found out what he was doing, the contract was terminated.

~*picture was about 1950*~

After the contract was terminated, there was not another put into place, and the bodies were just mulched and leveled to make way for the park. Shrubs were planted in many of the open graves. Today there is still an estimated 2,000 bodies that remain in Cheesman Park. So needless to say, there are a lot of ghost stories that reside about this place. I have visited this place many of times, but the only thing I noticed were the slightly lighter rectangle shaped grass.

It is not wise to go to Cheesman Park alone in the dark. Not because someone will grab you from beyond the grave, but because it is filled with those who are up to no good, drug dealers, prostitutes and vandals.

 ~*Cheesman Park Pavilion at night*~

Just remember though, if you do happen to visit Cheesman Park in the day time for a walk, run or a family picnic, that rock that you tripped on may not be a rock and  the bone that Sparky is chewing on, is more than likely not a chicken bone.

 ~*Theyyyyyyyyyyyyyy’re Heeeeeeeeeeere*~