Denver has some nice big parks. City park is where my goose friends live and cormorant island lurks. It also borders the zoo so you can get an occasional glimpse of non-native beasts. As we’re walking I’m always imagining escape and evade options in the event the sirens go off at the zoo indicating a wild animal has busted out of the joint.
Cheesman Park is a an 81 acre park we stumbled upon while off on a craft beer trek. Standing near the outdoor pavilion and scanning the area any weekend and you’ll see picnickers, volleyball games, pups, walkers and joggers. Look down and imagine six feet under and a darker image is revealed.
In 1858, Mount Prospect Cemetery was the first use of the land. The business model was to have the well-to-do buried on the high ground. The middle class would be ringed around next and down near the base would be the poor, those who died by disease or the hangman’s noose dangling from a cottonwood near the south end of the park.
Turns out there were not enough well-to-do or middle class to make a financial go of it and most of those buried there (estimated at 5,000) were loss leaders. There was a section for smallpox victims (glad the soil is not frozen here year round or I could paint a scary scenario). Most of the buried residents were executed prisoners and the poor.
In 1890 Congress voted to allow the City of Denver to change the land use to park. Three years later the job of moving 5,000 graves was given to what I am guessing was the low bidder. The contractor was paid by the box, and was required to provide a “new box” for each grave site. I’m guessing finding good help was problematic as well as maintaining moral by the time the second or third rainstorm pelted the folks doing the dirty work.
Apparently the digging up and putting into boxes became spectator sport and large crowds would watch the goings on. Corpses came up in various stages of decomposition and a rotten job went to a whole new level. The contractor (dubious moral standards) hit on a scheme to make this miserable task pay well.
Adult boxes are big, hard to manage. He quit ordering adult-sized and went to child sized. You might think, “I’ll never fit this adult cadaver in this child box,” but you’re not getting creative. Dismembering the adults meant they’d fit. Dividing up the adult corpse and divvying up the pieces into several child boxes just increased profits tremendously.
At some point this debacle was given a cease and desist order, left over pieces lying about cleaned up, holes filled in and ta-da, a new park was born. Best estimates are that there are still 2,000 bodies residing underneath those families enjoying the sun every weekend.
Recent irrigation work uncovered 4 skeletons. I wonder if they have people that go around with cans of spray paint to mark bodies like they do with electric lines, gas lines and water lines?
I’m not sure if there are restless spirits wandering the grounds at night but I wouldn’t blame them one bit.
Yeesh! Dismemberment for fun and profit. That spray paint idea might make for a cool public mural and a statement against disregard of and for humanity.