Part Two - Places to be seen in Denver when you are Dead! - DenverAztec

[denveraztec]

This is the second of two threads of photos I shot dedicated to Halloween and the places that the dead rest and where some of still roam. Link to first thread – http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=139610
Some of the stories that I was able to research are below and some of the Denver homes and buildings just look like a fit with the others. Cemeteries pictured are Crown Hill, Mount Olivet and Riverside. Though it was summer when I shot the photos in Riverside, the cemetery is in such disrepair that all the grass and trees are dead and many of the statues are missing limbs. I did add the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, north of Denver and instead of music or videos, my favorite seasonal poem.



The Erl-King

Who rides there so late through the night dark and drear? The father it is, with his infant so dear;He holdeth the boy tightly clasp'd in his arm, He holdeth him safely, he keepeth him warm.

"My son, wherefore seek'st thou thy face thus to hide?" "Look, father, the Erl-King is close by our side! Dost see not the Erl-King, with crown and with train?" "My son, 'tis the mist rising over the plain"

"Oh, come, thou dear infant! oh come thou with me! Full many a game I will play there with thee; On my strand, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold, My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold."

"My father, my father, and dost thou not hear, the words that the Erl-King now breathes in mine ear?" "Be calm, dearest child, 'tis thy fancy deceives; 'Tis the sad wind that sighs through the withering leaves."

"Wilt go, then, dear infant, wilt go with me there? My daughters shall tend thee with sisterly care. My daughters by night their glad festival keep, They'll dance thee, and rock thee, and sing thee to sleep."

"My father, my father, and dost thou not see, How the Erl-King his daughters has brought here for me?" "My darling, my darling, I see it aright, 'Tis the aged grey willows deceiving thy sight."

"I love thee, I'm charm'd by thy beauty, dear boy! And if thou'rt unwilling, then force I'll employ."

"My father, my father, he seizes me fast, Full sorely the Erl-King has hurt me at last."

The father now gallops, with terror half wild, He grasps in his arms the poor shuddering child; He reaches his courtyard with toil and with dread, The child in his arms finds he motionless, dead.

-- Johann Wolfgang van Goethe



The Riverside Cemetery, Denver’s Pioneer cemetery, was founded in 1876 and is listed as a National Historic District. Sadly, the current conditions of the cemetery are poor as there are few if any families burying their deceased there. Even though I shot my photos here in the summer, it looks like fall or a dry winter as the grass is dead and basically dirt and the trees are leafless. It is evident that the headstones and monuments were grand when first erected, but are now in ruin. Fairmount cemetery recently began managing the cemetery, but none of the items can be moved without crumbling due to age and pollution sediment in the stone. The well to do actually tried to prove their worth in life by having incredible headstones and even small grandiose structures created in advance of their death. While the poor simply were marked with wood crosses and small boulders or mini wire arch ways.







The Brown Palace Hotel , built in 1892 by architect Frank Edbrooke. Exterior is made of red granite and sandstone. Interior has a stained glass ceiling that admits natural light to the eight story atrium. It is connected to the series of cold tunnels from the state capitol. This building is plagued by the incessant sound of someone coughing. It is also frequented my the same ghost that haunts the capital. Many of the 'sightings' have been by current and former employees of Denver's grand dame. Take the musicians who used to play in Ellyngton's restaurant. They come back from time-to-time to play a few tunes according to the houseman who heard sounds in the restaurant and confronted the trio in the wee hours of the morning. After he told them they couldn't play there, they told him not to worry. "We live here." Recent sightings by hotel employees have also involved a spirit in uniform. He has been seen outside the Brown Palace Club dressed in his conductor's uniform. The hotel originally housed the ticket office for the Rock Island Railroad, so it seems plausible that a mortal conductor might have once walked these halls. When sighted, this spirit merely disappears through the wall. Numerous ghost encounters have occurred with a large number of variations of the spirits, but all are dress in work uniforms or are head with sounds of laughter and joy. Though only two individuals have been shot in a gun fight, nobody has actually died in the hotel. This triangular-shaped, architectural gem, is so luxurious you'll wish you could spend an eternity here. As it happens, some of its guests are doing just that.



