Denver’s five most haunted spots for Halloween

The Stanley Hotel gets most of Colorado’s ghost attention, but you don’t have to drive to Estes Park for a scare. Denver has plenty of legends of its own, from hotel bars to a city park with an unsettling past. Just in time for Halloween on Saturday, here are five spots locals swear are haunted, with a few laughs along the way.

1. Cheesman Park.

During the day, it’s frisbees and picnics. Underneath, it’s a different story. The park used to be a city cemetery, and when the graves were moved in the 1890s, the job was badly bungled and never finished. That means bodies are still buried under the grass. The nearby Denver Botanic Gardens sits on the old cemetery land too. Legends include a Woman in White searching the paths for her lost resting place and a ghost nicknamed “Slackjaw” who reportedly asks visitors for a cigarette before vanishing.

2. Molly Brown House Museum.

She survived the Titanic, so it makes sense that the Unsinkable Molly Brown’s Capitol Hill home is said to have some staying power. Visitors and staff report cold spots, chairs that move on their own and the smell of pipe smoke, said to belong to her husband J.J. He reportedly wasn’t allowed to smoke in the house, and apparently he’s making up for lost time. There’s also a phantom cat that darts through the rooms, which may be the most relatable haunting in Denver.

3. The Brown Palace Hotel.

Denver’s grand hotel has hosted presidents, celebrities and, according to legend, a few guests who never checked out. People have reported phantom footsteps, mysterious lights and figures drifting through the triangular atrium. The ghost stories even include a phantom string quartet, so the afterlife at the Brown Palace apparently comes with live music.

4. Croke-Patterson Mansion.

This castle-like 1890s mansion on Capitol Hill is now the Patterson Inn, a boutique hotel with a bar called 12 Spirits Tavern. Guests who stay in the Prague Room have reported a man sitting in a chair watching them, or walking across the room. One innkeeper said she stepped away from a bed she was making and came back to find a dent in the pillow, as if someone had lain down for a nap.

5. The Tivoli at Auraria.

This old brewery building dates back to the 1860s and is now the student union for the Auraria campus. People report whispers and voices around the building, and some say the sound of an elegant party drifts through the vents on the third floor. It may be the only ghost story where the ghosts are having more fun than the college students.

Want to see them for yourself? Several Denver companies run ghost tours through Capitol Hill and downtown in October, and the Molly Brown House offers its own Halloween ghost tours. Bring a flashlight and a friend. Most important, bring someone slower than you.