Cheesman Park
Cemetery & Park

In 1859 the area now known as Cheesman Park was given to the people of Denver for use as a cemetery by an act of Congress (this location was located on an old Arapaho Indian burial ground)  Will Larimer, who founded and laid out the first streets in Denver, named the place Mt. Prospect.

The first person buried in the cemetery was possibly Mr. John Stoefel who was hanged on a Cottonwood tree at the intersection of 10th and Cherry Creek. He was executed for killing his brother in law. another famous burial was on March 30 1859. It was  Mr. Jack O'Neill, he was ggunned down at a local Saloon a man by the name of "Rooker" because of a previous argument. The rocky Mountain News printed the story and because of the story the park became known as "Jack O'Neils ranch"

Over time different areas were designated for a variety of purposes. There was a burial place for the Grand Army of the Republic, the Odd Fellows, Society, Masons, Chinese and of course Potters field. It is the poor inhabitants of Potters field that is of most interest. The Potters field section was just behind a "hospital" that was commonly referred to as the "Pest house" this was that place that victims of small pox were quaranined & sick, elderly and invalids went to die. The building had a mass grave for the people who died at the location and it is in the approximate area of the community garden at the current Botanic Gardens.
 
The Roman Catholic section of the cemetery is now the area known as the Botanic gardens/Congress park.  Mayor Bates sold 40 acres of land to the archdiocese, Father Machebeuf of the Roman Catholic church managed the purchase. The section was named Mount Calvary Cemetery and was eventually sold back to the city. 

The Jewish section was known as the "Hebrew Burying and Prayer Ground" was purchased by the Hebrew Burial Society in 1875. The bodies from this section were removed in 1923, then it was leased back to the city "forever" and has been the location of a reservoir up to this time.

The Chinese section of the cemetery was given to a large population of Chinese who lived in the "Hop Alley" section of Denver. When the bodies were removed from this section  it was used as a shrub nursery until 1930. Then it was annexed into being part of Congress park.

The present day Cheesman park was mostly the Protestant portion of the cemetery.
 

While all of this was taking place, the ownership of the land changed to John J Walley (A cabinet maker). He did not do anything to help the condition of the property. Meanwhile the public was attempting to shut down the cemetery because the area was not the beautiful garden/cemetery that the city wanted.    It was discovered that the property was part of a land treaty that predated 1860, so the current owner had no legal right to the property. The U.S. sold the land to the city of Denver and Mayor Bates had the city pay a total of $200.00.

  

By another Act of Congress dated January 25th, 1890 the city was authorized to vacate this parcel of property known as Mt. Prospect Cemetery from a place of burial to a public park. In recognition of Congress doing this for the city, Senator Teller changed the parks name to Congress park. It was the responsibility of the living relatives to relocate the bodies of these dearly departed. However those interned at Potters field generally had no family or during the course of their lives participated in activities that guaranteed that none of the living would claim them as relatives. The city contracted undertaker E. P. McGovern to remove these bodies at a cost of $1.90 each and for them to be transported to Riverside Cemetery. This gruesome work began on March 14, 1893.

 Mr. McGovern was using  caskets that were 1 foot wide by 3 1/2 feet long (Children's caskets). This was the only size casket available because of a Mining accident in Utah that had caused a shortage of Adult caskets. Because of this he  could not fit one body into a single casket, so he broke up most of the bodies to fit into the small caskets. This was a good deal for Mr. McGovern because he was being paid by the body moved. However there were discrepancies in the record keeping because of this and the records themselves being in such disorder. The health commissioner an investigation into the matter done and it was one of the final decisions to halt the removal of the bodies and seal the land.

 On March 19, 1893 the Denver Republican headline proclaimed "The Work of Ghouls". The article revealed that workman in charge of removing the bodies were breaking them into fragments and distributing the remains into "two and sometimes three of the boxes in which they are conveyed to the new burial site." The boxes provided by the undertaker were three feet six inches long. Due to the dry soil many of the bodies exhumed were rather well preserved. It must have been a gruesome site to witness intact remains being shattered and stuffed into these undersized boxes. The newsman described the scene; "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."

This horrible site was augmented by the exhumations of the Chinese graves. Work on these graves was funded and carried out by the local Chinese community. These were not professional undertakers. Bodies were removed from the ground, the bones were cleaned and wrapped for shipment to China. The fresher bodies were stripped of their tattered clothing and the decaying flesh scrapped from the bones.
 

As the Chinese bundled the bones for shipment to China for a proper burial in their native country, the unfortunate former tenants of potters field were not to be treated with the same respect. These poor souls were shipped to Riverside Cemetery. The plot of land purchased by the city for the reinternment was a plot of land located down by the Platte River. This was bottom land over the hill from the main cemetery known at that time as Poverty Flat. The March 20, 1893 article from the Denver Republican stated It (the new burial site) was not fit for anything. When the Platte is flooded the whole place is under water.  This was later denied by the caretaker of the cemetery. They now state that the bodies were buried in a field to the south side of the land and that they still remain there today.

This is the area that the newspaper claimed the bodies were buried in Riverside Cemetery

This caused quite a controversy at the time. Mayor Rogers ordered all removal stopped. The city built a temporary wood fence around the park and it remained incomplete until 1902. Finally shrubs were planted and the holes filled in where coffins were removed and those that remained had collapsed. In her article Cemetery to conservatory, Louisa Ward Arps stated that this is a problem that still occasionally occurs. When the city was installing an automatic sprinkler system, bones and artifacts were unearthed.

In 1898 the architect and Civil Engineer, Reinhard Scheutze completed the plan for the layout of what is now Cheesman park. However he died before the park was completed. The final parts of the plan were added by S.R. DeBoer after Mr. Scheutzes' death.