Pale golden onyx from Mexico was used for the pillars and wainscoting. More than 700 ornate grillwork panels line the atrium from the third to the seventh floor.











The Navarre Building, 1891, once a brothel, which some say was linked to the Brown through underground tunnels.



Featuring the historic Denver landmark, the Tower of Memories Mausoleum(1921), Olinger Crown Hill Mortuary has been serving families since 1890.















Denver’s Capitol Hill



Thompson-Henry house, 1070 Humboldt Street, Denver, Built in 1905 for $25,000, Georgian Revival style













Cheesman Park in Denver’s Capitol Hill
The movie Poltergeist was based on the history of Cheesman Park. Originally obtained via an Indian treaty, the grounds were a cemetery for the city from 1858 until 1907. It was called Mount Prospect and was used by wealthy as well as poor until the grounds fell into disregard. Affluent families started burying their dead at the new Riverside and Mount Prospect was left for the criminals, paupers, transients and other unclaimed bodies. With new homes and buildings being built nearby and the Jewish and Catholic churches moving their dead to other cemeteries, the city government had to do something. They announced that all interested parties had 90 days to move the remaining dead elsewhere. The Catholic Churches portion was turned into Denver's Botanical Gardens and the Jewish section is now Congress Park. Most were reburied but 5,000 were left unclaimed. Due to a crooked undertaker, who was paid $1.90 per relocated body, only 1/3 of the bodies were moved and the rest remain in the park today. People who lived nearby reported seeing spectral manifestations in their homes and confused spirits knocking on their doors and windows at night. Low moaning sounds could be heard over the field of open graves... a sound that can still sometimes be heard today.
Confused ghosts still wander the grounds. Misty figures and strange shadows are still occasionally seen there. Possibly they will always remain there, searching for peace.







910 Gaylord Street, Capitol Hill, Beaux Arts Style, built in 1922 for $30,000.











817 Race Street, Denver’s Capitol Hill, Built in 1924 for $28,000, Italian Renaissance in Style



800 Race Street, Built in 1920 for $40,000, Mediterranean Revival in Style









Back to Riverside











The Denver Stock Yard Company, 1911, currently vacant and for lease.



Denver Country Club (single family homes)









Tower of Memories Mausoleum















Beer production proved incredible profitable as the phrase “fresh Rocky Mountain spring water” was very marketable across the country. Established families like the Tivoli brew masters, Adolph Coors, Zang opened breweries here in the mid 1800s. Currently, with Adolph Coors and the Budweiser breweries headquartered here, Colorado remains the leading producer of beer in the country.





Denver - Tivoli Student Union - Houses the student union for the Auraria Campus combining Community College of Denver, Metropolitan State College and University of Colorado at Denver. Built in 1866 as the original Tivoli Brewery. Large brewing equipment still remains. Converted to student union in 1994. Ever since, voices are often heard through vents on the third floor as though an elegant party is going on, whispers in the bathrooms.





Outdoor Chapel at Mount Olivet











Downtown Denver





The Burlington Hotel





Prepared to be demolish very soon. City owned building that could not be saved due to the crumbling sandstone.



Oxford Hotel, Designed by architect Frank E. Edbrooke in 1891 and restored in 1983. The hotel was rated “One of the 50 Best Hotels in the World” by Hemispheres Magazine. One alleged paranormal sighting comes from a hotel worker who cleans the downstairs ladies bathroom late at night and has found pennies on the floor. Supposedly, the pennies mysteriously fall from the ceiling in that bathroom. Another comes from a caterer who was setting up for a ballroom banquet. The caterer walked by the ballroom and saw 4 men playing cards and smoking cigars. He backed up to have another look... and they were gone. Up on the third floor of the Oxford, there have been sightings of a woman in a white dress and reports of voices arguing in a hotel room. Years ago, the room was the scene of a murder involving a jealous husband and his wife.