The Catholic church kept their section of the land in great condition until 1950 when it was finally used as part of the park.

In 1907 the work was finished and the new park was opened. It was named in honor of Walter S. Cheesman (one of Denver's leaders)

In 1909 Gladys Cheesman-Evans, and her mother Mrs. Walter S Cheesman Donated the pavilion in memory of Mr. Cheesman ( A Denver Pioneer and Water Tycoon ). The Donation was dependent on the condition that the park be named after Mr. Cheesman, so the west section was named Cheesman Park.

the Catholic church removed the bodies that they had remaining in their section and sold the land that is now the Botanical Gardens/Congress park.

I t is rumored that somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000 bodies still remain on the property to this day.

During the 1980's the Botanic Gardens was given a home on the property to use as their main office. This home is on the South East corner of the property.
It was discovered that the foundation of the house ws shifting so they called in an engineering firm to see what could be done to stabilize the building. When the company came in and took core samples of the support dirt under the foundation they discovered that they had found a casket about 12 feet below in what appeared to be a vertical position. They decided that this was probably due to the bentonite in the area. A very porous clay.  the slightest bit of water and it can make things glide around.

If ever a story existed that would excite paranormal activity this is surely at the top of the list. It has been reported that if one goes to the park on certain moonlit nights that all the grave outlines can be identified. Some people have claimed that while reclining on the lawn they have found it very difficult to get up, as if some unseen forces are restraining them.

Update 11/2008

Human Remains Unearthed at Botanic Gardens
Bones Believed to be from first Denver Cemetary
Contruction workers dig up remains from old Denver cemetary near Botanic Gardens. 11/07/08
Friday, 07 Nov 2008, 7:29 PM MST

by Charlie Brennan
FOX 31 reporter

DENVER - At the Denver Botanic Gardens, best known as a place to celebrate the beauty of the living, it was a day to focus on the dead on Friday after construction personnel working on a three-level parking garage unearthed apparent human remains left from the site when it was once one of the city's first cemetaries.

Gardens spokesman Will Jones said because the gardens property between Congress and Cheesman parks was once the site a graveyard known as Mount Calvary, the possibility of coming upon old human remains was something that had been planned for.

"Because we're digging deep down into the ground for our new parking deck, we felt it would be prudent to contact the coroner before any work was done, to ask her what we should do in the highly unlikely event that we find anything," said Jones. "She told us stop immediately what we're doing," and to contact the coroner's office.

Sure enough, said Jones, "Erlier today just before lunch time, construction crews were digging. They found something that lookied like splintered wood, and ewhat may have been human remains. We weren't sure of what it was.

"But, per the coroner's edict, we stopped what we were doing and contacted her office, and she came on property."

The last burial at Mount Calvary, a portion of which had been granted to Denver for use as a park, was 1908. When Mt. Olivet Cemetery opened in Wheat Ridge in 1891, many of the Mount Calvary bodies were transferred there for re-burial. Then, in 1950, nine years before the Denver Botanic Gardens opened for the first time, most of the remaining 8,600 bodies were also moved to Mt. Olivet.

Most, but it turns out, not all.

Mixed amongst the splintered and dirt-caked remnants of aged coffins, at a depth of 4-to-5 feet, members of the Denver coroner's staff found what appeared to be the bones of more than one person, as they carefully and methodically dug with shovels and hand-trowels throughout the afternoon.

When they quit work for the day at nightfall Friday, no confirmation was given on how many sets of remains had been found. But at one point, coroner's personnel could be seen placing bones - including what appeared to be mostly intact leg and arm bones - into three separate bags.

There was no indication how much effort, if any, will go into attemtping to identify the remains that were found Friday. But Jones said they'll ultimately end up back in the ground at the same place to which all previous Mount Calvary burials were transferred.

"The coroner told us that if any remains were found, they would be removed and taken to Mt. Olivet cemetery in Wheat Ridge," Jones said. "We want to make sure that these bodies, if they are bodies, we want to make sure that any of those remains are treated with the same respect today as they were treated back then."

The new three-deck parking structure,  to be built atop where the remains were found, will provide guest parking of more than 300. It replaces a 180-space surface parking lot visitors have been using until now. The new structure was supposed to open in Spring 2009.

"Now, depending on what the coroner tells us, that could change," Jones said. "But, again, we're expecting to be complete in April 2009. But, because the coroner is working, our work on the parking deck stops. When she releases the property back to us, we'll continue work. Until then, we're letting the coroner and her people take care of these remains -- if they are remains -- making sure they're treated properly."

Jones said he was not worried about the gardens ending up with a haunted parking garage, by building atop the not-so-final resting place of some of Denver's earliest inhabitants.

"You know," said Jones, "I'm not much of one to believe in hauntings....With the care and the way we're handling things here, the sprits of these body parts -- if they are body parts -- will be very happy that we're treating them respect."

Following the discovery of the remains at the construction site we contacted the Denver Coroners office and recieved the following response;
"We have assisted in the excavation of the graves and
removal of the skeletons/bones.  Once we are sure there are no more (at
least where they are doing construction), they will be released for
burial at Mt. Olivet.  There is no report being generated per se.  We
have documented in our system that we did an "assist" for the Botanic
Gardens, there is no actual investigative report or autopsy report (our
only document that is public records, but we did no autopsy, therefore,
no report)."

The Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society, would like to hear from anyone who may have experienced or seen anything strange while at the park. Send us e-mail describing the event and any feelings you had.
 

Here are some of the submitted stories

A Cheesman Park Story

Ghosts in the Park

Botanic Gardens Spirit

"How Dare You" (Cheesman Park)