Splitting Headache



GROSVENOR ARMS APARTMENTS, 1931, It anchors the corner of East 16th Avenue and Logan Street like a great battleship, its bricks and stones built for heavy service, still seaworthy after nearly 75 years. Boilers churning, brass-gated elevators rising and falling, the building harbors its secrets and gathers fresh ones each time a new tenant moves in. With its deep flagstone courtyard, medieval gray stone walls and winged serpents guarding the Gothic front door, coming here is like stepping into the past. Janice Eldridge, who was resident manager at The Grosvenor for several years, twice saw a tall, broad-shouldered man dressed in a dark suit and fedora in one of the large mirrors that flank the lobby. He was looking at her. "I said 'hello,"' she says. Eldridge also has seen a young woman in the hallway outside the eighth-floor laundry. "She had a very long skirt that would swish. Very elegant. I was never scared. I never felt a menacing feeling. I always felt like they were protecting us. When your arms are full of laundry, she'll push the elevator button for you".



Looks like the Ammityville Horror house in a white paint disguise.























Verner Z. Reed 1863-1919, a Chicago newspaperman, moved to Colorado, settling in Colorado Springs during the Cripple Creek Gold Rush of 1891. The memorial and crypt were transported to Mount Olivet from Italy in 1923 at a total cost of $250,000. The monument is built of white marble, delicate carvings and ornate sculpture. It is adorned with statues and stained glass. Mr. Reeds wealth at the time of his death was twenty million dollars. Mount Olivet cemetery.





























North Denver





North Denver - Lumber Baron Inn – The house was built by lumber baron John Mouat in 1890, thus the name of the bed and breakfast. In the 1970's this house was converted into apartments. A young run away girl, 17 years old, who lived in one apartment was raped and murdered here. A friend of hers stumbled upon the murder and was also killed. The Valentine Room was where the bodies of Cara Knoche and Marianne Weaver were found. Her killer had positioned her body on Knoche's bed with arms crossed over her chest, vampire-style. Looking closer, the witness spotted another arm sticking out from under the bed. Knoche had been stripped, strangled and packed away like an empty suitcase. Police never uncovered a murder weapon or a motive. "You just don't forget something like that, the way those girls were murdered," said one of the detectives. "There's always been a mystique surrounding that house." "The girl (Knoche) was a runaway who had a lot of guests in and out of her apartment," Chandler says. "But Marianne's death was unexpected. She was in college. When you pose somebody the way she was laid out, it means 'I didn't mean to kill you, you just happened to witness this and I can't have a witness," she says.

































Helen Bonfils Memorial Monastery











Which one of these things is not like the others?



Not sure that this is the “Cher” we all know! Haven’t seen her in awhile?





Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado - Infamously made know by Stephen King’s novel “The Shinning”. Construction began in 1906 on land Stanley brought from Lord Dunraven, the hotel opened in 1909 and originally consisted of 11 buildings, the owner Stanley and his wife Flora had their home built nearby. They also had a hydroelectric plant built so that their hotel could be all electric. The Stanley hotel is known to have had many celebrity visitors; one was Stephen King who was known to have written part of The Shining in room 217. The ghosts said to roam here are Mrs. Stanley, mainly in the music room where you may hear the piano play, Mr. Stanley in his favorite billiard room and on the fourth floor the sound of children playing in the halls is common place.





Fourth Earl of Dunraven







Riverside






















Byers-Evans House Museum, built in 1883 by William N. Byers, the first publisher of the Rocky Mountain News. Later sold to William Evans, son of Colorado’s second Territorial Governor, John Evans.









The only underground mausoleum at Riverside belongs to the Evans family (think 0Mount Evans, the first 14000 mountain peak that can be reached from Denver). Martha Evans was the first of seven in her family to eventually become entombed here. Her home and painted pictures are above, below is her families mausoleum entrance and exposed stairwell.







Almost 1000 American Civil War veterans found their final resting place at Riverside.









Highlands Masonic Center is home to one of the fraternities of the local Masons. Designed in 1926 by Merrill Hoyt in the Neoclassical revival style, has as its entrance two massive columns, terra cotta trim, mouldings and iron grilles. This past weekend it held The Sixteenth Annual Samhain “Witches’ Ball” for DAWN - Denver Area Wiccan Network.











Moon Over City Park









Excerpts from

The Raven

by Edgar Allan Poe
(1845)

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door-
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;-
This it is, and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you"- here I opened wide the door;-
Darkness there, and nothing more.


Happy Halloween!